2003-06-19
- Madam Speaker Braham took the Chair at 10 am.
PETITION
Proposed Development of Units on Trower Road
Proposed Development of Units on Trower Road
Mr VATSKALIS (Casuarina)(by leave): Madam Speaker, I present a petition from 90 petitioners not conforming to standing orders, relating to a development proposal for units on Trower Road, Tiwi. I move that the petition be read.
Motion agreed to; petition read:
- We the undersigned residents are writing to let you know about our objections to a development
proposal for Block 9665 Town of Nightcliff at 404 Trower Road, Tiwi. This proposal is to build
two blocks of 24 x 2 four-storey units. The following aspects of this proposal concern us:
residents may lose their current, precious amenity of fresh air, breezes, sunshine
and a quiet neighbourhood. Other residents will now have two four-storey
buildings to block their views of sunsets and tropical skies.
loss of privacy by neighbouring properties – the developer is requesting a setback
waiver for balconies from the usual 4.5 m to 3 m on both sides of the property. The
fact that he has to ask for this waiver suggests the block is too small for the proposal.
The sight lines from third floor balconies will be straight into neighbouring properties
with subsequent loss of the amenity of privacy and quiet, currently enjoyed by neighbours.
increased traffic flow – the council has already changed the traffic conditions on Trower Road
(one lane, no parking, no U turn). This development proposal does not take this change into
account even though it wants traffic to enter the complex from Undoolya Street and exit onto
Trower Road. There is potential for 48 vehicles to be on this site, the closest street parking will
have to be on the very narrow and family-orientated Undoolya Street and Calvert Street. We
believe there simply is not the space for increased traffic flow or safe parking.
potential sewerage overload – there is a history of neighbouring residents in Tiwi having problems
with sewage backing up. We are concerned that the sewerage network is not up to having an extra
24 households connected to it.
density of the proposed development - for comparison, the neighbouring former Commonwealth units
contain 24 units on a block of land approximately five times larger. The grey ground level unit complex next door to the proposal, comprise only 12 units on an area the same size as the proposed development! We believe the proposed density is too great for the area of the site. The plan shows the buildings set on the back of the block away from busy Trower Road - which may improve amenity for
those living in them but it will reduce the amenity for the existing residents on quiet Undoolya Street
and Calvert Street by potentially contributing to noise and loss of privacy.
- We trust that as our local member and the responsible minister, you are able to give these objections
your due consideration.
OPPOSITION OFFICE HOLDERS
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader)(by leave): Madam Speaker, I wish to inform the House that the member for Greatorex has been given responsibility as shadow minister for Local Government and for Indigenous Affairs. These are additional to his present responsibilities as shadow minister for Central Australia, Regional Development, Ethnic Affairs, Housing, Corporate Information Services and Communication.
MINISTERIAL REPORTS
Trade Delegation to Brunei and Philippines
Trade Delegation to Brunei and Philippines
Mr HENDERSON (Business, Industry and Resource Development): Madam Speaker, today I provide a report on the outcomes of my recent visit to Brunei and the Philippines. In my capacity as Minister for Asian Relations and Trade, I was privileged to lead a Northern Territory trade delegation to Brunei and the Philippines in March. This visit delivered improved trade links with both countries which, in turn, will lead to the creation of greater export earnings and jobs for Territorians.
I came away further impressed by the work being done by our business people in each country, particularly during such turbulent times. I am confident that the presence of the Territory delegation during such times demonstrated our commitment to the region and improves our standing as a trading partner with these important markets.
Although my visit to Brunei was essentially a transit stop early on a Sunday morning, it allowed me time to participate in a number of important meetings. The first was with the Director of Ports for Brunei. Brunei is planning port expansion work similar to the work being undertaken at the Port of Darwin, and they are working towards the development of a regional port hub at Brunei’s Muara port.
Mr Graeme Lacey, Chief Executive Officer of Rooney Shipping and Trading, attended this meeting so it also provided an opportunity to learn of Rooney’s plans to provide new cargo and cattle services to Brunei. I am pleased to report that since this meeting, Mr Lacey has advised the new Brunei-China-Indonesia-Thailand shipping service has been planned, which will have the capacity to link up with Rooney’s current fortnightly service to Brunei, providing greater market penetration for Australian cargo throughout the region.
Whilst in Brunei, I also met with Mr Peter Foster, the newly appointed Chief Executive Officer of Royal Brunei Airlines. Although much of what was discussed in our meeting remains commercial-in-confidence, I can re-affirm Royal Brunei’s commitment to the Northern Territory.
From Brunei, I travelled to the Philippines, accompanied by a range of business people representing a number of export sectors including agribusiness, construction, shipping and education services. Companies and organisations represented included the NT Agriculture Association, NT Livestock Exporters, Rooney Shipping and Trading, Employment and Training Services Australia, Online Education and Training International, Mechanical and Rural Installations, the Territory Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Meat and Livestock Australia. There are already a number of important links between the Northern Territory and the Philippines. These have, in part, been forged through the significant Filipino community in the Northern Territory with its business, education, sporting and cultural ties.
Feedback from the Northern Territory Livestock Exporters Association was that the delegation served as an important promotional vehicle for the cattle industry. They also advised that the level of cooperation being developed between the Territory and the Philippines government with respect to the live cattle industry is an important factor in continuing the development of this important Territory export market; 66 000 head of cattle were exported to the Philippines through the port of Darwin in 2002. This represents some $40m in export earnings for the Territory.
During our visit, Rooney Shipping and Trading signed a Memorandum of Association with Newmarc Ship Management of Manila. The memorandum allows for Newmarc to provide international shipping management services to Rooney Shipping and Trading. As mentioned, a number of Territory-based companies have been working to value-add to the live cattle export industry and have constructed a range of feed lots, abattoirs and retail butcheries in the Philippines. These companies include the aptly named Asian Experience and Aussie Beef Systems. As a result of its visit to the Philippines, Rural Industries and Mechanical Installations has been asked to tender for three new abattoir projects. This is another example of how this government assists Territory companies develop new export opportunities.
Education links are becoming increasingly important between the Northern Territory and the Philippines. Employment Training Services Australia has reported significant success when participating in the delegation. ETS provides advice to international students on study opportunities in the Northern Territory. ETS is confident that between 10 to 12 new international students from the Philippines will commence study at the University School of Infomatics by mid-2003 as a result of the visit.
Also in the delegation was Online Education and Training International. OETI delivers a range of training programs through the Internet to people in the workplace. During the visit, OETI signed an agreement with the Development Academy of the Philippines to provide training courses to local government bodies throughout the Philippines. OETI has also advised of further business opportunities in the Philippines for training programs in the oil and gas industry, for hospital nurses, and for Filipino seamen working on commercial vessels.
During my visit, I met with executives from the Asian Development Bank to learn of their regional aid program and how Territory companies can gain better access to contracts let by the ADB. The visit to the Philippines provided me with the opportunity to travel to the southern province of Negros Occidental to meet with proponents of the cattle Breeder Outgrower Scheme. Once operational, this scheme will see cattle shipped from Darwin, distributed to accredited local farmers for fattening, slaughter and eventual distribution to wet markets and retail butcher outlets throughout the Philippines. An abattoir is being planned for the scheme and I am confident that a Northern Territory company will be involved in its design and construction. I am pleased to advise that the Territory government has agreed to provide ongoing technical support for the project over the next three years.
Whilst in the Philippines, I delivered a series of briefings to promote new infrastructure and investment opportunities available in the Territory.
Madam SPEAKER: Minister, your time has expired.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, the opposition applauds any move by the government to re-engage with Asia. There has been a significant and proud record of the previous government having relationships - personal, political and business - with our northern neighbours. It is the future of the Territory, where we are going, and it is a pity it has lapsed to such an extent.
The minister is an innocent abroad to some extent. To go to a country like Brunei and expect to meet government ministers on a Sunday morning whilst in transit is offensive. What he has to do is make specific trips. It is no good talking to Northern Territory and Australian expatriate businessmen in these places, or the people they are doing business with. They understand and know it much better than he does. He needs to forge those links with government. The minister was silent on the ministers he spoke to and the relationships he is forging on a government-to-government basis. It is no good having a look at some cattle yards; that is the stuff of school excursions.
What we need this government to do is go over, forge relationships with and renegotiate and befriend those people we are dealing with. That is what the business community wants. They do not want him to go and oversee their business activities; they are much better at it than he is. Nonetheless, at least he is starting to make the trips.
There is a significant way to go. The minister should seek some cultural advice, and my friend here, the member for Greatorex can give him some advice.
Mr Ah Kit: He needs some advice before he goes back to Alice.
Mr DUNHAM: It might be a matter of jocularity to you, but the Australian colonial abroad can be very offensive to some of our neighbours, and it can be counterproductive. I suggest that the minister seeks advice on how he might conduct himself in Asia, and that he takes some people with knowledge in this area.
Mr HENDERSON (Business, Industry and Resource Development): Madam Speaker, the day I take advice from the member for Drysdale will be the day that I am back on the other side of the parliament.
His comments are an absolute insult to the people in my department who provide advice on schedules, with whom I should meet, and the opportunities for Northern Territory business people who wish to trade in the region. These schedules are put together with considerable input and advice from people in the department who, essentially, are the same people who provided the previous government with advice. The visits that we will be making to the Asian region will be guided by those people. They will also be guided by Territory business people who come along with those delegations regarding the opportunities they want to pursue, not some airy-fairy pipedream of the member for Drysdale.
I know he is missing the front of the plane and travelling to Asia. I will be guided by my department. The remarks by the member for Drysdale are a total insult to people in the public service who do such good work for this community.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! You have had your turn.
Marrara Sporting Complex – New Basketball and Netball Facility
Mr AH KIT (Sport and Recreation): Madam Speaker, just over three weeks ago I had the honour of officially opening another multipurpose sporting facility built to international standards at the Marrara Sporting Complex.
Although it was a week day, it was great to see so many of the basketball and netball fraternity attending the opening, including some of the veterans of the basketball scene. I remember well the early days of the sport back in the 1950s and 1960s, and I saw the opening of the new courts very much as the coming of age for the game here in Darwin.
The completion of two airconditioned sprung-timber basketball courts at Marrara takes the total basketball courts in the immediate vicinity to five. Basketball now has the opportunity to continue its development and growth. Player, spectator and media facilities at the centre are all of an international standard and are really top class.
Visiting men’s and women’s teams from the Australian Defence Forces and the United States recently played in the airconditioned facility in the competition organised in place of the cancelled 2003 Arafura Games. The visiting teams were genuinely impressed with the outstanding quality of this stadium. The stadium has been constructed to accommodate the larger run-off areas and other modifications required for top level netball. This added significantly to the construction cost, but it is a most worthwhile investment. Members of this Chamber will be aware that netball is Australia’s largest participation sport. The completion of this facility to international standard represents not only a great asset for netball, but also a great opportunity to showcase top level netball in the Territory.
As with Marrara, the development of multipurpose sports facilities is a key to the future of first class competition in the Northern Territory. Shared facilities take advantage of economies of scale and are, therefore, a much better use of taxpayer dollar. Along with better business planning, it also assists clubs in developing more cost effective and efficient operations.
I take this opportunity to congratulate the proprietors of Gratis Pty Ltd, Tony Tomazos and John Tomazos, and Kris Welin of Komae Engineering Solutions, who designed and built this fantastic facility. The stadium includes seating 400 for spectators, has significant natural lighting, and provides the option to naturally ventilate in the Dry Season to reduce electricity consumption and operating costs. I strongly encourage members of the Assembly and other Territorians who have not visited the facility yet to wander down and have a look at the high quality of workmanship and the amenity of this tremendous facility.
I also acknowledge the significant financial contribution of the Darwin Basketball Association to this project. I believe that the DBA has set important precedents in the way it has gone about cost sharing with government. I am sure everyone in the Assembly today will want to congratulate them. This illustrates just what can be achieved when government and sports come together with a common goal.
This wonderful facility has already attracted the National Schools Basketball Championships, to be held in Darwin in August, and further national championships are under consideration for next year. Again, this illustrates the fact that, in sport and the facilities that are available, the Northern Territory punches well above its weight in national terms.
Mr MILLS (Blain): Madam Speaker, I congratulate the minister and this government for continuing the vision for the development of sporting infrastructure.
I agree with the minister about the involvement of Darwin Basketball Association in the development, construction and design of this facility. They made a significant contribution, not just in finance, but the decision-making process as to where this facility would be located. This demonstrates the importance of grassroots involvement in decision-making, and demonstrates the tendency of this government to be centralist in decision-making. Here we have evidence of the Darwin Basketball Association’s contribution, including the location of the facility, which will allow in the longer term for it to be brought into line with the existing facility and add to its value.
I congratulate the builders who have done a fantastic job. I was privileged to be at the opening. It is good to see such a fine facility, which will allow the Northern Territory to play its part - and I agree with the minister that we have significant ground to make up. We have the confidence as a community to punch above our weight, and we have facilities of this nature to allow us to do that and to host appropriate sporting levels.
However, that is largely due to the carriage of a vision that has already been put in place by a previous administration but, most importantly, by the involvement of the Darwin Basketball Association in adding value to that which government has given them.
Mr AH KIT (Sport and Recreation): Madam Speaker, I welcome the comments from the shadow spokesperson. It is a great facility. I will, as the minister responsible for Sport and Recreation, continue to look at these facilities and provide as much assistance as possible. It is great when we see them cost sharing with government; it means government’s dollars can be spread a bit further.
One of the things I have planned is to look at Sports House at Fannie Bay, to see how we can locate Sports House in the sports complex. Obviously, we have tenants in there from peak sporting organisations. That is one of the next challenges before me. It is the right way to go and, if we can continue to maintain our sport and recreation, it augurs well for all Territorians.
Ministerial Council for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs
Mr VATSKALIS (Ethnic Affairs): Madam Speaker, last Friday I attended a meeting of the Ministerial Council for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. This meeting was attended by federal, state and territory ministers from Australia and New Zealand who have responsibility for this portfolio area.
Major issues on the agenda included: progress reports on the migration, humanitarian and non-humanitarian programs from the Commonwealth; the report on the Commonwealth/states working party on skilled migration examining the progress and mechanisms to attract skilled migrants to regional Australia; issues in relation to the future of Temporary Protection Visas; and the Settlement Services Review that was released by the Commonwealth. A resolution was passed by the council that states and territories will be involved in the consultation of the implementation process of recommendations from the review.
I was also given the opportunity to highlight recent events and programs in the Territory within my portfolio. I was pleased to talk about the development of the Northern Territory population policy that will include a business and skilled migration strategy. I also spoke about the development of the multicultural policy, and the language service policy; the success of Harmony Month activities; our grant program, which is the largest on a per capita basis; the production of cultural and linguistic awards; and the East Timorese.
I welcome the long overdue decision of the minister for immigration, the Honourable Philip Ruddock MP, to grant permanent visas to East Timorese residents. However, I believe that the long, arduous process that the East Timorese asylum seekers have been put through to get to this point was totally unnecessary. The stress that this process has placed on families who have had to live with a real fear that their family would be divided, with some members staying in Australia and others having to return to East Timor, should not be underestimated.
I have been advised that 48 East Timorese living in the Northern Territory have received letters indicating that the minister is prepared to intervene in their appeal. These East Timorese are now required to undertake health and character tests. Twenty-one people have already been dealt with. They have either been granted a visa, or have departed Australia of their own choosing. This is from a total of 86 East Timorese asylum seekers in the Territory. This positive outcome was, in the end, a result of pressure and persistence from many Territorians from all walks of life with a common desire for justice to be done for these people who have become part of our community. However, not all East Timorese asylum seekers in the Northern Territory have received letters, and I remain concerned about those whose futures are still unclear. I am aware that some of these applications are still being processed by the minister and the Refugee Review Tribunal.
The Territory government has assisted East Timorese asylum seekers in a variety of ways to this point. I am extremely grateful for the amazing job done by agencies such as St Vincent de Paul, Red Cross, Northern Territory Legal Aid Commission, DBIRD, as well as my own Office of Ethnic Affairs. I am also pleased to announce that the Territory government has fulfilled its promise to match, dollar for dollar, fundraising efforts for the East Timorese asylum seekers. Over $7000 was raised for the East Timorese and the Territory government has matched this amount. A cheque for equal value will be presented to St Vincent de Paul, which has been administering the funds on behalf of the East Timorese.
Unfortunately, East Timorese asylum seekers have not had their Asylum Seeker Assistant Scheme (ASAS) payments reinstated while they continue to await the final outcome of their applications. For many East Timorese, the cancellation of these payments has resulted in them relying on family and friends to survive. At a recent meeting of the Ministerial Council for Immigration Multicultural Affairs, I called upon Mr Ruddock to reinstate the ASAS payments for the East Timorese asylum seekers while they are awaiting the final outcome of their applications, and I hope for a positive outcome.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Madam Speaker, the Northern Territory is in a unique position to contribute to the Ministerial Council on Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. We have such a multicultural community that our experience is real life and, through our contribution to the ministerial council, our experience in the Territory can be of great benefit to the rest of Australia.
The East Timorese refugees outcome, I believe, is positive, thanks also to the great efforts of our federal members David Tollner and Nigel Scullion, who worked extremely hard with the federal minister to ensure that positive outcomes are produced for our East Timorese - not refugees, but citizens of the Territory. We want them to be part of our community. In fact, when it was debated in this Chamber, both sides of the House supported the East Timorese refugees.
It is good that at long last, people from East Timor have some security and surety that their applications will be successful. We look forward to their continuing contribution to the wellbeing and economy of the Territory.
Mr VATSKALIS (Ethnic Affairs): Madam Speaker, many names have of people who helped the East Timorese have been mentioned and, certainly, the names Tollner and Scullion have been absent.
When I spoke to Minister Ruddock and thanked him, he advised me that he looked positively at the outcome for the East Timorese because he recognised the contribution they made to Australia and the difficulties of going back to East Timor. Not once did he mention Tollner or Scullion. On the other hand, I would like to thank the federal Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, Gary Hardgrave, who made representations seeking a positive outcome to Philip Ruddock on my behalf.
As for Mr Tollner, he did not attend the East Timorese rally, but he rang and left a message on my mobile phone asking me to pass his apologies. He did not even bother to attend the rally. If he did something about the East Timorese, why didn’t he let us know? They are usually very vocal when they do something, and tell us what they are doing. I am afraid Tollner’s and Scullion’s names are absent, but Warren Snowdon was there prominently and I thank him for his contribution.
Site Contamination Legislation
Dr BURNS (Environment and Heritage): Madam Speaker, I inform the House of progress in developing important new legislation to protect the environment and health of Territorians. I have recently released a discussion paper proposing the development of an environment protection objective for the management of contaminated land to be made pursuant to the Waste Management and Pollution Control Act.
Industrial land can be contaminated with pollutants through poor environmental practices, spills and accidents. In many cases, that pollution is not visible and there is no odour. With increasing urban consolidation, industrial land is subject to greater pressure for redevelopment for residential purposes and, where this industrial land has been contaminated by past activities, its redevelopment without proper clean-up can pose significant health risk for residents.
One only has to look interstate to see the consequences of failing to properly address contaminated land issues. There have been residences in South Australia on a former gasworks site in Port Adelaide where, as a result, the houses had to be bulldozed. In the ACT, some houses were built on former sheep dip sites with arsenic, phenolic and organo-chlorine compounds. I know from my own experience when I lived in Armidale in New South Wales for a while, a whole subdivision had to be deserted because it was built on an old copper naphthenate log processing plant. There was a significant expense, not to mention the dangers to residents, particularly children.
While the pressure in redeveloping land in the Territory is not as great as it is down south, we are now seeing such areas as tank farms in the city being redeveloped for residential purposes. I want to ensure that we have appropriate processes and procedures in place to ensure that the health of Territorians is not put at risk. This proposed environment protection objective for site contamination will set rules for preventing, identifying, assessing and managing site contamination. The proposed legislation will provide clarity and certainty of the process to industry, landowners, developers and will improve confidence among the general community.
When this government came to office, it was clear that legislative and operational regimes to properly protect the Territory environment had been neglected by the CLP in some areas. Since coming to government, we have made significant inroads in trying to rectify this situation. We have set up an independent Office of the Environment and Heritage; introduced a review of the Heritage Conservation Act; have a greenhouse strategy; and we are looking, through a parliamentary committee, at the establishment of an environment protection authority.
Mr Dunham: We have done a lot of work on that.
Dr BURNS: Well, I thought you were on that committee.
Mr Dunham: Yes, we have done a lot of work on that.
Dr BURNS: Good! Much work remains, but the Territory community can be assured that this government is committed to modern environmental laws targeted at the problems at hand, with adequate resources to back them up. I believe, absolutely, that good environmental laws are pivotal to promoting jobs for Territorians through development that is consistent with our social aspirations.
I am now seeking community views on the new legislation to properly manage contaminated land. The discussion paper is available on the Northern Territory government web site, or people can obtain it by contacting my Office of Environment and Heritage in Darwin and in Alice Springs. Written submissions will be accepted until 1 August 2003. Community comment will be used to further develop legislative provisions, and I will be subsequently seeking further community input on the draft legislation.
Madam Speaker, I look forward to community comment on the proposed legislation, and I hope that the Assembly will take note of this report.
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Madam Speaker, I welcome this initiative by the minister, but I certainly do not welcome the blame he places on the CLP. Did I read about an environment protection measure in the Labor election platform? This is not something that you thought of back then; this is something that needed to be done, and it was in progress. The minister …
Mr Vatskalis: 26 years in progress.
Mr BALDWIN: Similarly with the claims of an independent Office of the Environment. It is no more independent at the moment than the unit of Environment we had in the department. Why is it any different? Until we get the work done through the committee that you mentioned, on a truly independent environment office, it is not more independent. Similarly, with the greenhouse strategy – the one that you are working on is the same one that we discussed and worked on. It is no different.
I congratulate the government on this initiative because we do not want to see what has happened down south repeated up here. We are in a unique situation in that we have a small jurisdiction, we can identify contaminated sites such as the one that was identified at the fuel farm that has been moved. They had to clean up their site and it was done properly.
To have this measure in place under legislation is a good thing, and we look forward to seeing the legislation. It is a very disturbing fact that, in some places around Australia, residential land has been developed on contaminated industrial land. We do not want to see it here. I do not believe that we will ever have an Erin Brockovich-type case here in the Northern Territory, but it is incumbent on this Assembly to ensure that it does not happen. I welcome the initiative.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Madam Speaker, I also congratulate the government on introducing this type of legislation. However, I should make the government aware that good planning is very important in the whole process. A lot of problems down south arose because of poor planning and controls.
I reiterate that any industrial site should always take into account the fact that, no matter how good your regulations are, there can be accidents. You should, therefore, be siting industrial land as far away from high risk areas as possible.
I remind the government that there is land in the Northern Territory that can be used for such purposes. It is a pity they will not even accept the option of that land. They know what I am talking about.
Dr BURNS (Environment and Heritage): Madam Speaker, I will be brief. I welcome the contributions by members. However, it is worth reiterating that we had an election platform about an Office of Environment and Heritage. Significant new resources were announced in the last budget. It is a stand-alone, separate entity, and I am proud of that. I am also proud of the fact that we are considering the viability of an environment protection authority through the parliamentary committee.
I am proud to be environment minister. The member for Daly is right; we are in a very fortunate position in the Territory. We do not want to repeat the mistakes made down south. I am absolutely committed to this environment portfolio, and to ensure that those mistakes do not occur in the Territory.
Reports noted pursuant to Sessional Order.
PERSONAL EXPLANATION
Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Services
Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Services
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I have given permission for the Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Services to make a personal explanation.
Mr HENDERSON (Police, Fire and Emergency Services): Madam Speaker, yesterday during Question Time, the member for Araluen made an assertion about me and the Commissioner for Police that was a baseless fabrication, and which I rise to correct.
I alerted the member for Araluen to her falsehood yesterday at around 2.30 pm. She has had six hours to correct the record herself, but has elected to let her falsehood sit on the record unamended. I am left with no choice but to take this step to correct the record.
I will read into Hansard her fabrication. In Question Time yesterday, the member for Araluen said:
- Minister, you said in this House yesterday that the Police Commissioner brought to your attention the
issue of a complaint from police that the Tourism Minister attempted to use his position as a member
of government to pervert the course of justice by putting undue pressure on the police who were attending
to do their job. What is your response?
It needs to be understood that when this baseless assertion was made, the member was reading from a prepared document. She pretended to quote me, but when one compares what I actually said with what she told this parliament and Territorians that I said, there is nothing in common.
For the sake of the record, I did not say the things attributed to me by the member for Araluen; the Commissioner for Police did not say the things attributed to him by the member for Araluen; and the finding of guilt delivered by the member for Araluen in relation to the member for Johnston is baseless.
The member for Araluen has not only verballed me but, in some respects, more importantly, she has verballed the Commissioner of Police - a man of exemplary integrity who does not deserve to be drawn into this tawdry political exercise. The motivation behind why the member for Araluen has made this false statement and refused to correct the record is of no importance …
Mr REED: A point of order, Madam Speaker! A personal explanation is quite appropriate, given the member’s view in relation to this matter. However, when he moves from a personal explanation to what he perceives to be motivation, it is, I believe, beyond the realms of a personal explanation.
Madam SPEAKER: I will allow the minister to continue, to hear what he has to say. However, minister, you have been forewarned.
Mr HENDERSON: The record and integrity of the parliament, myself, the Police Commissioner, and the member for Johnston are important. This instance has highlighted the member for Araluen’s disregard for the truth and integrity of this parliament, and demonstrated a distinct lack of personal integrity when she has refused to correct the record. I urge the member for Araluen to give some thought to the type of politician she is becoming, and put her on notice that the members of this government will treat everything she says with total scepticism.
Mr Dunham: Read the Hansard record. You are the biggest bloody portrayer of falsehoods.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! I ask you to withdraw that, member for Drysdale.
Mr DUNHAM: I shall withdraw it, Madam Speaker and I would …
Madam SPEAKER: That is it! Nothing else.
Mr DUNHAM: … ask for your opinion. If I believe that the member has portrayed some falsehoods in this House, am I able to do so by way of personal explanation?
Madam SPEAKER: You know the rules.
Mr DUNHAM: May I do it in the same circumstances, Madam Speaker?
Madam SPEAKER: You cannot do it from the floor. You know that.
Mr DUNHAM: I cannot do it like this? Thank you.
Madam SPEAKER: You know what the rules are. Go back to standing orders. However, I was referring to the language you used when I asked you to withdraw.
MOTION
Routine of Business
Routine of Business
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the routine of business for Friday 27 June 2003 be as follows Prayers; Petitions; Notices; Government Business pursuant to the resolution of the Assembly, dated 27 February 2003; and Adjournment.
Motion agreed to.
SPECIAL ADJOURNMENT
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly at its rising adjourn until 5 pm on Friday 27 June 2003, or such other time as notified by the Speaker, with one hour’s notice given to government and opposition Whips and members by the Speaker, or such other time and/or date as may be advised by the Speaker pursuant to Sessional Order.
Motion agreed to.
MOTION
Standing Orders Committee – Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards Reference -
Extension of Time
Standing Orders Committee – Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards Reference -
Extension of Time
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the Standing Orders Committee be given an extension of time until February 2004 to report to the Assembly on the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards reference provided to the committee on 20 June 2002.
Mr REED (Katherine): Madam Speaker, the opposition supports this motion. As a member of the committee, I say on behalf of the opposition that matters under consideration by the committee are complex. Information has been brought to the committee that demonstrates that more time should be provided. It is considered that the reporting date of the sittings in February is appropriate.
Motion agreed to.
PLUMBERS AND DRAINERS LICENSING AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 163)
(Serial 163)
Bill presented and read a first time.
Mr VATSKALIS (Lands and Planning): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a second time.
At the Council of Australian Governments meeting in April 1995, heads of government signed three agreements establishing the National Competition Policy. They are commonly referred to as the NCP agreements. Under the NCP agreements, all states and territories were required to develop timetables for reviewing all existing legislation, conduct reviews in accordance with a timetable and, where appropriate, amend or repeal legislation that restricts competition.
The Plumbers and Drainers Licensing Act was identified as requiring NCP review. The Plumbers and Drainers Licensing Act was reviewed in accordance with National Competition Policy in October 2000. The NCP review identified that the general review of the Plumbers and Drainers Licensing Act was also required. The recommendations of the NCP review were to be implemented following the general review to accommodate the amendments of both the National Competition Policy review and the general review in a single bill. However, the general review encountered numerous delays, and it was decided to implement the recommendations of the National Competition Policy review separately in order to comply with the requirements from National Competition Policy. The general review will follow at a later date in conjunction with a review of the Building Act.
The National Competition Policy review found that licensing, while restrictive, confers nett benefits and should be retained, and recommended that the act should specifically state its objectives. Further, the NCP review recommends that the national competencies based approach to qualification should be recognised. The NCP review also recommended that the appeals mechanism relating to the fit and proper person test should be clear and accessible if it is to be retained. The final NCP review recommendation is that board membership afforded to the Power and Water Corporation should be reviewed in light of its changed role within the plumbing industry.
The purpose of this bill is to insert new section 2A into the Plumbers and Drainers Licensing Act to establish the objectives of the act. New sections 22, 22A, 23 and 24 give the board the ability to explicitly recognise the national competencies-based approach to trades qualifications and the application process.
A clear and accessible appeals mechanism is created in new sections 36, 36A, 37 and 37A, that provides for an appeals process through the Local Court. This process is supported in sections 22A, 24, 26, 33 and 35 by providing for an information notice to be given in relation to decisions of the board. This information notice provides information on the decision, the reason for the decision, and that the decision may be appealed.
Further, amendment of section 6 provides for the member representing the Power and Water Corporation, as the previous provider of the plumbing industry inspectorate, to now be representative of the agency administering the Building Act. The Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Environment, the current administrative agency, presently provides regulatory functions in relation to certified plumbers under the Building Act.
Finally, Madam Speaker, the bill makes other minor consequential amendments to give meaning and fluency to the aforementioned amendments. I commend the bill to honourable members.
Debate adjourned.
MOTION
General Business Day
General Business Day
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business) (by leave): Madam Speaker, I move that so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent the next general business day being conducted on Wednesday, 13 August 2003.
Motion agreed to.
TRAFFIC AMENDMENT BILL (No 2)
(Serial 145)
(Serial 145)
Bill presented and read a first time.
Mr VATSKALIS (Transport and Infrastructure): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a second time.
The principal purpose of this bill is to amend the Traffic Act so that certificates relating to blood alcohol levels can be used as evidence in proceedings under section 154 of the Criminal Code Act for dangerous acts or omissions, and to convert the designation of all penalties under the Traffic Act from dollars to penalty units. There are also some minor amendments to other sections of the Traffic Act, and I will address each of these amendments respectively.
Section 154 of the Criminal Code creates the offence of doing a dangerous act or making a dangerous omission. Subsection (4) provides:
- If at the time of doing or making such an act or omission he is under the influence of an intoxicating
substance he is liable to further imprisonment for four years.
The thrust of this is that dangerous act charges are, as often as not, accompanied by a circumstance of aggravation provided by subsection (4). Frequently, section 154 cases arise from the driving of a motor vehicle on a public street, although the charge is used in a wide variety of circumstances. In a motor vehicle context, a charge under section 154 is at the upper end of the scale and includes driving without due care and attention and driving in a manner dangerous. Often, this offence is overlapped by various drink-driving offences created under the Traffic Act.
Part V of the Traffic Act provides police with comprehensive powers to obtain evidence in drink-driving cases by way of breath analysis or blood test. Part V also provides for that evidence, if properly collected and subject to safeguards, to be presented in court by way of certificate. The difficulty is that Part V only applies to drink-driving offences under the Traffic Act; it does not apply to section 154 offences and the certificate procedure cannot be used. Given the important role of section 154 in the administration of justice in the Northern Territory, this gap occasionally creates a loophole for what are, in fact, the most serious cases. This amendment will allow certificates relating to blood alcohol levels to be used as evidence in any proceedings in a court, and this includes an offence under section 154 of the Criminal Code. There is also a consequential amendment to section 28 consistent with the amendment to section 27.
A new section 29A is added to allow the certificate procedure to apply equally to committal proceedings. A new section 23(2A) has been added to create an offence where a person fails to comply with a direction given by a member of the police force to stop their motor vehicle for the purpose of either undergoing a breath test, breath analysis or both.
The amendment to convert the prescribed penalties under the Traffic Act from dollars to penalty units will allow the Penalty Units Act to apply with the consequence that future reviews of monetary penalties can be implemented in a relatively simple way.
The next amendment I will address is the reference to the operator of the motor vehicle. Under the Motor Vehicles Act, the owner of a motor vehicle can nominate a person to operate that vehicle. This ability to nominate an operator is not confined to heavy vehicles; however, the majority of nominations come from the owners of heavy vehicles. If an offence under the Traffic Act is committed by the operator, this amendment will clearly identify the nominated operator as the offender and not the owner, but only where the owner has taken the step to nominate the person to be the operator of his or her vehicle.
The final amendment is a relatively minor one. Under the Traffic Act an unregistered motor vehicle is deemed to be registered in certain circumstances. To use one situation, if an unregistered motor vehicle is driven by the shortest practicable route to the nearest office of the Registrar or police station for the purpose of registration, it shall be deemed to be registered. The simple fact is that in most cases, it is safer and more convenient for a driver to travel to a repair workshop that is in close proximity to his or her residence than it is to travel to a police station or an office of the Registrar. You only need to consider how this currently affects some of our remote communities to understand the difficulties faced by motorists who may be forced to travel long distances to a police station or office of the Registrar to have the vehicle inspected, when a repair workshop may be much closer. Quite frankly, most police stations are ill equipped to conduct inspections on motor vehicles in the first instance.
This amendment will allow the deeming provisions of section 33 to apply, provided strict conditions are met. I must emphasise that the unregistered motor vehicle must be driven by the shortest, most practical route to a repair workshop; the repair workshop must also be located within a reasonable distance in the circumstances; the repair workshop must have the services of an inspector appointed under the Motor Vehicles Act; and some prior arrangement for the presentation of the vehicle must have been made.
Madam Speaker, I commend the bill to honourable members.
Debate adjourned.
APPROPRIATION BILL 2003-04
(Serial 147)
(Serial 147)
Continued from 29 May 2003.
Mr STIRLING (Treasurer): Madam Speaker, it was a great privilege to deliver my first Territory budget to this Assembly on 27 May.
It took, as they always do, many months of analysis and careful consideration by Cabinet and Treasury to put the budget together. On the whole, with the exception of the other side of this Chamber, it has been generally well received by the Northern Territory community, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time. It is the nature of politics that you have to make compromises for the greater good.
Territorians decided in August 2001 that they wanted the Martin Labor government to make those decisions on their behalf after the former government had failed to make the right decisions, in their eyes, during their last term of office. Despite the petulant bleatings coming from the opposite side, I am convinced that the faith Territorians placed in this government in 2001 has not, and will not, be misplaced.
Prior to the last election, we set out a clear program of reform - a program that would entail evolution, not revolution, and has as a central theme Building a Better Territory. That program focussed on the essentials: jobs, safer communities, better education and health services for all, a more competitive tax system with other jurisdictions and a more equitable tax system within our own jurisdiction. The 2003-04 budget continues to deliver on those commitments to Territorians, as well as recognising how the world has changed since August 2001. This budget is responsible and responsive.
With the exception of the member for Katherine, I am the longest serving member of this Assembly. In my time, I have seen 13 budgets delivered, six of them by the former Treasurer, the member for Katherine. I have listened to a lot of budget responses. The former Treasurer had the luxury of framing his budgets in a relatively benign international and local environment: 75% to 80% of the Territory’s funding was linked to the financial assistance grants pool, which was maintained in real per capita terms throughout the decade prior to the introduction of the GST. He had the stimulus of the Commonwealth Labor government’s decision to shift large amounts of Australia’s defence capability to the north. He had the massive expansion of oil production from Laminaria-Corallina, which boosted the Territory’s economic growth levels to well above the Australian average. The only cloud on the horizon, which ended up with limited local impact except for the live cattle industry, was the Asian economic meltdown of 1997.
Yet under those conditions, by 2001 we had a budget out of control, spiralling debt, a declining economy, a property market in the doldrums, and rising unemployment. Despite those good factors operating for them, the Country Liberal Party government had lost its way. It had placed all its eggs in the railway basket, leaving a short-changed capital works program with a huge revote from year to year. Infrastructure in the bush was at woeful levels. Property crime was rising despite the introduction of mandatory sentencing. Education results for Territory children were the worst in the nation. Despite commissioning the Collins report Learning Lessons, they refused to implement its recommendations. Territory Health Services lurched from crisis to crisis, with almost as many Health ministers as there were Cabinet ministers over the 10-year period. CEOs of Health seemed to barely get the pads on before they were dismissed and sent marching from the wicket.
The tone of opposition budget responses is set by the Opposition Leader of the day, and I listened with interest, which grew, really, to astonishment at the response from the Leader of the Opposition, because his response certainly had more to do with trying to maintain his current position as leader than any considered attempt at understanding or analysing the budget. In fact, his whole speech revolved around this concept of leadership. He attempted to criticise the Martin government for its lack of leadership while, at the same time, he was casting doubt upon his own because he showed that neither he nor the CLP had learned or changed as a result of the verdict the electorate delivered in August 2001.
His opening lines acknowledged the very different world we now live in, and nearly all of the events he described:
- 11 September, global terrorism, huge corporate collapses, Afghanistan, the Bali bombings, the war
in Iraq, SARS, the increasing instability of Indonesia …
have occurred since this government was elected. Only the collapse of HIH, if this is what he meant by ‘huge corporate collapses’, occurred prior to 18 August 2001. Of course, the Opposition Leader did not mention the unsustainable budget position in which he left the Martin government.
It is this point about the uncertain world in which we now live that is so very different from the world the former government enjoyed. I find that hypocritical and remarkable because, despite the very real difficulties and external factors impacting on this government since it came to office, the Territory economy has not gone into a tailspin. Indeed, while it is still patchy, the economy is recovering. There has been positive economic growth in each of the years since we came to office, and that is expected to continue through 2003-04, despite the uncertainties.
Delivering economic growth in uncertain and difficult times, such as we have, demonstrates real leadership. Since the budget was handed down, the news has become brighter. The Martin government, through its persistent efforts with the companies involved, and the Australian and East Timorese governments, is proudly able to say: we delivered Timor Sea gas onshore. We now also have the heads of agreement for Blacktip gas to be brought onshore to Wadeye, the construction of a 1000 km pipeline to Gove, and a major expansion of the Alcan alumina refinery there. That is real leadership.
It took the CLP 23 years to deliver the railway. It could have had it much earlier if it had accepted the deal that Bob Hawke put on the table in the early 1980s. By contrast, we have been in office less than two years, and the Bayu-Undan and Wickham Point developments are now about to become reality, despite the uncertainties of those past two years. That demonstrates real leadership.
The Martin government has been able to implement its reforms to build a better Territory. At the same time, it has turned the woeful budget situation we inherited around. That, again, is leadership.
It is interesting that nobody from the opposition acknowledged the budget improvement that the Martin government has delivered. At the same time, they argue we should be spending more and more to boost business confidence. It is interesting to see how the rhetoric has changed over the years I have been in this Chamber. For years on the opposition benches, I listened to tales of the virtues of fiscal and financial management, and that if Labor were ever - dare it be uttered - to win government in the Northern Territory, we would send the place broke, as they used to allege occurred in Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia.
During the former government’s last term, I heard that each budget would improve the previous year’s bottom line, only to find the actual outcome was continued deterioration, year after year. It is ironic that a Labor government is now delivering the best boost to business confidence by getting the budget under control. What a contrast it is for Territorians to have a government that delivers better actual outcomes than the original budget projections.
The Opposition Leader has yet to understand that the world has changed. Businesses will no longer be attracted to a jurisdiction that lets its budgets run out of control. We know why: because of the risk they face that taxes will have to be raised to pay for the ever climbing interest bill of a government that cannot live within its means.
Mr Dunham interjecting.
Mr STIRLING: Well may the former Health minister joke here because he was one of the worst culprits.
Mr Dunham: It is not a joke. You have raised taxes!
Mr STIRLING: He was one of the worst culprits, along with his mates, underestimating the expenditure in Health so they could try pretend they had an increase the next year. Such was the tightness of their fiscal situation they had to massage the figures to try and make them look a bit better. There is no massaging of figures under this government, and we will see in the Treasurer’s Annual Financial Statement later this year how much we have improved the bottom line again.
Mr Dunham: Yes, thanks to John Howard - unforeseen revenue.
Mr STIRLING: It will behove the member for Drysdale to hold his fire because he has form in this regard.
Business wants to invest somewhere where their employees will enjoy a good lifestyle and high quality services, not a place where below standard services are provided because of the resources that that jurisdiction’s debt servicing requires. Currently, 75 out of every $1 raised in Territory taxes is needed to meet the interest bill on debt the former government left to Territorians. Yet, the opposition thinks that that should rise further.
With the railway and the potential industrialisation gas onshore will bring, we are now playing in the big league. We have to demonstrate that we are fiscally responsible and that our tax regime is competitive with the rest of the world. That is what rating agencies like Standard & Poor’s are saying to the rest of the world. They are also saying that the Martin government is heading in the right direction; that the Territory cannot afford to repeat the financial outcomes of the late 1990s that characterised the former government’s budgetary management. It is a demonstration of faith in this government’s leadership and a stunning denunciation of former Chief Ministers.
What also astonished me was the wilful misrepresentation of the budget data. It started with the Opposition Leader, was reinforced by his current deputy, and carried on by many on the opposite side. Some of them are still a little green to have been very familiar with those budget papers but, at best, they have demonstrated collectively that they are lazy by failing to read the wealth of information - far more information than was ever provided under CLP budget papers. For a start, the Opposition Leader claimed that no agency shown in the budget papers is expected to come in exactly on its 2002-03 budget figure. With a statement like that, it is no wonder the CLP never ever let him be Treasurer, because he clearly has no understanding of the budget processes.
It is most unlikely – in fact, thousands and thousands to one in terms of odds - that any agency would ever come in exactly on budget. You would want to look very closely at the figures if they did come to you claiming they had spent to the cent what was projected because governments change the roles and responsibilities of agencies. That necessitates various transfers from one agency to another. Urgent needs arise during the course of the 12-month period, unforeseen at budget time, and revenue estimates will always vary. What matters is not whether an agency A, B or C comes in exactly on the figure, but whether or not, across all of the agencies, expenditure is being kept within the total budget limit and the budget bottom line has not blown out.
Throughout the two budgetary periods this government has experienced, we have well and truly achieved that, unlike the Country Liberal Party.
For a start, we need go back no further than 2001-02 when the then Treasurer, at the start of that financial year, said the budget deficit for the 2001-02 year would be around $12m. Some weeks later, we were confronted with the reality that it was between $126m and $139m …
Mr Dunham: No, you were not, $107m you told us. You said $107m, and you included NT Fleet in there.
Mr STIRLING: So you could not even get it right at the outset, let alone allowing for the changes that occur over time. We, by forthright and diligent management, managed to bring that deficit in at about $83m, an improvement again to the bottom line. The year before was even worse …
Mr Dunham: $150m unforeseen from the Commonwealth.
Mr STIRLING: He insists on provoking me to this but, in 2000-01 it was going to be a $1m surplus - end result? - $275m deficit! That is your fiscal management record …
Mr Dunham: We know yours, too, mate!
Mr STIRLING: That is the claim you put in this House when you delivered the budget and then, when we finally got the outcomes some 15 or 16 months later - not bad, only $276m out actually, because you predicted a $1m surplus and you blew it to a $275m debt.
Mr Dunham: Tell us about your policy decision.
Mr STIRLING: Well, it has not happened under us, and it will not. It has not and will not happen under this government. We are improving the bottom line. The end result of those years in CLP is that Territorians pay every day of the week, day in, day out, week in, week out, month in, month out, for a year, $500 000 a day in interest on the debt that you blokes ran up. That is a reality that cost has to be met before we even begin to look at services - teachers, doctors, hospitals, nurses, all of the services that the government is expected to provide to Territorians: $0.5m a day!
Mr Dunham interjecting.
Mr STIRLING: Madam Speaker, a common … Madam Speaker, if he is so concerned about this, I challenge he and the Leader of the Opposition to go on this outcome. I challenge he and the Leader of the Opposition to examine the records of every Territory budget handed down and find one - just one out of all of those 26 years of budget - agency that came in on their projected expenditure at the outset of the financial year. Find one that managed to come in exactly on budget in all those 26 years. I tell you, I will give you good odds! I will talk to you about it after if you want to lay odds on it, but you will not find any. You will not find any!
A common untruth was that we had cut funding to the Tourist Commission, despite Budget Paper No 3 clearly showing an increase in expenditure from 2002-03 to 2003-04. The opposition thought they were a bit clever about this because the original budget for 2002-03, as shown in last year’s budget paper, was $28m and this year’s, 2003-04, it is shown as $27m. It was first mentioned by the Opposition Leader, repeated by the member for Katherine and further repeated by the shadow spokesperson. If any of them - just one of them - were not so lazy and had cared to read the section on Territory Discoveries, they would have seen that Holiday Centre operations were transferred from the Tourist Commission to Territory Discoveries during 2002-03.
The 2003-04 budget papers reflected that change for both 2002-03 and 2003-04, so that a valid apples and apples comparison could be made between the two financial years. Both papers showed it in exactly the same way the former Treasurer, the member for Katherine, did when he was Treasurer. What is different between these budgets and those delivered by the former Treasurer is that we explain it.
Mr Burke interjecting.
Mr STIRLING: However, it is only for those who read it. You have to be able to read the papers. You have to be able to read the explanation and to understand it. You blokes never even bothered to put explanations to the variations. We used to sit there and say: ‘What the hell? Where has this money gone?’ You blokes could never answer it . You would say: ‘Wait for the Treasurer’s Annual Financial Statement’. Or you would say: ‘Wait for the agency’s annual financial report’. That is the sort of response we used to get time and time again because they did not understand it themselves.
In a budget, there is a lot to remember about where all the money goes, and that is why we have worked closely with Treasury and decided to include the explanations. You get more explanation of the variations under this government and Treasury papers in our budget papers than ever before - I remember. But, of course, you have to have the diligence to read it. You have got to get off your bum and have a look at these things, and find the explanations. If you are going to be lazy about it, nothing is going to help you.
I can remember the administrative variations that occurred as a result of a restructuring if we go - dare I mention it - to Planning for Growth. That was a beauty! Planning for Growth was the one the former Treasurer was going to save $15m with, if I recall. He spent $41m! We had to say to him: ‘Please keep your ideas to yourself and your hands in your pockets in future’ because the $15m saving turned out to be about a $41m blow to the bottom line, a blow that you could ill afford because you were already blowing the budget. But, in those budget papers, you could not make any sense or reason of them because of the changes that had occurred as result of restructuring for Planning for Growth. Of course, there was no explanation in the papers at all. ‘Its Planing for Growth. It is all Planing for Growth. You will have to wait for the Treasurer’s Annual Financial Statement and you might pick up a bit of information in the agency’s annual report’. It was simply not good enough, and we have at least taken the time to include the big variations so that people can understand what is happening.
During debate on the budget, even when the Minister for Tourism explained that difference in the figures and the increase to them, the opposition continued to go and deceive the public and talk down the tourism industry. That self-delusion does not demonstrate strength of leadership; it demonstrates that they are not fit to govern, and that the CLP still has not learnt and has not changed.
There is the matter of the changes to the land rich provisions, described as a new tax by the opposition, that would hit small and medium businesses, the family companies. It is not a new tax; it is a modification of one of the CLP’s taxes that will pick up a projected eight or 10 transactions a year out of the many thousands of real estate transactions that occur each year in the Territory. It will prevent tax avoidance, by some of the largest and wealthiest companies, occurring at the expense of the battlers of the Territory who pay a higher rate of stamp duty on their real estate transactions whenever they buy a house, farm or a business property, compared with some of the valuable land purchases embedded within a company structure. The question we ask is: why should the biggest end of town not be subject to the same stamp duty regime as the battlers the members opposite would claim to defend? That is not real leadership. It is a step back into the dark days of the ‘silver circle’ they protected all those years. Again, the CLP has not learnt or changed as a result of August 2001.
The same thing could be said for the changes to the Mineral Royalty Act. Out of the total mining industry, relatively few exploration companies got any advantage from the scheme, and even fewer mining companies. Just seven out of 140 eligible explorers submitted their expenditure records seeking to be issued with an Exploration Expenditure Certificate. Two or three of the Territory’s 11 active mines used EECs to reduce their royalties. Go back in the Parliamentary Record, and you will find in 1987 that the then minister Barry Coulter was bemoaning the fact that the EEC scheme was not working to attract and grow exploration in the Territory. That is why they introduced the uplift factor. They amended the scheme at the behest of former Minister Coulter to push the uplift factor from 25% to 50% because that would make it all work. Sadly, it has not. In 2003, all those years later, after a lot of money has gone into this EEC scheme by way of rebates against royalties supposedly on the premise that it was acting to promote exploration, it simply has not and the facts do not stack up.
So despite the claims of the member yesterday - he was going on again about local content provisions in the scheme - no such thing. The only stipulation, quite sensibly, was that, of course, the exploration expenditure had to occur in the Territory. It would not make any sense for the Northern Territory to be paying for someone to explore in Western Australia, Queensland or anywhere else.
It was a very generous scheme by Australian standards. It simply was not promoting the ever-increasing levels of exploration or development of new mines. Under the former government, we saw exploration expenditure in the Territory decline. Good public policy says that you ask the question: is this the best way that you can target assistance to the mining industry that promotes exploration activity? That is why we made the changes, because it did not seem to add up to this.
I will take him through it again. A mining company comes to the Territory and spends $1m on exploration. If they so choose, they go to Northern Territory Treasury and verify that expenditure of $1m. Treasury then issues an EEC to the face value of $1m, which they can take out into the marketplace and sell to a mining company. The going rate for these EECs, historically and traditionally, is around 10%. They sell this in the marketplace, and they get $100 000 back against the $1m certificate. The mining company, having purchased the $1m certificate for just $100 000, can uplift it by 50% to $1.5m, which they then submit, if they are paying royalties to the government, as an offset.
Remember that this is a scheme to push and encourage exploration. The poor old explorer has $100 000 - he is still $900 000 out of pocket the way I read it. The mining company, who has only forked out $100 000, gets $1.5m off their tax bill. Well, hello - who is this helping? Is this pushing exploration? I do not think so. Is it helping a mining company pay less tax, pay less royalties? Absolutely! The mining company is $1.4m ahead because they paid $100 000, they got $1.5m - you tell me how that works to promote exploration …
Mr Dunham: I will. Bring it on for debate and I will tell you. I will tell you because you are an idiot!
Mr STIRLING: … because if you believe that, you are a bigger dill than you look.
Mr Dunham: You are an idiot! It is promote local purchase. You have not got a clue. Talk to the miners, they will tell you how it works.
Madam SPEAKER: Minister, could you direct your remarks to me, not across the floor? Member for Drysdale, you have made many interjections. I am becoming very irritated. Let us get on with the closing debate.
Mr STIRLING: Madam Speaker, the Opposition Leader claimed he had a vision for the future. Well, I think I know where he found his vision: he has gone back to Labor’s Access Economics costings issued prior to the last election, and the announcements of the Martin government over the recent months, because there were no new ideas at all.
He wants to make the railway a link with Asia, not just a transcontinental service. You have to ask: what is the Darwin Business Park for? What is the Darwin Business Park for, if it is not about proving up this link with Asia? There was no plan for a Darwin Business Park under the former government. There was a port, there was a railway, and nothing in between. Nor was there a railway station planned, Hendo, if you recall, let alone funded.
Mr Henderson: Yes.
Mr STIRLING: All those initiatives had to come from this government.
Another so-called vision of the Leader of the Opposition is a project management company to oversee the development of the wharf precinct: The Martin government’s task force or a project management company? You have to ask yourself: which would succeed best at the least cost to the taxpayer? Both options would probably deliver, but why do you need a project management company? Why doesn’t the Leader of the Opposition have faith in the value and ability of our senior public servants who worked so tirelessly for him to deliver the railway? Why doesn’t he have the faith that he had in them then to do the job on the railway which they saw through many great difficulties? Suddenly, they are not good enough to work together to develop the wharf precinct as they were when they developed and secured the railway. I believe that is an insult to the ability of our senior public servants. We certainly put our faith in them. Our support is firmly behind them and we believe they will deliver.
How do you fast-track bringing gas onshore from the Bonaparte Gulf? The former government knew the gas reserves were there for many years. Why didn’t they fast-track it when they were in office? Given the announcements of the past few weeks, it is more a case of the Opposition Leader having missed the boat rather than any fast-tracking.
The Opposition Leader said he wants more affordable child care - straight out of the Access Economics document. It is a Paul Henderson promise from opposition days. We have already delivered on that promise, whilst the former government and the Leader of the Opposition failed to act when he was Chief Minister and they had the chance.
The member for Katherine stated the Territory would be years waiting for gas to generate some activity. Even though he made his budget response just prior to the latest announcements, you wonder: has he not bothered to notice what is already happening at Wickham Point? Where has he been while the Martin government has funded road construction there? He stated that, given his scenario of the delayed start to gas, the Martin government should: ‘… put forward some bridging projects that would keep the construction and other industries busy, and be able to bridge the gap between the low level of activity today and the high level of activity when the gas projects start’.
Madam Speaker, you probably recall very well our first sittings on achieving government when we were challenged about our counter-cyclical capital works program. I do not know where the member for Katherine was at that time - still very distressed at sitting on the other side of the Chamber for the first time in his parliamentary career - because he has no recollection of this. What he has called for in his response to the budget is precisely what this government has been doing. That is why infrastructure spending in 2002-03 was at a record level of $439m, because the owners of contract companies were sitting out there at Casuarina and downtown having cafe latte because they did not have any work in those last years of the CLP government. That is why we put $439m in record spending into capital works last year. Kon could not go down the street; they were everywhere …
Mr Dunham: I haven’t seen him recently; he could have stopped going down again.
Mr STIRLING: He does not see them. He goes down to the Galleria for a coffee and he never sees any of his old mates now. Do you know why? They are too busy on the cement mixers, mate! They are too busy out there renovating houses and working their butts off, as they should be.
This year, there is $434m in the total infrastructure spending program, just $5m lower than the record spent last year, and the second outright record in its own right. That is why …
Mr HENDERSON: Madam Speaker, I move that my colleague be granted an extension of time such that he may conclude his remarks - 10 minutes.
Motion agreed to.
Mr STIRLING: I did not know I had gone so slowly on this, Madam Speaker.
The first two Martin government budgets spent $100m more on infrastructure in the Territory than the last two CLP budgets. What is more, we are spreading more of that spending right around the Territory - in line with what the member for Drysdale was saying yesterday - to ensure it is not just the larger Darwin businesses that get the dollars but lots of firms, big and small, right across the Territory, get a slice of the action.
Katherine, with its new $2m railway station, is part of that expenditure, ready to service the passengers from the Ghan service from early next year. So much for the member for Katherine’s claim that they are not getting anything, and there are no new projects in Katherine.
The member for Katherine also accused this government of taking $13m in Commonwealth funds for national highways in the Territory. As he would well know - because we have used exactly the same treatment in the budget papers as he did - of the total grant received, around half is used for capital upgrades to highways and, therefore, included in the capital works program. The remaining portion is treated as repairs and maintenance expenditure for those same highways. Nevertheless, I take his point, and we will make it absolutely explicit in next year’s budget. He clearly expects, though, that reporting should be of a very much higher standard than the one he was prepared to set for himself.
The member for Goyder made a curiously contradictory response to the budget. He extolled the virtues of the people of his electorate. In fact, he said, and I quote:
Unlike some other areas of the Territory where there is effectively no private enterprise and everyone is,
in one way or another, on the taxpayer nipple, my electorate is strong, independent, self-reliant,
dominated by private enterprise and hard-working people.
Virtues we extol, and I applaud. I just remind him that the single largest private enterprise venture in the Northern Territory - probably the single largest taxpayer in the Territory - is in my electorate. It is called Alcan, a big private company. You should come over and have a look sometime, member for Goyder.
However, my point is: he extols the virtues of independence and self-reliance, as do I, but states that Humpty Doo needs a pool and the Labor promise of funding the pool is not enough for him. No, the government must operate the pool, as well. You cannot have it both ways, and we would be loath to water down the high principles within his electorate. We support his constituents and the manner in which they live, and we certainly would not want to water that down. We will negotiate with the Litchfield Shire Council with an offer of assistance to construct the pool, but for the council to operate it.
Both the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Port Darwin referred to the estimates of Commonwealth funding related to the yet to be finalised Australian Health Care Agreement. One accused us of using the highest estimate available, the other of using the Commonwealth funding to reduce the amount of Territory funding required for health services. There is a simple explanation that covers both issues. It lies with the fact that the new Health Care Agreement will also involve changes to Commonwealth Grants Commission assessment of our general purpose funding. To the extent that the finalised agreement provides any extra dollars for health, our general purpose funding from the GST pool will reduce. Thus, what the budget shows is the maximum amount we can get under the Health Care Agreement. To the extent that it actually turns out to be less than this amount, the Territory government will top up the funding to Health and Community Services from higher general purpose grants to ensure that the overall budget remains as published.
Next week’s estimates process - the first genuine estimates process that this parliament will adopt, akin with the rest of Australia - will provide more opportunities for the opposition to scrutinise the budget. Most importantly, it will allow the opportunity for the government to correct the opposition’s deliberate and, in some cases, simply lazy misrepresentations.
Unlike the opposition, we do have a vision for the future. We are delivering on that vision. It is a vision that will build a better Territory, harnessing the wealth of the Territory’s mineral resources onshore and offshore. It delivers real opportunities for all Territorians, not just those who reside north of the Berrimah Line. It is about opening the Territory to the rest of the world, and providing a business environment that is fair and equitable to attract new investment. It is about bringing gas onshore to kick-start the Territory’s industrial development. It is historic in that it is the first real step to industrialisation of the north. It is about encouraging a flourishing arts industry. It is about innovation in areas like Tropical and Desert Knowledge. It is about seeing our tourist industry expand, not just through increased marketing but through improving the tourist experience and airline access.
Because the world has changed, the Territory deserves a new style of leadership, and that is what the Martin government is and will continue to provide - not the same tired old arrogance of our predecessors. We are not looking to the past, as is the opposition. We are looking to the future, which is looking brighter for Territorians day by day, and we are ensuring the opportunities are there for all current and prospective Territorians.
I take the opportunity to thank the Under Treasurer, Jennifer Prince, and all of the Treasury officials involved in the preparation of the budget; the finance officers across all of the agencies of government; and the CEOs who have worked so closely together to produce this year’s budget. I especially thank Sam Mu and his staff at the Government Printer who do a great job under pretty tight time frames by the time the final product gets to them. Finally, I thank all members for their contribution to the budget debate. I commend the 2003-04 budget to the House.
Members: Hear, hear!
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members will be aware that the remaining stages of the Appropriation Bill 2003-04 will be considered by the Assembly on Friday 27 June 2003 pursuant to the resolution of the Assembly on 27 February 2003.
EVIDENCE AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 141)
(Serial 141)
Continued from 30 April 2003.
Mr MALEY (Goyder): Madam Speaker, I indicate that the opposition, having considered the bill and the recent amendments, will be supporting the change to the Evidence Act.
The use of certificates is generally seen as a grave invasion of a person’s liberty and rights in a criminal or civil trial. Indeed, in common law there has always been a requirement to use the best evidence available, and the rules of evidence have evolved over hundreds of years to protect individuals and safeguard all of our rights.
In my previous life as both a prosecutor and defence lawyer, I always thought that, at the end of the day, the rules of evidence and the safeguards some in our community often criticise, protect all of us. The fundamental role of a criminal lawyer is to protect those people who, of course, do not commit any offences, but also for those who do commit an offence, and that is proved and the person is properly punished.
There are many examples of certificates being introduced, which become prima facie evidence, of things like blood alcohol readings, and the nature or quantity of a prohibited substance or the purity of a particular substance. DNA is a relatively new area that has caused some problems in criminal courts. There is, strictly speaking, a requirement to make sure that there is a continuing chain of evidence. That may require calling the person who collected the sample of DNA, who then gave it to the receptionist; who gave it to the person who put it in the safe, and then the person who took it from the safe to be analysed by the scientist or other suitably qualified person.
To his credit, the Attorney-General properly articulated that in his second reading speech: court obligations can impact heavily on a scientist’s time. Often, many witnesses are called to establish a chain of evidence and not necessarily witnesses who assist the court by providing real probative evidence that can be properly tested. It is more a point of establishing the chain, and very often a defence solicitor will not ask any questions of that person; it is a matter of the person saying: ‘I picked up exhibit number …’ blah, blah, blah ‘… and I took that from the safe and I handed it to another individual’.
For those reasons, evidence of the results of a DNA test is a proper category of evidence which could, in certain circumstances and with the right safeguards - and there are some safeguards in this legislation - be adduced by certificate. I commend the government for taking on board the concerns that some solicitors have raised. I understand that, in the committee stage, there will be a proposed amendment which requires the reporting scientist to give evidence unless the parties agree otherwise. There has also been an extension from 10 to 15 business days that the certificate would be supplied to the other party. That will enable the other party to engage its expert. What normally occurs is that you send that material off to a forensic pathologist, usually interstate. They check it, they draft the questions that they say should be asked, and then it is sent back to you. Therefore, you have enough time to prepare your case if you are a defence solicitor.
Madam Speaker, I indicate the opposition, having considered this amendment to the Evidence Act, will be supporting it. I add this one rider: these amendments should be reviewed or monitored in a couple of years time to see what complaints have arisen - although I suspect there are channels such as the Law Reform Committee whose job it is to bring that to the attention of government. That is said purely for the record. Certainly, the opposition is supportive of the change. We ask that in two years time there is a review to see what problems, if any, have arisen on the administrative side of evidence by certificate, and to see whether or not the safeguards are sufficient.
Mr KIELY(Sanderson): Madam Speaker, like members opposite, I support the Evidence Amendment Bill. The intention of this bill is clear; it is designed to conserve valuable resources in the criminal justice process without in any way prejudicing the rights of the accused. It does this by enabling DNA evidence to be tendered by way of certificate in criminal proceedings, including in committal hearing and southern proceedings.
It is clear that we, as a society, are more and more reliant on DNA evidence to assist in clearing up incidents of criminal behaviour. There are, of course, many anecdotal accounts about the effectiveness and value of DNA in the fight against crime, and there is little doubt that DNA evidence is an important investigation and prosecution tool in criminal proceedings. It provides a unique means of identifying an individual and can be ascertained from biological matter such as blood, hair or saliva and can be lifted from clothing, house-breaking implements or weapons.
However, as opposed to fingerprints, where a fingerprint technician locates and lifts a fingerprint at a crime scene and compares it with known fingerprints on file, DNA requires more scientific processing before the final product can be compared with samples in the DNA database. When the forensic biology section of the Northern Territory police accepts a case, it is controlled by one scientist, the reporting scientist, although a number of other scientists and technicians may work on it. In the Territory, we have about five reporting scientists with three or four more support staff, so there is quite a network of people looking at these DNA samples at one stage or another. The ultimate responsibility for scientific interpretations and conclusions in the final report remain with the reporting scientist. All Australian forensic laboratories operate with this established procedural framework, and the documentation of laboratory procedure reflects national standards for carrying out forensic DNA profiling.
A recent case in the Darwin Magistrates Court has drawn attention to a potential problem in presenting DNA evidence. In that case, counsel for the defendant successfully sought to have the prosecution produce all persons involved in the processing of the DNA sample to give evidence, rather than rely solely on the evidence of the scientist who has ultimate responsibility for the scientific interpretations and conclusions in the final report of the DNA sample, as has been done in the past.
In other areas of the law in the Northern Territory where samples are tested, the integrity of the sample tested and, by inference, the integrity of the testing process, can be proved by certificate. For example, as the member for Goyder mentioned, section 29 of the Misuse of Drugs Act and section 27 of the Traffic Act.
It is possible that, following the court case mentioned earlier, unnecessary strains will be placed on resources by routinely calling persons in the chain of evidence - in this case, it might be something in the order of nine people - who are likely to give uncontentious evidence. That is why we are adopting these simple procedures that allow DNA evidence to be presented by certificate.
The admission of a DNA certificate is already permitted in Queensland. A certificate under section 95A of the Evidence Act in Queensland, in the approved form and signed by a DNA analyst, is evidence of any of the following: that the stated thing was received at a stated laboratory on a stated day; that the thing was tested at the laboratory on the stated day, or between stated days; that the stated DNA profile has been obtained from the thing; and that the DNA analyst examined the laboratory’s records relating to the receipt, storage and testing of the thing, including any test process that was done by someone other than the DNA analyst, and confirms that the records indicate that all quality assurance procedures for the receipt, storage and testing of the thing that were in place in the laboratory at the time of the test were complied with.
DNA analysts with appropriate qualifications and experience are appointed by the Director of Forensic Services of the Northern Territory police. There are a number of safeguards to ensure that the rights of an accused are not prejudiced: any party seeking to rely on a certificate must, upon request, produce all records relating to the receipt, storage and testing of the thing to show continuity in the laboratory; the forensic analyst giving the certificate must be called to give evidence and be cross-examined - it is up to the analyst who makes the comparison between DNA profiles to establish the matching cord; the defence may challenge the matter stated in the certificate prior to the hearing and, with the leave of the court, require the prosecution to call any person in the chain of evidence; to admit the evidence of the analyst over objection, without the evidence of the person who carried out the procedure in the chain of evidence, would involve unfair prejudice to the accused.
This bill is about servicing the justice system. Last year, as I understand it from the information I have, there were about 1500 separate analyses of DNA undertaken by the laboratory, and leading from those analyses, some 600 offenders have been detected to date. Therefore, you can see that the laboratory does an enormous amount of work, and there is enormous cost involved. The work is carried out under Australian standards. The use of certificates is a tried and true method. I would hazard to guess how many certificates are handed up for drink-driving offences in the courts in the Territory, therefore, the use of certificates in the courts has been well proven. This is a similar process, in that the certificate handed up will service the justice system, and will benefit the courts and the people of the Territory. I commend the bill to the House.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, first, I thank the opposition for its indicated support of this bill, and the member for Sanderson, whose contribution was very informative.
This is a commonsense bill; it simply streamlines the way in which DNA evidence is presented during court hearings. We do not want to see, as a regular occurrence, the entire staff of our forensic laboratories having to line up outside court rooms for lengthy periods, using up time that we would prefer to see them continue work in their area of expertise.
As the member for Sanderson stated, DNA technology has become a very powerful tool in solving crime in the Northern Territory, and through the recent Operation Genesweep the police ran in the Territory, our remand centres and gaols now have quite a number of particularly serious repeat offenders locked up who were out there committing many crimes.
Whenever you introduce a powerful new detection tool such as DNA, you also have to be very careful to ensure that the rights of the accused are being protected in our court system, in regard to very long traditions of finding a balance between the rights of those accused with the need to bring a crime investigation and subsequent court hearing to a conclusion. This bill is very much working at that boundary line between rights of the accused and the need to have an expedited court process that can bring court hearings to a successful conclusion one way or another.
The bill itself simply introduces the use of certificates that can be presented in a court hearing, which basically attest to the integrity of the processes of analysis that goes on in forensic labs. We have left in the bill a very important protection that any accused, through their legal representation, can ask for all of the lab staff to be brought into court and give evidence as to exactly how they handled the analysis of a particular sample; to attest that there was continuity of the handling of that evidence and that, in fact, there was no switching of samples or some misanalysis of a particular sample. That protection is still there but, where both the defence and the prosecution agree, a certificate can be presented by the reporting scientist that can be used in lieu of having the staff come and directly give evidence. The member for Sanderson outlined what is to be included in those certificates. They give all the basic information that the court would need as to what was done with the sample as it went through the forensic labs.
The amendments that we have introduced were as a result of representations from the member for Arafura - and I thank her for those - regarding the practicalities of the defence being able to gain the information on the certificate early enough so that it can take action to bring analysing staff into the court hearing. It also provides that the reporting scientist will, as a matter of course, be expected to be there unless both parties agree that the reporting scientist does not need to be at the hearing. It is giving more opportunity for the representatives of the accused to scrutinise the process of analysis that was carried out in the labs, if they so choose. If they are happy with what is on the certificate, the certificate itself will be all that is needed to present that part of the evidence. There are four amendments that will be introduced at committee stage.
Before I finish this second reading debate, I would like to thank Peter Thatcher, who is the Senior Forensic Scientist with the NT government, for the very helpful briefing on the practicalities of what goes on in the labs with DNA analysis; and Helen Findlay who prepared the bill, including the amendments that were done at very short notice. It was very good to see that done so quickly.
Madam Speaker, we will move to committee now and we will deal with these amendments.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
In committee:
Clauses 1 to 3, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 4:
Dr TOYNE: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 49.1, which substitutes a new section 24(3):
(3) If a party intends to rely on the certificate, the party must –
(a) at least 15 business days before the hearing day, give a copy of the certificate to
each other party; and
(b) at the hearing, call the reporting scientist to give evidence unless the parties
otherwise agree.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 49.2. This simply omits from section 24(5) the phrase, ‘challenging the matter at the hearing of the proceeding’, and substitutes the phrase ‘the hearing day’.
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 49.3 which omits the original section 24(6) because it is now irrelevant because of changes made to 24(5).
Amendment agreed to.
Dr TOYNE: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 49.4, which inserts into section 24(12) a new definition:
- ‘hearing day’ means the day fixed for the start of the hearing of a proceeding;
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 4, as amended agreed to.
Remainder of the bill, by leave, taken as a whole and agreed to.
Bill reported with amendments; report adopted.
Dr TOYNE (Justice and Attorney-General): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
BUILDING AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 139)
(Serial 139)
Continued from 30 April 2003.
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Madam Speaker, I will speak briefly. The opposition has no problem with supporting the bill. It is a National Competition Policy requirement that seeks to delete a number of sections from the Building Act. Those sections are under-utilised and are now superfluous. Deletion of these sections needs to proceed under the arrangements for National Competition Policy. Notwithstanding there is another review going on, these should be effected without delay.
Mr VATSKALIS (Lands and Planning): Madam Speaker, I do not think we should delay the inevitable. I agree wholeheartedly with what the member of the opposition said. We should proceed immediately.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
Mr VATSKALIS (Lands and Planning) (by leave): Madam Speaker, I move that the bill be now read a third time.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
MOTION
Proposed Censure of Minister for Health and Community Services
Proposed Censure of Minister for Health and Community Services
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, I am left no option but to censure the minister, to cause the minister to give the proper ministerial attention to this urgent issue that it deserves. I move that this Assembly censures the Minister for Health and Community Services for:
- her failure to meet her statutory responsibility to protect the health and safety of staff of her department
while at work as evidenced by the current crisis in the Gove district;
her failure to implement any real commitment to her aggression policy, as introduced in February last year;
her failure to ensure that staff working at our hospitals in remote community health centres can go about
their work in safety without the risk of assault; and
the government’s practice of transferring victims out rather than solving the problem.
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, the government will accept this censure motion. It is the most serious motion that can be brought before the House.
Mr DUNHAM (Drysdale): Madam Speaker, I note from some of the interjections and cross-Chamber chatter - the word ‘confidential’ has been used, in fact – that there are members who are alleging that they have had copies of this report for some time. I received this report this morning. Knowing the modus operandi of these people who they will try to pursue those in the department with whom they know I have very strong contacts, and are strong sources within the department, I put them on notice: if you start a witch hunt on this, you are again shooting the messenger.
As far as it being confidential, I am not sure whether this is the same copy that the Minister for Local Government claims he has but, if it is the same, mine does not have ‘confidential’ written on it. It is a brutal document. The minute you read it, it slaps you in the face, as it did to me this morning …
Mr AH KIT: A point of order, Madam Speaker! I do not have the document, I did not tell him I had a document ...
Mr Dunham: Okay, so you don’t have a copy. Stop interjecting.
Mr AH KIT: I said that the member for Port Darwin has had it for three months and she has not let anyone know. She has not passed it on to you, brother.
Mr DUNHAM: How do you know that? What I am saying is there are people with a knowledge of this document in this House. There are some people in this House who recognised this document before I even tabled it. The member for Arafura asked for it to be tabled, and I am happy to do it. I do not mind it sees the harsh light of day. I do not mind if the cameras are looking at it because it is in that way we will get some action out of this minister. We saw yesterday that it took a letter from the union to my colleague …
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, order! I am not going to tolerate that. You know the screaming is unnecessary. You can still make your point by speaking rationally. Government members, you are not to interject in such a loud manner either. Let us have some reasonable, sensible debate.
Mr DUNHAM: My volume, Madam Speaker, is a direct nexus with the volume of the interjections. I am happy to speak quietly; I am sure my voice can be projected at this level. However, I will not allow this attempt to, first, have this report somehow put away; second, claim it is confidential when the report I have has no such markings on it; and third, scream and yell at me in the hope that this message will not get out - because it will get out. This message will get out.
Mr Stirling: What, your message of hypocrisy? Your hypocritical message.
Mr DUNHAM: I understand the word hypocritical …
Mr REED: A point of order, Madam Speaker! I ask the member to withdraw that. You have ruled previously that the word is unparliamentary.
Madam SPEAKER: You should stop this interjection with …
Mr STIRLING: On your wishes, absolutely, I withdraw, Madam Speaker.
Madam SPEAKER: I ask all members to restrain themselves. It is becoming very disorderly and very unparliamentary.
Mr DUNHAM: I can understand the passion, Madam Speaker, because I also felt a great deal of anger when I read this. I was absolutely horrified; it is a litany of crimes against our staff. It is a chronological report; it does go back to my day as Health minister, that is true. If they have obtained a copy, I am sure some members will be moved almost to tears to read some of the things that are in here.
Chronologically, it goes way back into the 1990s. There are three reports here that go back to 1999. I stand up and say: ‘Yes, I was the minister’. There is a theme, though; there is a trend. There is a growing frequency of incidents - that is one trend, and is worrying enough. There is also a trend that shows that there are more incidents of assault, intimidation and victimisation of nurses in communities where there is no police presence. Some of these people are voters in the member for Nhulunbuy’s electorate, and I hope that he speaks to this. I also hope that the police minister speaks to it.
This is intolerable; this is a litany of crimes perpetrated against our staff. If you look at the frequency and the intensity of them, you cannot see a diminution. You cannot see a blip from when the minister first said that she was going to take this on board and put buzzers under desks or operating tables or wherever she was going to put them. The question I asked her then has now come to pass: ‘Can you tell me where that buzzer will ring if there is no policeman in the community?’ Many of our health clinics are in communities with no police presence - many of them. To have an aggression policy that says ‘push the button, the cops will come running’ is a pretty foolhardy thing to include, given that you and I both, Madam Speaker, could name many communities off the top of our heads where we know there is no police presence. Therefore, we asked the minister to investigate the buzzer device, right at the outset, and give us some solutions for it.
There are a couple of problems here. In the first place, I do not think that the minister realises that there is a problem. For a report like this not even to have reached the CEO - I can understand why it has been given to me. I can understand why people have said: ‘Listen, Dunham, when you were the minister, you would have wanted to know about this. You would have wanted a flash brief coming to your office to tell you’. They must have known that they had not even got past their CEO. Therefore, how do you go trying to alert the government to the intensity and magnitude of this problem, when you cannot even get past the head man? The minister had no idea this was happening.
This is a very productive censure motion in the sense that we have now educated the minister. We have now provided her with a report that she previously did not have, that sets out, chapter and verse, the problems in one region - in one region! We are not talking about Alice, Barkly, Katherine or Darwin - and there are problem communities in all of those regions - we are talking East Arnhem. This, potentially, could be one-fifth of the problem. This could be the tip of the iceberg.
I suggest that the minister take this as a very serious motion. A flippant comment ‘Oh, we are very interested in East Arnhem and leadership’ and all the rest of it has nothing to do with it. This is an issue of expatriate staff, in the main, in communities where they are routinely harassed, victimised and threatened with violence. Many of the things that you will see in this report are crimes; they are listed in our Criminal Code. They are crimes that should be pursued. The minister must come back with a suite of solutions to this issue. She must come back with a sense of urgency.
The reason I chose to immediately bring this to the attention of the parliament is that I believe that the prognosis is so bad in these communities that these assaults will continue. If, for some reason, I had chosen to put it off to a more appropriate time or the next parliament, or send her a letter, I believe that some sense of responsibility would have fallen on my shoulders. I, too, would have been implicated in the hiatus that occurs. I would have also been included in this inertia at ministerial level for the Department of Health and Community Services at the moment. I am not prepared to have that blood on my hands. I am not prepared to wait months, weeks - or whatever the platitudes that this minister has given us - and see another half a dozen nurses assaulted in the interests of some more appropriate means of conveying this to the parliament. This is dropped on the Table of parliament today; we are discussing it today. Within the next half hour, we want the minister to stand up and tell us what she is doing. It is no good to say: ‘I am ignorant of this stuff’. That is not a defence. You cannot stand here and say: ‘Oh, I have only just received this report’. I only just received it, too, and I am horrified by it - I am absolutely horrified by it.
I will leave it for others to possibly contribute on some of the incidends in here. Some will curl you hair. There is a very poignant picture that does not need much description. It is of a lady – the only abridging I have done is to delete the identity of that person. However, if you look at that picture, I will read the caption:
- Clinic staff were attempting to assess the mental condition of a patient when he picked up a piece of
broken glass and threw it at the doctor and nurse causing significant lacerations to the head and/or
face of both.
The offender had a known mental illness. He had undergone traditional ceremony that day as was
believed to have been using ganga heavily prior to this.
The accompanying shots are of the nurse involved. The doctor received more significant injuries.
Essentially what happened was the nurse stitched the doctor up, the doctor stitched the nurse up, and they went back to work.
That is probably why this problem has become so big. The stoicism of the people out there is not acting in their best interests, and it needs somebody with some care to intervene. These are people who are trained to be fearless in front line situations. Our history in Australia is awash with the exploits of our nurses in situations of war time calamity and peril. I believe that is half the problem; they do not realise that the danger they face need not be faced by them. This should not happen. They should not have to face this as a daily trauma. Their training in care, their innate stoicism, the fact that they have a very proud history of putting themselves in harm’s way, is mitigating against this being fixed. I ask the minister, therefore, not to prey on that goodwill; not to use it in a sinister attempt to make sure that they keep going in the face of this adversity.
There will be talk about the previous government. I know that previous governments have withdrawn staff from communities, and they did it in the face of calls from the opposition that this should never happen. I can recall Health Minister Burke doing it and the member for Arnhem, in the case of Wadeye community, saying how outrageous it was. I felt that there was a line in the sand and, if we could not ensure the health of our staff out there, there had to be some very significant undertakings and guarantees made by people in communities to protect those staff.
The report itself is damning enough, but it builds on significant advice that the minister already has. Let us go to the stuff that she already knows because she has received significant correspondence about a nurse - who had the fortitude, I might add, to appear in the NT News and another publication talking about the assaults she suffered, her difficulty in trying to have the problems remedied, and the bullying of this nurse that took place until she eventually left the Territory.
Mr Kiely: That was all while you were the minister.
Mr DUNHAM: Is that a fact?
Mr Kiely: Yes, it was. That is a fact.
Mr DUNHAM: That is a fact? I have a chronology of documents here. In fact, I can provide a document from one Mr Paul Nieuwenhoven, who now works for the minister, that substantiates her claim of bullying. Right? I have the date of it. So next time you open your big trap and you run the case that the minister did not know because it was in my time, I can assure you, not only was it in her time, but she now employs the very gent who was supporting this nurse in her attempts to get the department to fix it up. She has advice from the top, mate! She has big, bad, Paul Nieuwenhoven there and he is going to show her how to fix it. We have his transcripts. So, good advice: keep your trap shut. You are not helpful. It is instructive …
Mr HENDERSON: A point of order, Madam Speaker! That was entirely unparliamentary from the member for Drysdale.
Madam SPEAKER: Yes. Even though it is a censure motion, we should refrain from such unparliamentary terms.
Mr DUNHAM: Keep your trap shut? Well, it is pretty much what she said, but she said it quietly.
Mrs AAGAARD: A point of order, Madam Speaker!
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Drysdale, would you withdraw that remark?
Mr DUNHAM: Don’t keep your trap shut.
Members interjecting.
Mr DUNHAM: I withdraw the remark. Whichever one offended you, I withdraw.
Madam SPEAKER: I asked you to withdraw that remark. Do it properly.
Mr Kiely: Get a grip.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Sanderson, you should be quiet.
Mr DUNHAM: The remark that offends the member for Sanderson, I withdraw unreservedly.
This is a letter that is signed by John Kirwan. Hmm, that should give you a heads up, mate! He was appointed after we left government, so we are talking contemporary here, right? We are talking about Marjorie Riley who was assaulted on a couple of occasions. This lady had qualifications beside nursing including in risk assessment, so you could have actually used a negative experience for a constructive purpose. She could have actually gone to the person who was bashed her and said: ‘Look, how can we do things better?’. No. She was pretty much harassed and bullied out of the public service. She wrote to various people, including the Commissioner for Public Employment, and I can quote from his letter, which I am happy to table later if members want. He states:
- Often it is necessary for an issue of conflict to arise to draw necessary attention to appropriately
address important matters.
That is a good point and that is what we are trying to do here:
- Although some might view the existence of such a conflict as a failure, I believe it can be turned into
a positive if people learn from such events and make genuine attempts to create improvements.
That is the censure: you have not learnt; there were no genuine attempts to create improvements. That is why you are being censured:
- I am confident that the initiatives that have been pursued by DHCS, such as convening a working party …
Where have we heard that before?
- … comprising government personnel and community leaders is a result of concern for the issues you have
raised in your grievance. I expect there will be some positive outcomes from their deliberations in addressing
those issues.
That is what we want to hear. We want the minister to stand up and tell us how this failure in the system has been turned to such great advantage:
- A review of a grievance under the circumstances that you are now in is difficult, as I can only review what
has happened in the past for policy recommendations for the future …
He goes on:
- It is a process designed to improve the workplace wherever possible, and I feel that in your case other
future employees will benefit from your actions as a result of the DHCS implementing improvements
in their management of remote area workplaces.
That is what we want to hear. We want to give solace to these people who have put pen to paper, applying for a job out bush, that these improvements are in place. We want the minister to list them, community by community if possible.
Mr Ah Kit: Who is the shadow for health? Are you?
Mr Henderson: Who is the shadow Health minister?
Mr DUNHAM: Oh! Now, the business about who is shadow health is a very interesting interjection. I can tell you that this side of politics would view this as a serious issue. The shadow police minister, justice minister, corrections minister and the shadow for Aboriginal affairs would. There are people with connections in nursing, including people who have family and friends who work in this industry. Therefore, before you run trite things like: ‘Why would Dunham be interested?’, I can tell you I am vitally interested. If you want this censure to go all day, every one of us will stand because it is the sort of thing that we do not believe should be swept conveniently under a carpet somewhere.
This is very important. It is something that aggrieves all of us. Anyone who has read that report - and parliament will not let me use the word, but I can tell you I was disappointed when the minister scanned through it with her deadpan face and the hand clutching that she does. I have shown this report to three of my colleagues, and the word that fell from their mouths could not be uttered in this parliament, such was their disgust with the incidents and the pictures portrayed.
Anyway, the Commissioner for Public Employment goes on:
- In conclusion, I am sorry that your work experiences in the Northern Territory have obviously been
traumatic and unsettling for you.
That is true:
- I can empathise with you if you now subsequently hold an overall disillusionment of the Northern Territory
as a place to live and work. I can offer you an assurance the events you have been involved in, because you
have had the presence of mind to raise them with management, will result in future improvements to remote
area workplace conditions.
That is what we want the minister to say: ‘I have a policy’; not: ‘This is an issue of looking after nurses’; but to say: ‘This criminal behaviour against nurses out there will cease. If it does not cease, the perpetrators of these actions will face the consequences’. If it is necessary to set up some sort of flying squad to prosecute these people, I do not care. You have to remember that there is a lethal cocktail out there. There is a government that obviously does not care any more, there is a growing abuse of various drugs that can result in criminal behaviour - petrol sniffing probably towards the top of them, but there are reports of ganja, speed and other drugs - and there is a fragmentation of Aboriginal traditional culture, as we well know.
I can recall at a community not far from here, a man tried to assault the nurse and he was publicly flogged. They were the traditions and ceremony of that community at that time. So important was this person, they did not tolerate this behaviour …
Mr Ah Kit: Who are you voting for tonight?
Mr DUNHAM: Pardon?
Mr Ah Kit: Who are you voting for tonight?
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr DUNHAM: I will tell you who I will vote for tonight: I will vote for the person who can fix this. That is who I will vote for. I will vote for a party that does not try to hide this stuff. I will vote for a party that makes genuine attempts to fix it; that does not bully whistleblowers out of the Northern Territory. That is who I will vote for, and I am hoping that nurses, likewise, will vote for that same party. It is called the CLP.
Members interjecting.
Mr DUNHAM: This is something you should be ashamed of. Laughing in the way you are, should appear in Hansard. The belly laugh that you just gave should appear in Hansard, because nurses would be disgusted with you.
There was an interjection - a very helpful interjection, I might add - from one of the minister’s colleagues, when he talked about this incident involving Marjorie Riley during my time. I am very pleased that I have a transcript: 16 May 2002. Last year, right? That is you. It is from Mr Nieuwenhoven, speaking to Fred McCue:
- Well it is, I mean, and the sad thing is, we wouldn’t have got to this stage, Fred, if at some stage during the
process there had been some admissions by the department that they have not done the right thing by
Marjorie. And that’s all she is looking for. But the whole time it’s been a case of cover up, denial, and
then, you know, the final step for Marjorie was, I guess, the realisation that any internal grievance she’d
been pursuing is going to be useless.
So at the end of the day she reserved her right perhaps to stop knocking on the door of the Department of
Health and the minister, and look elsewhere for support.
There are some other good quotes from Mr Nieuwenhoven, and I am sure he can provide them to you himself, now that he is in your employ. However, let us keep going:
- Reporter: Consequently she’s gone to the opposition. So here’s somebody that sought to go through the
channels, sought to go through the department, sought to go through the grievance process, sought to go
to the minister, went to the union’. So, she has gone to the opposition.
Nieuwenhoven: Well, that’s right, I mean this is a woman who has had some pretty extraordinary things
happen to her in the course of her work, and that is the bottom line, Fred. I mean the department should
be supporting people like Marjorie, and we are finding that instead of saying how we can do this better
next time, we are getting reports back from the top level that they are saying that the department is
absolutely absolved of any sins in this matter’.
He goes on to say:
- You know she has had a fair degree of mental anguish.
Nieuwenhoven again:
- Well this woman, who was a senior occ health and safety manager at Western Mining for two years as
one of the jobs she did before coming here to work for the department’.
This is a person who had occupational health and safety qualifications; she attempted to go through the system; she had legitimate grievances; she attempted to go to the minister; and she came and got some solace from the opposition and from my colleague, the shadow for Health and Community Services. You now understand why we are doing this. We are doing this because the only way we can goad, prod, or cajole this minister into action is to embarrass her, through the media if necessary, into coming into this place and telling us what she has done. She will say she has a whole suite of solutions. We know from a member of her staff that she has not. We know that, in one particular case, he agreed that this person had been bullied out of the Northern Territory. We know, for instance, that if you look at one review in one region in the Northern Territory, you will see the severity of incidents going up - they are more severe and more frequent.
I would ask the minister to treat this as a learning lesson. I hope it is not too brutal for her, because it is something she is going to have to learn more of. Do not tell lies to this parliament - lesson one. Do not tell fibs, because when you come in here and say you are going to do things, there are some people who actually believe you ...
Mr STIRLING: A point of order, Madam Speaker!
Mr DUNHAM: It is a censure motion.
Mr STIRLING: There has been no allegation of lying; it is not part of the censure motion and I ask him to withdraw it.
Mr DUNHAM: She is a liar; open and shut case.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Drysdale, you will withdraw that.
Mr DUNHAM: Not in a censure motion, Madam Speaker. I am sure you will find I am allowed to do it.
Madam SPEAKER: You will withdraw that last remark.
Mr DUNHAM: Madam Speaker, could I seek your clarification on being prohibited from using the word ‘lie’ during a censure motion?
Madam SPEAKER: Let me speak, thank you. I will not allow the point of order that the member for Nhulunbuy raised because I thought you were doing it in the general context. But then for you to scream out that she was a liar, even in a censure motion is unparliamentary. I ask that you withdraw that.
Mr DUNHAM: Is this a new ruling, Madam Speaker, or is this …
Madam SPEAKER: I asked you to withdraw.
Mr DUNHAM: I will withdraw the fact that this minister lied, Madam Speaker. I withdraw the fact that this minister lied. I ask you to provide, for my own education, your reasons for that, particularly since this is a major departure from previous protocols in this parliament. Thank you, Madam Speaker, I refuse to use that word any longer. However, there are certain things …
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Drysdale, let me clarify. It was the way you used the remark. In the past, we have accepted when you have said someone was lying, but you actually said ‘she’ was a liar, and that is what I took exception to.
Mr DUNHAM: Okay. Well, someone is a liar. That person who is a liar is the person who promised to do certain things and did not do them.
Mr Bonson: You are an angry man - very angry.
Mr DUNHAM: I am angry. I was close to being moved to tears when I read this report. This is a report that, if it does not touch you, if it causes the belly laughs that we heard from the member for Arnhem. There is a problem of arrogance and insensitivity to a major issue.
Our first attempt with a censure motion is: please focus on the fact that you have a problem. If we can at least get an admission from you that there is a problem, and at least get the department to say: ‘If a nurse is bashed to within an inch of her life, could you please send me a report?’ Dear CEO, if you do not have reports like this on your desk, what is going on? Where is the log jam? If the new CEO is not hearing this, no wonder there is a problem. No wonder the staff are saying: ‘Look, Dunham, here is a report that you might find interesting’. Interesting! No wonder; they cannot get it through the system. Well, it got straight through the system with me, I can tell you. I can tell you that a report like that on a minister’s desk should have heads rolling.
I do not care if you want to look in the past, and if you say that there were problems in my time - I agree there were problems in my time. That is not what we are trying to sustain. We want you to give us that whole list of options that you came up with, where you said: ‘This will be fixed, this is a matter that is important, violence is unacceptable’ - all those platitudes. We want to see the action stage. Platitudes are platitudes.
If you are looking at an angry person with a knife, you can take no solace in the fact that the minister quaked in her boots when a couple of drug-addled people came in here, and she expects her staff out there to be able to front up to the sort of violence that is catalogued in this thing. For she and her colleagues to go to the courts and say: ‘Oh, I was really jumpy when that man walked into parliament’ - think how they feel! Think how you would feel if you were a sole practitioner in the bush, and at 3 am someone came banging on your door. Your job is to respond to emergencies, to go out and see what trauma might have to be addressed - not trauma on yourself.
We will admit we are not saying anywhere in this motion that there was absolutely no violence or trauma in the whole time we were in government. That would be nonsensical. It is not the case we are putting. The case we are putting is that the minister is not cognitive of the gravity of this issue. That is the first case. The second case is that, even her department seem to have a lethargy about getting these things through quickly, to tell her. The third case is: having promised this parliament there will be actions in train to fix things, can she please do them? It is no good standing up and saying: ‘I am going to get a quote for a fence, and I am going to talk to the coppers about more patrols, and I am going to do this’. We want things done.
Gove Hospital is easy compared to this stuff - it is easy. If you go to a community without a police presence, there are no notions of: ‘Let us have the nurse’s house and the 300 m to the clinic one big giant cage, or perhaps a tunnel’. You have to mix with the community. There is a growing ethic of lack of concern about the nurse, and acceptance of violence. It must not be tolerated; these are crimes. They are crimes against the very people whose major mandate is to help the community. There has to be a sense of outrage that comes at least from the minister’s desk all the way down: ‘Not acceptable! Not going to happen!’ When it does happen, people have to jump all over them. There is too much at stake here to let this stuff go without voicing concern.
The jocularity and hilarity I saw on the other side means that we should have captured all of this mob in the censure motion, because it is obviously an ethic that goes right through the government. It certainly goes right through the department. This minister, when she parades out her solutions, should do so in a way that they can be tested, because we do not trust her - because someone, to quote the form of standing orders, is lying!
Mrs AAGAARD (Health and Community Services): Madam Speaker, you cannot help but feel that there is some significant amount of smokescreen going on at the moment. We are aware that tonight there is some kind of CLP leadership meeting going on and, I guess, this is the kind of smokescreen that the CLP like! Whenever they have nothing on, they go: ‘Why don’t we do something on health?’ Health - something which they were never interested in when they were in government. Suddenly, they are interested in health and, not only in health, but health in an electorate in which they never showed any interest in the 13 years that the member for Nhulunbuy has been a member. Could that be because it is a Labor seat? Could that be? Or could it have been that there were a lot of Aboriginal people there? Could that be the reason?
This is a totally amazing censure. In relation to the report, I am understanding that this possibly is a privileged report to the Select Committee on Substance Abuse.
Mr Reed: The member for Arnhem said he has had it for three months!
Mrs AAGAARD: The member for Arnhem did not say that.
Mr AH KIT: I did not! Madam Speaker, a point of order! I said before I did not have the document. I said that the member for Port Darwin had it three months ago.
Mr Dunham: How would you know?
Madam SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! The minister has the floor.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Minister, do not go on until there is silence.
Mrs AAGAARD: It could be a long time, Madam Speaker.
I understand that this may well be a privileged document under the Select Committee on Substance Abuse. I have not received advice on that yet. I know that the member for Port Darwin is a member of that committee and she has had a copy of this report for three months - three months! If the member for Port Darwin was so shocked about this report which, in fact, is very graphic, did she write to me about it? No, she did not raise it with me at all. The reason my CEO would not have received a copy of this report is because it is, at the moment, part of the Substance Abuse Committee and is not an official report to go to my department. I understand that my CEO has received an executive summary and, as a result of having received that, he has quite rightly and appropriately made a time to see the Commissioner of Public Employment to discuss the very serious issues raised in it.
I say also that this whole business of the B1 and B2, which we saw earlier this year with all this leadership stuff, does that mean that, in fact, the member for Drysdale is now about to become the opposition spokesperson on Health and Community Services? The people of the Northern Territory have had enough of the member for Drysdale when he was the minister for Health. We certainly do not want to see that again; do not just keep churning out the same people. I would really recommend to the Leader of the Opposition that, if he is thinking about that, please do not go that way again. However, I know that the member for Drysdale just cannot bear it! He cannot bear that he is no longer the minister for Health. I can assure you that we are working very hard on this side to make sure that, in fact, he will not be the minister for Health, ever again!
I have had a very quick look at this report. It is very hard to actually digest a long report with detailed information in it in such a short period of time, and also try to listen to the diatribe from the member of Drysdale in case there is something to which I need to respond. As I mentioned in Question Time, a significant number of the items mentioned in this report refer to the time when the member for Drysdale was the minister. Yes, there are also incidents that have occurred since I have been the minister. I have never said that there was no violence in the Northern Territory - I have never said anything of the sort! In fact, I have at all times said that I believe the levels of violence towards staff - both in my department and others, particularly the Education Department - are too high and that, as a government, we are working to reduce these incidents. As I detailed earlier, the data for this year indicates that the overall violent incidents against staff in my department have reduced by 70 compared with 2001-02. This suggests that we are doing something right.
I would like to run through some of the specifics. There has been a lot said about the Gove District Hospital. Once again, the issue of the walkway is a long standing issue. I have already indicated that we have injected $1.5m into this area, and that the safety issues that concern the staff will be addressed, including the walkway, during the redevelopment of that site in the coming financial year. The former minister and government did not allocate significant amounts of money to that hospital. In fact, I do not think any money has gone to that hospital for many years. I know that the people of Nhulunbuy are very pleased about this $1.5m because, when I was there two weeks ago, people came to a meeting attended by both the Treasurer and I, and we discussed the issue of funding for health in the area. They were extremely happy, particularly with the redevelopment of Gove District Hospital.
I have spoken in this House on various occasions about violence, particularly in remote areas. It is true that we have a policy and code of practice for management of aggression. Is there something wrong with that? I cannot quite understand the problem. Is there something immoral or unethical about having a policy or code of practice for management of aggression? It is important that staff know what to do in cases of aggression towards them. This policy is reviewed and upgraded every six months to ensure that the policy is dynamic and responsive to changing circumstances. We also have a comprehensive orientation and Aboriginal cultural awareness program for staff new to remote area employment.
Something introduced since I have been minister is a safety audit of all remote area health clinics. At this stage, this has meant that we have seen the very sad legacy of the CLP: many of those clinics are in a shocking and shameful state. It will mean that over coming years – probably decades – we will possibly have to put hundreds of millions of dollars into upgrading or replacing those clinics because of the shameful way in which they have been left. We are working on that program. In the coming financial year, we are providing extra funds for the Galiwinku Health Clinic. Part of that work will include safety measures. In relation to further measures for safety in remote clinics, we have installed duress alarms, as I said in Question Time, in Category 1 clinics throughout the Territory and we have, in the current budget, funded further duress alarms for Category 2 clinics.
The CLP never did anything like this. Their interest in nurses in remote areas is a revelation. It is good that they suddenly have an interest, but the hypocrisy of this is amazing. Where were their duress alarms? Where was their policy to help staff if they were facing aggressive situations? I cannot see it. Suddenly they have this interest, yet there has always been violence towards staff, be it in the NT, New South Wales, Queensland or the USA. Sadly, this is part of living in a community; it is something that happens. We have to ensure that all violence is minimised, and that is what we are working on.
We have also been working across government to ensure that the whole-of-government looks at the issue of safety. Early last year, there was a meeting of the CEOs of health, education and police, in Nhulunbuy, together with senior elders from communities in the area, to talk about this whole issue of aggression and violence towards staff - whether they be nurses or teachers or any other kind of departmental staff. This was about working on protocols to ensure when there were violent incidents that, in fact, there would be an appropriate way for the community to deal with those. This is a successful program and it is something which we are rolling out across the Northern Territory. It is very important that we work with communities to ensure that our Aboriginal people are also involved in the solutions to these situations.
There was mention of police and that, somehow, we should fund police in every community. We have actually increased the number of police in some remote areas, and I imagine that we will continue to do that over the coming years. It is not something that you can do instantly. It would not be necessary, or even desirable, to have police in every single community. Instead, you need to have a program working in the community where people respond to aggressive action so that, for example, if a staff person pushes a duress alarm, then a senior elder will come and assist that person to ensure that they are safe. We are working hard with those communities, and it is a facile solution to put police in to every community. Some communities are very small, and the cost benefit analysis of that would be ridiculous.
Speaking directly about the Gove District Hospital, I cannot quite see what the problem is there. We are putting in a lot of money, looking at the issues, and working with the staff. What did the CLP do? Nothing. In relation to training, I understand that there has been some training. There is a training component for all staff on aggression and, in addition, a Gove District Hospital staff member has been accredited with professional assaults response team training to provide training, and is due to start the training in the hospital. Therefore, in fact, there are things happening in relation to training.
I thought it unfortunate that the member for Drysdale would bring into this House details about a particular nurse. I am not going to make any comment whatsoever on issues relating to Ms Riley. Discussing matters in this House relating to individuals is highly inappropriate. We do not have …
Mr Dunham: You do it all the time.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Drysdale!
Mrs AAGAARD: We do not have the permission of Ms Riley to use her name or discuss her case in this House. We do not have her permission, and it is absolutely appalling to name someone in this House and to use this person in this way. It amazes me how low the CLP will go, but I guess they really need a major smokescreen for the kind of disaster that they are facing.
Once again, I say that violent incidents against staff in 2002-03 have decreased. That clearly means that, during the time of this government, we have worked very hard and have been improving the situation. It is not excellent. I am not saying it is excellent, and I have never suggested anything of the sort. However, all we can do, as other governments do around Australia, is work hard to try to solve this issue. One of these things is to upgrade our clinics. As I said before, many of the clinics we have been left with are quite unsafe, and we are working hard to improve those areas.
I move specifically to the report. The report has some very sad photographs in it, and it is also clearly a report about substance abuse as opposed to violence. There is no question that substance abuse anywhere in the community is a very serious matter.
Although the report is about substance abuse, it also outlines very serious matters in relation to mental health. Mental health is one of the areas identified by this government as being under-resourced for at least a decade. Once again, it is a great embarrassment that we have been left with a very serious situation where there is significant under-funding. It is not unusual for people with mental health problems in Aboriginal communities …
Mr Vatskalis: Or in any community.
Mrs AAGAARD: Or, in fact, in any community, to become involved in matters to do with violence. It is quite common throughout the community.
Members interjecting.
Mrs AAGAARD: Ah, Madam Speaker, they are very sad! I might just add that it is curious that the member for Port Darwin was not the one to give the first speech - that is very curious. Usually the opposition’s spokesperson is the one to give the first speech. However, apparently the former opposition spokesperson just could not handle it. He had to speak, as in fact, he always feels he has to speak. He is so upset, he cannot cope with the fact that he is not still the minister. I am sorry for him; maybe he should just move over a bit and allow the member for Port Darwin - perhaps there is some kind of a change in portfolios about to happen tonight, because we keep hearing that the CLP is having a meeting tonight about their membership and leadership. They are very upset and I am sure the Leader of the Opposition must be very concerned about that.
Mr REED: A point of order, Madam Speaker. This is a grievous issue; a censure motion. It is a matter of utmost importance and of extreme concern to nurses who are being bashed - 44 of them in February and March this year …
Madam SPEAKER: What is your point of order?
Mr REED: Could you please ask the minister to address the issues and confine herself to the subject of this very important debate?
Madam SPEAKER: I will assume that members on both sides will adhere to that request. Minister, address the censure motion.
Mrs AAGAARD: Madam Speaker, in this report it says:
- Related Care and Opportunity Costs.
An estimation of the aggression costs was undertaken from one community clinic for 12 months
commencing December 2000. This cost was conservatively calculated at $59 600.
Did the CLP do something about this? Did they know about this? Did they put the money in? Did they do anything? No, they did nothing.
Since coming to government, we have put in place a significant number of things to address the whole issue of aggression. It is a very difficult area but the statistics indicate clearly that what we are doing has reduced the number of violent incidents throughout my department. We will continue to put money and effort into this area. No level of violence is acceptable, and we will continue to work with the police and communities to ensure that people are as safe as possible in their work places. This is absolutely essential. It is amazing that the CLP dare to talk about these issues, given their completely pathetic history on it. They are living in the past. They are a party of the past. We are moving ahead. We have actually decreased the number of people who have been physically or verbally assaulted.
In fact, a lot of the incidents detailed in this report as, indeed, do the formal statistics of my department, relate not to physical assaults at all, but to threats. Threats are extremely undesirable and we do not want them to happen. However, there is a significant difference between a threat and a violent attack. I am sure that all members of this House would recognise that difference. I understand that, in particular, threats have declined significantly over the past year as well.
Madam Speaker, this is a pathetic censure motion, and the government will not be acceding to it.
Ms CARTER (Port Darwin): Madam Speaker, how disappointing it is that the minister can only use up two-thirds of her allocated time to respond. She has 30 minutes and she gives us barely 20 minutes on this vitally important issue. It is disappointing to the House and to nurses and other health department staff, in particular.
The minister has been censured on a number of issues, one of them being that she is not meeting her statutory responsibilities with regard to providing a safe work place for her employees in the Department of Health and Community Services. A number of things have come to light in the last few days that draw attention to that topic. I note that in February last year, the minister launched her aggression policy and, during her speech in this House, told us that violence against staff was a major concern and a policy was being implemented to prevent and deal with issues of aggression. Here we are, 16 months later, and virtually nothing has changed - nothing at all! What we brought to light in this Chamber this week is a demonstration of the fact that the aggression policy has not worked and is not working.
I have been the Shadow Minister for Health and Community Services for seven months. In that time I have had a number of phone calls, faxes and letters from staff across the Northern Territory about the issue of violence. Because of my background in nursing, I have to say that all of those communications have come from nurses. However, I do take the point - and we should all be aware of the fact - that it is not only nurses who experience these problems; it is staff across the board. Aboriginal health workers have major problems with this.
The nurses who have contacted me have all been upset by the fact that nothing has changed. In February last year, with a great deal of fanfare, there was the development and implementation, supposedly, of this policy to deal with aggression. Since that time, nothing has happened - nothing concrete. The minister has been unable to deliver on this policy. Ergo, she has been unable to guarantee the provision of a safe work place for her staff.
The policy was meant to do a number of things, and the minister alluded to them. One of them was not only audits of community health centres, but all work places. Ideally, an audit should be conducted by a person trained in this area; it is not a matter of sending out a form to the nurses to say: ‘Have a check of these things and tick the boxes’. You should have somebody trained who is impassionate and does not have a fixed view one way or the other; they go to the work place and look at it. They do not have to worry about the budget, or whether or not they keep the staff happy. Their job is to go to the work place to determine the potential risks. They come up with a list of risks and then figure out ways those risks can be overcome. That is what an audit does, and then it puts in recommendations to the people who have the power to make changes.
The problem that we have found here, and nurses out bush have reported to me, is that very few of these audits are being done. I will be challenging the minister in the estimates process next week to give us a breakdown of which clinics, which work places within her department, have been audited for safety because of the problem of violence against staff.
My concern is that the budget handed down for the next financial year has no extra useful money in it. As we know, the budget only has a CPI increase, so the staff will have nothing new. The department will go along the same way as it has this year, and we all know how that has been: not very good. My fear is that we are not going to see extra money in the budget for addressing occupational health and safety issues in the work place.
Another issue raised by the nursing staff from out bush and other areas - Gove Hospital is another example in the last week - is the problem of security. Ideally, all of us work and live in an environment where, if there are problems, we can call on a body - be it the police or another form of security service - to come to our assistance. As a member of parliament, I enjoy very good security, which has been ramped up significantly since the invasion of parliament some months ago. I had the pleasure of attending a meeting of the House Committee this afternoon, where it was interesting to see the number of requests that are going to be made by the Speaker to the Chief Minister for assistance with funding to further upgrade security in this Assembly. From my quick tally, it combined to be about $0.5m which will be needed to upgrade security of the Assembly. I do not have a problem with that because it is vitally important that this sentinel of our democracy is secure and that we do not have problems like we had a few months ago.
However, it was very interesting to note the letter tabled earlier today from the Australian Nursing Federation, which wrote to the member for Nhulunbuy addressing this very issue, and sent copies to various others including the minister. The ANF cleverly drew a parallel between the fear that some members of this House felt when we were invaded and the fear that nurses in Nhulunbuy experience when they are harassed by, I suspect, mainly drunks who hang around the grounds of Gove District Hospital at night. The author of this letter has been wise in drawing to our attention that nurses also feel fear, just as some members testified in court about the fear they felt when the Chamber was invaded. The author says that members are having money spent on security - what about the nurses? Nurses in the work place should be looked after because they have a right to feel safe, just as we do.
I have a duress button under my desk in my electorate office, which is in the CBD of Darwin. I have never had to use it; I have never felt threatened at work. However, recently, it was accidentally activated. I gather the response was timed. It took 1 minutes for a policeman on a motor bike to drive up the footpath and arrive at my door step. It was very dramatic, very quick. The system definitely works in the CBD. However, I am concerned about how that system works outside the CBD in the more remote areas. It is very disappointing and a cause for concern that at a place like Gove, an urban centre, the police are not available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That service is not there.
That may have been the situation for some time, but the fact is that demands are changing, and the incidence of antisocial behaviour in our communities, including Nhulunbuy, is increasing. I am concerned that it is so well known that at Gove District Hospital there will be drunks in the grounds after hours, yet so little useful action has occurred. I draw to your attention the report that was tabled, Effects of Substance Abuse Aggression on Health Service Provision. An East Arnhem Perspective. On page 3, there is a report that Gove District Hospital has had a recent blitz - and I understand that is very recent - on security for staff and patients. I quote:
- As part of this effort, the hospital has attempted to record every incident of concern since late February 2003.
Of 44 cases recorded to 2 April, 42 were believed to be related to alcohol.
Therefore, within six weeks, the staff had recorded 42 cases of concern. I know that some people will read the document very carefully and note, on one occasion, that concern involved a goanna. Apparently, a visitor to the hospital brought a live goanna in and was threatening people with it. That may give rise to some mirth and may make some people think: ‘Oh well, these statistics and records are a little dodgy because the goanna was mentioned’. It would not worry me, but I do know people who are quite frightened of goannas, and everything has to be seen in the context of how people deal with things.
The point here is, that in six weeks, 42 cases …
A member: 44.
Ms CARTER: Sorry, 44 cases were recorded that were of concern to staff. In six weeks this year - 44 cases. To my mind, that is a really disturbing statistic. The minister is constantly saying that everything is all right, and she cannot understand what we are going on about. This is, in the minister’s mind, to quote her, a ‘pathetic’ censure. It is appalling to have that attitude. Another limb of the minister’s aggression policy was training for staff. I will discuss that in more detail shortly.
Times are changing. What might have been appropriate architecture 10 or 20 years ago, when the hospital was built, is no longer appropriate. I agree with the Nursing Federation that, given the fact that it seems to be virtually impossible to get rid of these drunks from the grounds of the hospital, some barrier should be erected between them and the staff. I would encourage the minister to ensure that, rather than just getting some quotes on erecting this barrier system along the walkway, she actually does something about it. I will be keeping track of it to see whether or not there is a commitment, and that the minister comes through with it. Times are changing and things need to be changed accordingly.
On 13 June, there was a news paper article citing the words of a very honourable man, Mr Mick Dodson, who used to be involved with the Northern Land Council here, and holds many respected positions in the community. As a senior Aboriginal person, he made the comment last week that he is finding the incidence of violence increasing and that it is ‘devastating’ and ‘beyond comprehension’. He was talking fairly specifically about violence against women and children, but he is picking up there on the fact that violence is increasing in our community, that it is devastating and, for many, it is beyond comprehension.
We have to adjust our behaviour, our structures, and the way our staff work to cope and deal with these violent situations. Of course, the ideal situation would be that the message goes out loud and strong to the perpetrators of this violence that it will not be tolerated, and that things will be done. However, at the moment, the minister’s job is to ensure a safe work place, and that is not occurring. She needs to get those audits done, get the changes made, and make sure her staff do the training that she has talked about.
One of the things she mentioned today is the duress alarm. The nurses who have been in contact with me, who work in remote communities where there have been some duress alarms installed, scoff at them. They scoff because, in a number of situations, when you press the button inside the clinic or your quarters, it rings a bell out on the verandah in the hope that somebody might come and help - someone might just pop over and help.
Mr Reed: A friend of the basher, perhaps.
Ms CARTER: Perhaps a friend of the basher. It is a major problem that you have this bell ringing lonely, in the middle of the night, and nobody is coming. There is nobody to come and help.
Dr Burns: Do they have one outside your party room? We hear a few stories about that.
Mr Reed: That is how serious you take this, is it? You should be ashamed of yourself.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, order!
Ms CARTER: This is a serious issue and you should be listening carefully to it.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, order! There is to be no cross-Chamber chat.
Ms CARTER: The alarm bells are not working or assisting as a solution to the problem. In this report, I read one case where a nurse turned the bell off because she felt it was upsetting the person, who was becoming more aggressive because it was continuously ringing and nobody was coming - a very sad indictment of a wishful measure to solve things.
Staff are concerned about this. I know from talking to some friends working out bush at the moment that, in December last year, a group of them went to meet with the minister on this very issue. From the area towards the Arnhem region, the nurses from the clinics - plural, clinics, more than one - went to meet with the minister in her office here in Darwin. I spoke to one of them after the meeting and she expressed the disappointment that she felt - and she knew that some of her colleagues had felt - with the meeting. Apparently, the meeting was loaded pretty heavily with management-type staff, and they felt a little intimidated by the number of managers there. They felt that the minister’s responses to their concerns were patronising and, all in all, it was a bit of a waste of time.
What they raised with the minister, in particular, was the issue of police response because it is quite apparent to staff - and I notice that it comes out in this report as well - that when you have communities with no police, then you have more violence against staff. I guess the reason is that the perpetrators of this violence know that there is a fair chance it will be many hours before somebody comes to help. I notice, for example, in one of the items in this report that is quite graphic, the police response is three hours on average for that community. Therefore, the community suffers a fair bit of violence - even though it is not a large community - because of the lack of police staff there.
What the nurses were suggesting to the minister was that, if they cannot have a police response that is rapid at all times because the police are not there all the time - they are on call and when they go out bush to the outstations, it can then be a long time to get a response - because there is a licensed club in the community, when the club is not operating and there are trained security guards living on the community, why not employ those security guards as casual workers to assist the nurses? Not all the time, but when they think something is going down and they have to go somewhere that is a bit dodgy, how about they say to the security guards: ‘Hey, come with me for an hour or so. Help me go in to this situation’, and those guards are then paid by the Department of Health and Community Services for the service they provide. The answer from the minister and her staff, of course, was: ‘No, we will not do this’. Yet, I believe it was a constructive and creative solution to a problem on a particular community.
I personally have a bit of a problem with promoting training, training, training, as the solution for everything because it smacks of ‘It is the victim’s fault’. How much training is going to help you, as you are driving along in a troopy that is full of people, back to the clinic after something has happened, and some madman comes racing out of the dark with an axe, thrusting at your troopy? How much training is going to help you? Yet that is a very real scenario.
The problem is that the training is just not happening. I have been involved with nurse training and I have contacts in the area. I have spoken to a few people about this over recent times, and they have advised me that very little, if any, training is occurring. The minister said in her response that the educator working at Nhulunbuy has been given the qualifications to provide this training. Well, the problem for her - not that I have spoken to her - is that she needs another person trained so they deliver this training as a pair. The department is not prepared to send anybody else over to assist her, therefore no training has occurred in the Gove area on this issue in 16 months.
In other areas, I know the remote area nurses cannot go into the major centre to be trained on this issue because the department will not release them. There is no money to provide relief staff on the remote communities to allow the staff to go into town to do the two-day aggression training program. Therefore, nothing is happening. It is a major problem.
We have heard the minister say she will fix the walkway, etcetera, at Gove District Hospital. Another quote from her was that she cannot see the problem. I suggest she pop over to Gove and check it out because, obviously, to have 44 incidents of concern to nurses occurring in six weeks is very serious. The staff have had to lock down the hospital after 6 pm, which is another indication of the problems out there. The reports and the letter that we have had this week all indicate that this minister is not doing her job; she is not looking after the needs of her staff. She has introduced this limp aggression policy; it has not been implemented. It is an indictment of her. I hope she can rest easy at night thinking about this because heaven help her if something does happen, and heaven help the nurses out bush.
Members: Hear, hear!
Mr STIRLING (Employment, Education and Training): Madam Speaker, it is important at the outset to get the key message behind this issue, including the report and, indeed, the censure motion from the member for Drysdale. If we go to the report, which is what he has based his censure motion on, the key message is contained in the heading: Effects of Substance Abuse Aggression on Health Service Provision. An East Arnhem Perspective. I quote from the report:
- The primary effect of substance abuse on service provision is an aggression expressed towards health
service staff and property causing
A further heading on page 3 is: ‘The Case for Linking Aggression and Substance Abuse’:
Gove District Hospital has had a recent ‘blitz’ on ‘security’ for staff and patients.
As part of this effort, the hospital has attempted to record every incident of concern
since late February 2003.
influence was recorded for each incident.
have some alcohol involvement.
The next heading is: ‘The Link between Aggression and Substance Abuse in East Arnhem Communities’:
Unfortunately, there is no equivalent study for the communities.
cannot be determined in 84% of the reports.
reports where substance abuse can be excluded ...
involvement in 34% of reports, and exclusion of alcohol in just 5% of the reports. There was a
lesser incidence of ‘unknown’ cases at 61%.
some indications of poly-substance abuse.
God be blessed for small mercies! As if there is not enough without suggesting opiates are in there as well, because we might expect that could be the next thing to occur if we do not get on top of speed and pharmaceutical abuse, apparently to the extent that it is occurring as per this report.
I go back to page 2, where the message here to me is: ‘… of 44 cases recorded to 2 April 2003, 42 cases were believed to have alcohol involvement’. That is the key message. That is where this violence is coming from. It is alcohol abuse by a relatively small number of itinerants, or long grassers as they are more commonly known. The issues of alcohol abuse are not new to the Northern Territory. They are not new to north-east Arnhem Land. It was recognised as far back as 1993-94 by the then Chief Minister Marshall Perron, who was quite innovative in his day and led the way with the Living with Alcohol program throughout the Territory. There was a very large push behind that program to market the benefits of lighter alcohol strength beers.
For quite some years here, when we had functions out the back, you could only get light beer. They simply did not serve heavy beer at any government function, such was the message that Marshall Perron and the government of the day was pushing through. He stood in this House and said: ‘Look, I do not know if we will get it right, but we are going to have a red hot go at this, and if we see it failing over time and there is a need for change, we will bring it back. We will twist it, we will change it, and we will move with changing circumstances’.
There is no doubt, and the records would speak for themselves, that there were very positive effects across the Territory on the back of that program. Tragically, with the departure of Marshall Perron from this place in 1995, the Living with Alcohol program - the staffing, the resourcing, and, more importantly, the message behind it from a responsible government - was lost. It was not pursued by Chief Minister Stone or Chief Minister Burke. There was an abandonment of the Living with Alcohol program and the good work that it did. We were also well served in those days by the parliamentary committee on alcohol abuse. It was a long lived committee of this parliament, and it led and worked with the government on that Living with Alcohol program. The best we had from Chief Minister Stone in moving to address alcohol abuse and itinerants was the infamous comment that you have to jump on and stomp on them, which was not helpful to anyone.
Earlier this year, a community-based group including representatives from Alcan, Yirrkala - and Gunyangara might have been there as well - met at Nhulunbuy with all the major government agencies present, to learn and be confronted first-hand with the extent of the antisocial behaviour problem, and the escalating violence all arising from alcohol abuse in and around the community. A wide range of ideas was proposed and a committee subsequently formed, comprised of people who were there, to work through some of those proposals. Although Alcan was primarily responsible for bringing this together, the committee is under the leadership of Eden Gray-Spence, who is the most senior Northern Territory public servant in Nhulunbuy. I mentioned Alcan because they were well to the fore in working as far back as mid- to late last year. A number of things caused it to be put off until earlier this year, but Alcan has been well to the fore in the organisation of those meetings.
The major initiatives that topped the list in that meeting, and will be the focus of that committee in the immediate future, is the need for properly resourced intervention strategies and proper rehabilitation facilities, something that has never been funded in that region. We have these centres in every other population centre in the Northern Territory. The problem is no less grave in Nhulunbuy.
Along with that, there will be a need for some bricks and mortar for a facility from which these programs can be delivered. There is an outstanding need and it is an important place to start. If we are to begin to get on top of the alcohol abuse, which is killing so many individuals across north-east Arnhem Land at such a young age, having despaired and wallowed in a pretty miserable existence of no employment, little formal education, and drowning in alcohol.
Recently, the school council at Yirrkala received $300 000 from the Arnhem Club and the local Woolworths store. That $300 000 came out of a case pursued by the Australian Consumer and Competition Council over pricing policies by both those organisations on the price of Victoria Bitter. The school and the community have plans for programs for youth, centred around an avoidance of substance abuse in the first instance. That $300 000 is a great deal of money when you are talking about school-based programs and programs for youth. There have been discussions between the community - when I say the community, it includes the Aboriginal community of Yirrkala, so it is a communities-based committee. I expect there will be close cooperation between the leadership at Yirrkala and the school, and the broader community, to see some of that funding also flowing into implementing decisions of the committee toward a resolution of the problem. Alcan have been proactive and very supportive in this process thus far and, of course, the Northern Territory government stands ready and committed to see this process through, most importantly, with the resourcing base.
There is no easy and quick fix to these problems. The basis of the antisocial behaviour and aggression that these people display to each other and others, particularly health staff, as discussed in this debate today, is the meaningless lives led by some of these people. We, as a government, would say any level of violence and aggression in our community is unacceptable, and we are going to work very closely with the communities of north-east Arnhem Land to draw together the strategies to address what is clearly recognised by the author of this document at the centre of the debate today as the absolute key cause: alcohol and substance abuse. Forty-two out of the 44 cases were believed to have been alcohol-related. You do not need to look further than that second page to see where the author of this document is coming from.
As I said, it is not new to the Territory, or to north-east Arnhem Land. If you want to go back in history, community elders at Yirrkala argued strenuously in every court, and took every avenue and facility they could, to prohibit alcohol coming to the Gove Peninsula at the time the Nabalco project was starting up. They did not win in the courts and, of course, alcohol became a part of life on the Gove Peninsula. Subsequent to that, while you had very strong community leaders - and I guess old Wandjuk would be one, and more recently through Roy Marika - throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, there was a measure of control exercised on the Aboriginal communities, on the use of alcohol. Sadly, since Roy’s death, there has not been the same level of discipline and control measures exercised on the communities. The community-based measures I am talking about need to be centred on involving the indigenous leadership of the surrounding communities because it is from those communities that people contribute, in part, to these problems of alcohol abuse, violence against each other and, in this case, health staff.
In relation to closing in the walkway - which was the subject of a question yesterday and again today - as a measure to ensure the safety of nurses moving between Ward 1 and Ward 2, that can be done, and it will be done. DIPE previously looked at the cost, and they have been asked to go back and have another look at it. As the Minister for Health and Community Services said, it needs to be picked up in the context of the one rather large program funded for this year, the $1.5m in the budget for the aged care facility, yet to be designed, but to be designed and built this year. Whilst that work will be fast-tracked, not even DIPE can work that fast to meet the concerns in relation to the safety of the walkway.
That project may still take too long, given the relative simplicity of the job of enclosing the walkway as a one-off task. However, I will await advice from the minister for Health. It is her area of responsibility and she, in turn, awaits the advice from the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure as to what those costs will be. Clearly, you do not want to spend a whole lot of money if you are going to bulldoze it to build the aged facility. Governments made mistakes like that in the past, and we want to avoid any similar costly exercises.
The next point raised by the shadow minister for health was the issue of the car park and, again, pointed to safety. I guess this is where I come back to the central point of substance abuse. We could enclose the whole town, facility by facility. It does not seem to me to be the answer; they are just bandaids. The central issue at the heart of this is this report tabled by the member for Drysdale and headed: Effects of Substance Abuse Aggression on Health Service Provision. An East Arnhem Perspective.. That is what I see as the key.
The infrastructure and the security issues - particularly in relation to the walkway - can be addressed fairly readily, but it will not make the problem go away. The medium and longer term strategy that will prove more effective is the work of the community-based committee and the commitment it brings to the problems. It is resourced and assisted by Alcan, the Northern Territory government and the Yirrkala community.
The safety and wellbeing of employees has to be priority number one for this government, and it is. We will continue to work with the staff to provide the short-term solution that is required, and the more protracted medium and longer term solutions. It is those strategies that will reduce the population of itinerants abusing alcohol, and the propensity to violence to which the abuse gives rise. Some will be rehabilitated, but not all. I do not think you can don rose-coloured glasses and say: ‘Yes, we can fix this; we are going to turn every one of these people around to a productive and meaningful existence’. Some will be rehabilitated, and government has to be there at that point with meaningful employment-related training so that skills can be brought into the mix of intervention to further facilitate and encourage a change of lifestyle, and the commitment to that lifestyle that is required.
The issue of mental health was raised briefly by the minister for Health. There is no doubt that this report mentions that, in some cases, mentally-ill people have a propensity to commit some of the violence perpetrated. The run down in mental health services over the passed few years in the Northern Territory has not helped the cause; there is no doubt about that. We are injecting more money into mental health this year. We do not pretend we can get that all right in one year with the limitations and fiscal restraint that we have to observe at this time in the budget cycle. There is more money for mental health this year, but it will take time to rebuild the service and make up the ground lost in recent years. However, we have to make a start. If we get more money into appropriate mental health services across north-east Arnhem Land, along with the introduction of other measures I have mentioned, each will have a positive effect.
I know the communities were mentioned in part, but outside Nhulunbuy the majority of those communities are dry. Umbakumba on Groote Eylandt has certain hours during which alcohol can be bought. Ski Beach and Gunyangara community opposite the Alcan facility is the only community that allows alcohol in and around those indigenous communities at all.
Where substance abuse is a contributing factor to violence in the communities, we have a problem, and it is a police problem. I have not mentioned police in any way through this but, of course, it is well known that the police finish at a certain time and that some of the broken windows and damage in the town generally occurs after the police have finished.
I have sent something across to the minister for police, and had an answer from him. He tells me it is an operational matter. He has to wait in turn on advice from the Commissioner for Police. I asked: at the rate of staffing at the Nhulunbuy Police Station - and I understand they are fully staffed - what would it take, and is it possible, that shifts can be changed, with perhaps fewer people on through the day? Therefore, those nights when these types of activities are most prevalent - and I suggest that is probably Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights of any week - perhaps fewer people on shift during the early part of the week frees up the rosters to have increased numbers of people on shift - perhaps even to the point of police on duty with 24-hour patrols throughout Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. That would be another measure that would go towards alleviating some of these concerns. As I said, I had a quick reply from the minister for police advising me that this was very much a matter for the commissioner, so I await that advice.
I finish where I started: do not let us lose sight of the key cause here - 42 out of 44 cases are alcohol-related. That is the problem. That is where we have to address our efforts and that is what we will be doing.
Madam SPEAKER: Minister, your time has expired.
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader): Madam Speaker, I had not intended making a contribution to this debate. I understand the member for Arafura wishes to say a few words and, in that context, I appreciate and welcome the opportunity.
I thank the member for Nhulunbuy for getting the government’s contribution back on to what is, essentially, the agenda. The agenda is to look at how we can protect nurses working in remote areas in the Northern Territory. The censure motion had two purposes. One was to raise the issue of the degree of violence that we have to recognise is there in remote communities, and to do something about it. The fact that the censure motion is aimed at the minister for Health is unfortunate, but that is also a fact of life. An issue like this cannot be ignored. When you get a report of this nature that brings these issues into the spotlight so glaringly obviously, they have to be brought forward; and brought forward quickly.
The fact that the report points out that, certainly over the last three months, there have been an alarming number of incidents since February - 44 in that area - and the minister says that she has not seen the report; spends most of her time bucketing the CLP for inaction over the years; makes comments that she will look at this report over time and get a greater feel for it; and talks about aggression policies that are in place, I believe, speaks for itself. You can espouse what rhetoric you like in this Chamber, but I and the member for Drysdale have been Health ministers and we know the way the health system works. The minister is not on top of the fact that there have been a series of efforts in that area to record every incident, or the status of those reports. To have an off-the-top response to the fact that those reports were ongoing, and you knew the situation and had a response to it is an indictment.
You can say whatever you like, minister, but at the end of the day - and I imagine your colleagues would have to be thinking this as well - it is not the acceptable to say: ‘I have not seen this report before. We have aggression strategies in place and those aggression strategies are starting to have some effect’. I would have thought you would know who was in charge or was leading the assembling of all this data. The fact that you would have a very good knowledge of what the data was starting to give you in one particular area over a three-month period should be ringing some alarm bells. I would have thought that you would be able to look at a couple of those incidents and say: ‘I am aware of that incident’. I know how the flash briefs run up. The flash briefs come straight up to your office, straight on the minister’s desk for the minister to get across them straight away. You should have had flash briefs on a whole number of those incidents, even the ones in the last few weeks.
Mr Baldwin: The staff read them; she doesn’t.
Mr BURKE: Well, this is the point I am getting to. You must have a system in your office whereby the staff are doing too much of your work because those flash briefs are meant for the minister. One of the things that is becoming a fact of life in your department is that there are so many flash briefs being created - because you are so worried about life or your staff are - by your department that they are now becoming like normal ministerial briefs.
Once you get into that situation, the flash briefs lose their importance. That is when this thing hits your desk and you do not know what is going on. That is why you cannot respond to incidents because you are really only talking about policy all the time. That is why we are really disappointed in you, minister, and why you will have more and more censure motions, unfortunately: because of the overall incompetence in the way you appear to have a handle on your department.
Having said that, the issue is one of personal safety for nurses. It means absolutely naught to the nurses out there that you say: ‘The CLP has been in power for years, they had plenty of time to do something about it, and we are getting on top of the problem’. Many of those nurses, I would imagine, would not have even thought of coming to the Northern Territory two years ago, for the period you have been in government. Those nurses have come to the Northern Territory believing, as your ads say, that there are safety mechanisms in place, there is a good working environment, and they will be protected. They are not being protected; that is the substance of the motion - it is one of personal safety.
It has to be driven very hard by you at the top. When I was Health minister, I introduced a policy that every nurse who travelled away from the clinic had to have a sat-phone with them. I wonder if that is still in place. Those nurses need a sat-phone with them every time they leave the clinic and, if it is not still in place, and has drifted away because of other priorities in the department, it should be reinstated.
I also said that I did not believe - and I still do not - that we can staff clinics to a level whereby there is one nurse going out on their own. I believe those nurses should travel in pairs. It is totally unacceptable for nurses to be put in situations, particularly in remote parts of the Northern Territory, where they travel on their own. Often they go in to situations where an injury has occurred after a fight and the atmosphere is volatile. We need appropriate responses to protect our nursing staff when they go into those situations. The least we can do is ensure that nurses do not travel alone, particularly at night. You have been in government for two years and I would like to know what has been occurring in that regard.
The member for Nhulunbuy made much of the fact that the root of the problem is alcohol, and he pointed to two pages in the report. I do not dispute the fact that alcohol is the base cause of many of these incidents, but the conclusion of the report reads:
- Given that most communities are already ‘dry’, the most useful item that can be suggested to mitigate
the problems faced by health services in communities is an enhanced law enforcement presence.
The report acknowledges that alcohol is an overwhelming factor in the causes of violence against nurses, but the report itself recommends, having considered all of those things, that the best thing that can be done by the government is to have an enhanced law and order presence. I say to the member for Nhulunbuy: I hear what you are saying, but it is not much use saying Marshall Perron introduced a good Living With Alcohol program; there was a time when we could not get anything but light beer at functions in Parliament House; and the Living with Alcohol program was left to drift away by Chief Ministers Stone and Burke.
Those nurses could not give tuppence about that - could not give tuppence! There is a good reason that the Living with Alcohol program is not funded the way it was, and that is a High Court case that stopped the Northern Territory from being able to put a tax on heavy beer. The money, though, is still flowing – well, should have been still flowing - to the Northern Territory in the compensatory arrangements after the new tax system was introduced. If the compensating money from the Commonwealth has stopped flowing, the Northern Territory has to ensure that that money is still there in that sort of program and, if more money is required, the government has to make sure it is provided.
It is not much use saying that there was a very good Living with Alcohol program in place, and the CLP government, through two past Chief Ministers, has let it fall away. Where is the new Living with Alcohol program? Where is the one that has been put in place by the Labor government? You have been in government for two years now, and it is in that two years that you should have come to grips with this problem and put in place some tangible effort to show nurses in the Northern Territory that you are dealing effectively with the problem.
Essentially, the censure motion is saying to the Minister for Health and Community Services: you are not protecting your nurses; you have a duty to protect your nurses; you need to put in mechanisms to ensure that they are protected. Strategies and policies that will develop over time, I believe, are of little comfort. They are necessary and essential, but they are little comfort to nurses who are on the front line, day by day, dealing with this problem. That is the reason the opposition has moved this motion.
One of the reasons people are so cynical about us as politicians is that we spend so much time acting like children, hurling abuse at each other in the Chamber and having childish laughs about little things - the latest childish carry-on is about leadership issues in the CLP. However, the real issues are not addressed properly. The real issues are those that concern people in their own work places, every day of the week.
The issue today is: what, in fact, does the minister know about the abuse and violence that is occurring to staff in communities, and what is she doing about it? Sorry, minister, you fail badly because you just throw the issue back to your department. You tend to always say: ‘Oh, as I look through this document - oh, some of this happened during the CLP period. Therefore, I blame the CLP for the terrible state that affects nurses in the Northern Territory’. Well, the terrible state that affects nurses in the Northern Territory is fully documented in this report. It is documentation of a period primarily on your plate - 44 cases over the last three months - and it is a cry for help. The cry for help has to be addressed a lot more substantially than to say ‘strategies, committees’. They want help now; they need protection now. The government has to do something about it now, and all the rhetoric in the world will fail.
I am disappointed, minister, with your response to this censure motion. I believe that, whether you accept it or not, there is something fundamentally wrong in your office because it is an indictment that you are not aware of the sorts of issues that have been raised, particularly in this censure motion, and the questions that preceded it.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Arafura): Madam Speaker, a concern in relation to this censure motion is that we have encouraged all our government agencies to give evidence to the select committee. It is disconcerting for me that this report, which was tabled at the committee - and any report tabled to the committee – should remain confidential to the committee until such time as the committee makes it public.
All members of a committee understand that about any report. We cannot stress that too much. It concerns me that this report - however it got out - has been made public. Here we are in this Chamber, politicising a serious issue. It is not an issue that has been denied on this side of the House. The misinformation to and the misleading of the wider community by the opposition that the current Health minister is not doing her job - she does not care, and there have not been a number of things put in place - is a total fabrication. They ought to be condemned, especially the former Health minister who moved the censure motion. To say that the failure of the Minister for Health and Community Services to meet her statutory responsibilities to protect the health and safety of staff of her department is a total - I know I cannot say ‘lie’, but just the whole process of this …
Mr Baldwin: You cannot say it, that is right.
Ms SCRYMGOUR: I said that I cannot say ‘lie’, but it more or less is that, and totally misleading to the wider community. There are matters in relation to this that are, at times, confusing. It is hard to understand just who the shadow Health minister is.
Violence against staff is a long-standing issue and I have heard the members for Port Darwin, Drysdale and Greatorex constantly saying how long they have been around the traps and have worked in the health sector. I have also worked in the health sector for a long time and been at the coal face, living in communities - not flying in, flying out or visiting, but actually living in communities, day in day out – and knowing that this has been an issue for a long time. For eight or nine years I worked in the health sector and, yes, violence against nurses is a big issue, one that has to be addressed. It is an issue that the Health minister is certainly addressing.
The other issue which is not talked about, but certainly is a major issue - and I wish the outcry from this side of the House would happen some days – and something that I have witnessed for many years, is the absolute indiscriminate and aggressive violence against Aboriginal health workers. There is not one nurse in any remote …
Ms Carter: Hear, hear! I said it today.
Ms SCRYMGOUR: … Aboriginal community working in a clinic who will not have compassion for Aboriginal health workers. Yes, you said it before, but what did you do when you were in government to lobby this person here ….
Mr Baldwin: What are you doing now?
Ms SCRYMGOUR: We are doing many things. The member for Drysdale did not. There was never an aggression policy that dealt with it, or supported Aboriginal health workers. Can anyone look me in the face and tell me that there was a policy in place which looked at trying to deal with this issue? The way the CLP government dealt with it was to shut those clinics down and remove the staff from the community. Too bad about the number of people who had chronic diseases, much to the dilemma - and it was a huge dilemma - of the nursing staff who had to remove themselves from the community and be placed in urban centres, have counselling and support, and leave behind the Aboriginal health workers they worked with, along with the community. A lot of the nurses cared a great deal the people worked with.
The violence against staff is a long-standing issue and I find it hypocritical of the member for Drysdale, who is the former Health minister, and the member for Port Darwin. This report is three months old; it was tabled on Friday 16 May 2003 to the select committee. Once again, it is an indictment that the report has come into this parliament and been politicised. It and will create an air of hesitancy to government agencies and others of: ‘Geez, do we provide this report to the committee, give evidence on this important substance abuse issue, and have it politicised on the floor of parliament?’. It is an important issue …
Mr BALDWIN: A point of order, Madam Speaker. I want to clarify with you that if the member is insinuating that my colleague, the member for Drysdale, somehow got this report from the committee into this parliament, that is not true. He has explained from where it came.
Mr Stirling: What is your point of order?
Mr BALDWIN: The point of order is that she cannot insinuate that if it did not happen.
Madam SPEAKER: No, there is no point of order. The member was trying to explain that.
Mr BALDWIN: Yes, but you are not accusing him are you?
Ms SCRYMGOUR: Sorry?
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
Ms SCRYMGOUR: As we keep saying, and I continue to reiterate, violence against staff is a long-standing issue and a raft of interdepartmental strategies are being developed and have been developed in consultation with a lot of the committees - something the CLP failed to do. There never was a relationship with communities to actually take a process. They did not go to a community, consult and work with them and say: ‘You need to take some responsibilities for the issues that are happening here on the ground’ - zero, nil. No consultation or partnership with a community to at least try to deal with some of those issues. They can sit there and look at the appalling assaults against remote nurses - it is a terrible indictment on the people who commit those assaults and they are punished.
However, what did the member for Drysdale do when he was the minister for Health? What did he do when these terrible and indiscriminate attacks were perpetrated on nurses? This just did not happen from August 2001. What did the member and his colleague, the member for Port Darwin, do when this aggression and, as I have said before, blatant assaults against Aboriginal health workers took place? The answer, as usual, goes back to nil.
I will quickly try to go through and put some of the distortion that they choose to continue with their empty and baseless diatribe to right. For February 1999, and it was flouted - and it is coming from the report - up to June 2001, there were actually 51 incidents when they looked through that region. It is not just in Gove when we look at these statistics. These statistics are actually going over the whole of East Arnhem region; it is not just what is happening in that area. From July 2001 up to 2003, there were 42 incidents. Everyone keeps saying - and my colleague, the member for Nhulunbuy, pointed it out before - of the 44 cases recorded to 2 April 2003, 42 cases, or a staggering 95%, were believed to have been alcohol-related. We have heard the member for Brennan belittle what the member for Nhulunbuy was saying in relation to alcohol. That is all they have ever done when it comes to the issue of alcohol abuse. However, it is serious and needs to have government attention moved to it.
I look at some of those incidents from 28 February 2003. This was something that was of concern when the report was tabled to the select committee. It is not wanting to say that all the incidents that were reported should be dismissed as not being real or serious. However, if you look at the first one on 28 February 2003, the incident was a visitor requesting to see a patient who was not in the hospital. The outcome was that visitor was asked to leave. Did police attend? No. Then the outcome of two drunken visitors annoying patients was that they were asked leave. Did the police attend? No. The incident with a live goanna occurred on 13 February this year. The outcome was that they were chased off the premises. Did the police attend? No. A visitor outside drinking and annoying patients. Were police called? Yes, then the visitor left. A visitor presented on the ward looking for a cigarette - that is something country men do all the time and there is no excuse for that. The outcome was that he left after being given one by a patient. Did the police attend? No. People at a barbecue area drinking and annoying passing staff; police called.
Then we look at 20 February, there was a drunk visitor inside hassling staff for a cigarette lighter. Again, smoking is a terrible thing, especially in a hospital. The outcome was that they were told to leave by staff. Did police attend? No. The same visitor found inside Rooms 17 and 18, directed outside and the doors were locked. Were the police called? No. I believe there were 44 incidents. At the time this was put to the select committee, I had some concerns that some of these were trivial. In that light, you can sometimes distort statistics. However, of the 44 instances, 34 did not require police attendance and were minor incidents, like someone with a goanna. Maybe they should have had a nulla nulla to hit the goanna.
This censure motion against the Health minister, sponsored by the member for Drysdale, alleges failure to meet her statutory responsibility. The Health minister has introduced, particularly in remote communities and far more than what the CLP did previously, a policy - and I know that the Health minister has touched on this - and code of practice for management of aggression, with a review mechanism to ensure the policy remains dynamic and responsive to changing circumstances; a comprehensive orientation and Aboriginal Culture Awareness program; safety audits for all remote health clinics; staff undertaking those safety audits - and the list goes on. It is a pity that the member for Brennan is not back in here …
Ms CARTER: A point of order, Madam Speaker! The member reflected on the presence of another member.
Madam SPEAKER: Withdraw that, yes.
Ms SCRYMGOUR: Yes, I am sorry. I withdraw.
Here is the hypocrisy of both the member for Brennan and the member for Port Darwin: the ANF over many years made approaches to the previous Health minister to look at the issue of violence, and the member for Port Darwin knows very well that this has been an ongoing issue. It is no worse. It is an issue that has never been dealt with or resourced properly. You know that and the ANF knows that. This issue of threats against nurses, particularly remote area nurses, has been raised by the ANF for a long time, and they could never get access to the minister.
There are many examples of things that we have done. Take the Aboriginal Law and Justice program at Ali Curung. There are positive things happening. The Kurduju Committee at Ali Curung is an example that things can work if you work in partnership with the community.
This censure motion is totally ridiculous. It should not have been proposed. Madam Speaker, I move that the question be put.
Motion agreed to.
Madam SPEAKER: The question is the motion of censure be agreed to.
Motion negatived.
FIREARMS AMENDMENT BILL
(Serial 158)
(Serial 158)
Continued from 28 May 2003.
Mr MALEY (Goyder): Madam Speaker, I place on the record the opposition’s observations concerning the proposed bill.
I am a member of a shooting club in the Northern Territory, the Top End Practical Shooting League, and I own a hand gun. I regularly shoot with the league at Leonino Road, Livingstone. It is a great club made up of a number of well-respected, rural people, and has great facilities.
The Northern Territory has the highest per capita gun ownership rate in Australia, I am led to believe. Prior to the introduction of this bill, the Northern Territory had one of the strictest systems of firearm and gun regulation in Australia. The whole gun debate involves the issue of the prevalence of hand guns in the community; what we can do as legislators to protect the community; ultimately, the noble goal of trying to ensure that those who commit offences do not have access to hand guns; and that the level of offences which occur involving hand guns is reduced. It is a very noble goal. It is one which everyone generally supports; that is, doing what we can to make sure that the hand guns are lawfully used, and that any unlawful use is dealt with severely with a significant deterrent.
The Sporting Shooters Association of Australia, which has a branch in the Northern Territory, along with a number of other peak clubs, has made several submissions as to what they see as possible remedies to the problem in dealing with the complex issue of hand gun control. There was a written submission to the Australian Police Ministers Council in Darwin in July 2002, a copy of which is readily available on the Internet. It makes for enlightening reading in setting out the background and community concerns. It talks about some of the attempts to control and regulate, and the availability of hand guns around the world, and the results which have occurred after the attempt to regulate or become involved in the industry.
By way of background, before we go into the minutia of this particular piece of legislation, the Sporting Shooters Association quite rightly refer to the British example, which is that in 1997 the government implemented a total ban on the private possession of hand guns. There were about 200 000 privately owned pistols and revolvers which were surrendered to the authorities. Despite that, it seems that hand gun related crime in England and Wales grew by 30% in 1999-2000, compared with 1998-99.
The Centre for Defence Studies report published in the year 2000 by the University of North Carolina, following a comprehensive review of national incident-based reporting, noted that:
- After estimating several models with a broad array of outcome measures and independent variables,
we found virtually no evidence that legitimate gun availability influenced the violent crime rate or crimes
committed with a gun. Rather, our results show that in the primacy of illegal gun availability in predicting
the violent crime, illegal gun availability is the only variable that shows consistent non-trivial effects across
all models estimated.
Our own Australian Institute of Criminology acknowledges that:
- Individuals who have circumvented legislation will be least likely to be affected if further restrictions on
firearm ownerships are introduced.
There is an enormous amount of controversy. There have been several studies, and several attempts to regulate the industry, from banning firearms completely to a whole number of ranges in between. The Sporting Shooters Association issued a press release on 24 June 2002, clearly stating that sporting shooters support police on the illegal gun strategy - that is, putting more resources into dealing with the illegal use of firearms and making sure that they are not trafficked, so that it is difficult or, hopefully, impossible for people to illegally bring firearms into Australia.
The tragedy in Melbourne, of course, had an effect on the nation - it certainly was a tragedy. However, it has been the view of some sporting shooters that the kneejerk response by politicians who do not understand the subject matter, has been incorrect.
The CLP has stood up for firearm owners in the past. It is this spineless Labor government which has not only caved in, but has also tried to ratchet up the bureaucratic paperwork associated with becoming a lawful firearm owner. I see that particular provision is not going to proceed, but there was an attempt to introduce a provision which will require hand gun owners – H Class firearm applicants - to provide fingerprints. That was not part of the COAG deal, but something which this particular government tried to slip in on the back of the raft of reforms which they agreed to through COAG. They cannot try and blame the other states or the Commonwealth in this particular instance; they tried to put lawful applicants into a category where they are treated like criminals and would be required to give fingerprints to the police. As I said, there is an amendment. There has been some lobbying by the member for Braitling, as well as a recent amendment from the police minister, indicating that that particular provision will not be proceeding today and it is going to be repealed. Credit for him for giving that concession.
Many of the clubs – particularly the ones like the Practical Shooting League, or those involved in practical shooting – have a fundamental concern, which I agree with, which is that the nature of the amendments are very arbitrary. For some reason, there has been a decision to exclude some calibres and not others. It sounds as though it is sending out the politically correct message to the masses but, if you drill down into the real effect of the legislation, and who it is going to have an effect on, it is just not logical. You can have a smaller calibre – and when I say ‘smaller calibre’ we are talking about the bore size. So, if it is less than a .38 mm, which is three five-sevenths to 9 mm, that is okay. However, if you want to have a larger diameter projectile, which could mean a .45 mm - and some of those larger diameter projectiles are actually less penetrating and less powerful than the smaller calibre firearms. Therefore, the logic of this legislation is that you can have, for example, a bolt action .308 - which could be in the form of a pistol - and that is a particularly powerful …
Mr Kiely: Be a big pistol if it is bolt action.
Mr MALEY: There are many bolt action pistols. It can be a particularly powerful projectile that could go through numerous people if it was going to be used for that particular purpose.
However then, for some reason, the authorities have chosen to exclude a .45 mm, which is ostensibly a target pistol. This is really not much good in penetrating. Apart from knocking down silhouettes and participating in practical shooting type events, it does not have a deadly effect in range and penetration …
Mr Kiely: I bet you would not stand 10 m in front and get shot.
Mr MALEY: … of a larger calibre like – well, it is a smaller calibre but a more powerful projectile.
The act also contains a number of what could be described as an ‘ouster’ clause. It states in section 7 that the commissioner is not, under this act or any other act or law, required to give reasons for refusing to grant a licence on the grounds referred to in section 8A. If you go to section 8A:
- The Commissioner must refuse to grant a licence if the Commissioner is of the opinion, having regard to
any criminal intelligence report or other criminal information the Commissioner holds about the applicant …
There follows a couple of specified criteria.
That in itself means that, even though the decision is made personally by the commissioner, it seems that the commissioner, relying upon evidence which he thinks establishes a concern, can refuse to grant the licence and the applicant does not have the right to appeal to a magistrate or to an independent third party, to have that tested. Currently, a person who is aggrieved in some situations can appeal to the Firearms Tribunal which is fairly made up of a magistrate, a representative from the shooting fraternity, and usually a police officer. A person is given their day in court and they are allowed to hear first-hand the reasons why the particular licence application or decision which they are aggrieved by was made.
I will skip to a better example of what I am talking about. It appears in new section 26 of the bill, in the new provisions in clauses 40A and 40B. Perhaps the minister can just explain the effect of these provisions. On my reading of it, it looks like the commissioner, on the basis of the criminal intelligence - we do not know what that is but he has been told something - can exercise his discretion to revoke a licence, permit or certificate. This is fair enough; he received information. I do not think any right minded and decent, logical thinking person would say there is a problem with that. However, at subparagraph (2), it says that the Commissioner is not, under this or any other act or law - once again - required to give reasons for revoking a licence, permit, certificate, etcetera.
We are left in this position where a decision is made unilaterally and there is absolutely no way that a person can find out why that decision was made, what grounds. There is a complete denial of natural justice. This was not specifically one of the recommendations from COAG. They were in a much more general term. This is following the New South Wales legislation. This is a very tough stance and it goes a lot further than what the government would be required to in accordance with the agreement they have reached with the other states and territories and the Commonwealth.
There is more. Unfortunately, once that unilateral decision is made and there has been a complete denial of natural justice, the police are then entitled to go to that person’s home and then, without warrant and using the force that is necessary, enter the premises, open the safe and extract the firearm. Rather than saying: ‘We will unilaterally take away your licence. Here is a notice saying that in seven days time, we want those firearms delivered back to the police station or we will collect them’. Rather than do that, this automatic and abrupt approach - and I know it exists in other sections of the Firearms Act, but we are talking about people who fall into a special category and who have already run the gauntlet of obtaining the usual police checks. These are not criminals; they are lawful firearm owners.
Any vague excuse about …
Mr Henderson: It does not apply to lawful firearm owners; it is only if the police have intelligence.
Mr MALEY: Okay, so a lawful firearm owner is lawful. The police receive intelligence and then they make the unilateral decision. That person is still a lawful firearm owner, so that decision will have an effect. Then what happens is that the police do not have to disclose the decision. No doubt, the police will say things like: ‘It is the nature of intelligence’ and ‘We all like to play Dungeons and Dragons’ - just while you seek advice, I will pause because there is another matter I want to bring to your attention.
Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: We are not in committee.
Mr MALEY: Perhaps I can raise it in committee. It is not an acceptable assertion by the police to say that, in some situations we might receive information from a Secret Squirrel source and we do not want to disclose that. It is not acceptable to put a blanket ban on supplying any reason. There are already provisions in the Misuse of Drugs Act to protect informants. There are other safeguards that could have been incorporated into this legislation. For example, if it is so secret - and there might be situations where that is the case - that information could be put in the form of an affidavit and given to a magistrate. The magistrate would not give it to the defence lawyer or the prosecutor. At least we would then have someone independent checking to see whether there are legitimate grounds for this decision.
My father and uncle were policemen for many years. I have grown up in the police culture. I am sure that an overwhelming majority of police do a fantastic job. However, there is no doubt that in any organisation there will be an element of people who do not have the high moral values and ethics which almost all Territory police have. These are the types of provisions that lend themselves to abuse. If that was not the case, if you could believe everything that every policeman said, then you would not have Royal Commissions. Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, Royal Commissions have disclosed that police offices, like every other sector of the community, are capable of lying. That is why interviews are recorded and there are safeguards to ensure that the very few who would abuse the system would find it difficult. There are no safeguards here. This is an abuse of process and lends itself to improper conduct by people who will seize the opportunity to use this provision - the fact that there is no review to take away someone’s licence without any just cause.
The noble aims to somehow protect the community through introduction of this legislation cannot be achieved on the face of it. We have the British experience to confirm that. There seems little doubt that the black market will thrive, and only lawful gun owners will be affected by this legislation. There is a view held by many shooters in the Territory - and some would say a justified view - that politicians are weak and will not stand up for them. The view is: ‘Oh, look, it is too hard to regulate the baddies, so let us just regulate the good people’. The good people will comply and the people who do not have any respect for the law will just continue.
There was a process where the states and territories all got together and sat around, and called it COAG …
Dr Burns: What about Mr Tollner, what has he done about it?
Members interjecting.
Mr MALEY: You would be surprised what our federal representative is doing. He is supporting Territory shooters, unlike the Labor Party, which is trying to insert these outrageous provisions regarding fingerprints. David Tollner is out there fighting for shooters.
Members interjecting.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, order! There has been a little too much - dare I say it? – crossfire. Let us have some order.
Mr MALEY: I am indebted to the minister’s staff for the briefing I received at lunchtime today. I appreciate that minister, thank you for arranging that at that short notice. I was told during the course of that briefing that there will be only two exemptions; that is target silhouette and western action. Of course, there are some restrictions on the length of barrels: revolvers are 100 mm and self-loading semi-automatics 120 mm, I understand. That being the case, there are a number of firearms which will effectively be in the category of - not unlawful, but will have to be surrendered and destroyed, or sold to someone who has the appropriate licence.
There will be a real cost to the taxpayer and, ultimately, I am not sure whether the taxpayer will be getting value for money. There is no point saying it is okay to have a semi-automatic Glock with five spare magazines, but you cannot have a Power Ordinance .45 mm, which is potentially less lethal than a Glock. There is no point in saying this particular Glock is lawful because the barrel length is 10 mm longer than a shorter version, or smaller frame Glock because, ultimately, even if that particular weapon, that .9 mm or three-five-seventh, falls into the hands of the wrong people, it can still do the same damage. The arbitrary nature of the legislation is unfair, and penalises good and decent sporting shooters right across the Territory.
It seems there was an agreement by the Territory government to accept the terms of the COAG agreement before there was any ratification of the minutia of that agreement. Therefore, why the Northern Territory government would commit the people - the registered shooters - of the Northern Territory, to the outcome of the particular COAG conference without really knowing and nutting out precisely what it meant, is beyond me. You would think the Territory government would be in there having a go for Territory shooters, and making it loud and clear for them that we do not have the problems that may occur down south. We have a rigid and well-enforced scheme. We have a system which works and, if it is not broken then there seems absolutely no reason why you should have to fix it.
Mr Henderson: For the same reason Shane Stone had to fix it.
Mr MALEY: I pick up the interjection, something about a former Chief Minister. We are not talking about the former Chief Minister, we are talking about this particular piece of legislation. and the very fact that this government did not properly back up the registered shooters of the Northern Territory, and did not properly put the case for the many people who are going to be affected by the proposed amendments.
There are a number of amendments to the Firearms Amendment Bill which the minister has foreshadowed. I have been provided with a couple of copies and there have been some minor changes. By way of note, in the new proposed section 110, the voluntary surrender of Category H firearms, it talks about the voluntary surrender of firearms to the Territory. This is legislation which is going to come into force on 1 July. It talks about: ‘… receive compensation at the rate referred to in …’ and refers to another section. We still have not seen what those rates are; no schedule has been produced. There is some negotiation going on, but there is absolutely nothing.
It then gets even worse. If the government is serious about encouraging people in getting firearms out of the community, then why would you have a section that says:
- Compensation is payable under subsection (1) only if the person surrenders every category H fireman
held under the person’s licence.
Therefore, if you have 10 hand guns and you want to keep one, and think it is a good idea to surrender nine, this particular piece of legislation says: ‘No, you have to surrender all 10’. You would think, to encourage people to do the right thing, if want to get firearms out of the community - if that is the noble goal of this Labour government - why would you have such a provision?
Mr Henderson: John Howard. He is the one who is putting this up - John Howard. It is his agenda. Let us get that right. It is John Howard’s agenda.
Mr MALEY: Okay. I was just confused for a second there. This is the legislation passed by the Labor government in the Northern Territory.
Mr Henderson: John Howard’s agenda.
Mr MALEY: Okay, if this is legislation passed by the Labor government of the Northern Territory. I am not sure whether …
Mr Henderson: Just like Shane Stone did when it was John’s Howard’s agenda.
Mr MALEY: Okay, so that being the case, the Territory government does have a right to say what is acceptable and what is not. There is a degree of flexibility and you would think that, at the bargaining table, you would make sure that Territory shooters and Territory people have a fair say.
However, there is more, because it goes on to say not only do you get a person to voluntarily hand in all of their firearms, if the person does that:
- The commissioner must revoke the licence …
Fair enough. Then it goes on to say:
- … and the person is not eligible to apply for a grant of a category H sports shooters licence for
five years from the date of revocation.
So, you are penalised for five years by doing the right thing and handing your guns in. What type of message does that send out to the lawful and legitimate owners of H class firearms in the Northern Territory?
Here is an example where this is a gun that could be re-registered and the government is saying: ‘You hand it in and we will pay you, but then we are going to treat you like a domestic violence defendant and ban you from holding or obtaining a firearms licence for a period of time’. In this particular case, it is five years from the date of revocation. That is completely unacceptable; it provides absolutely no incentive for people to do the right thing. It is no wonder that shooters are frustrated with the Labor bureaucracy and the fact that they have not been supported, in any way, through this entire process.
It is funny that we heard the interjections earlier: ‘We are doing it because someone has told us to do it’, and there are references to the federal government. Well, who is running the show? We had references earlier, during the course of the briefing, to the Bracks government, the Carr government, and now we are going to follow New South Wales and adopt some of their legislation. There is little doubt that Territory Labor have sold shooters out. To use the vernacular – ‘you have come too early’. You have gone off and have sold shooters out.
The most effective means of tackling the criminal misuse of hand guns lies in the increased resources for law enforcement at all levels. That is the fundamental; the way you tackle the criminal misuse of hand guns. What you do not do is, in a cavalier fashion, walk in here and treat lawful hand gun owners or attempt to make them feel like criminals. For a moment to suggest - albeit it is a failed suggestion and it is not going to work, it seems - that lawful firearm applicants would have to supply their fingerprints is offensive to people. I am thankful that concession has been given and that particular provision is going to be withdrawn.
There are also going to be some restrictions on the number of projectiles that can be in any magazine. I understand it is going to be reduced to 10. Once again, that will affect the capacity for some of our Territory shooters to participate in international events. Recently, at the Arafura Games, there were events for .45 mm calibre pistols which required magazine levels in excess of 10. In fact, the failure to recognise practical shooting and restricting the calibre to .38 mm will mean that Australia, effectively - and there are several Territory people who are part of the Australian team - will not be able to travel overseas and participate in those practical shooting competitions.
There was a suggestion: ‘Perhaps they could practice with smaller calibre weapons and keep their .45 mm overseas and when they get over there they can join the competition’. Well, practically speaking, that is an appalling suggestion. It might work but the logistics of it are just impossible. At the end of the day it just means that those Territory people, those keen shooters, those people who go every Thursday to the Top End Practical Shooting League in Leonino Road, simply will not be able to compete in those competitions. That is not because they have done anything wrong; it is because this particular Labor government did not support them and make sure that their sport and their interest was protected.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I certainly do not come to this debate as an expert on guns. I do own a gun, a .410 mm shotgun, which was used for protecting chooks when I had them. It was quite a handy gun. That is about my only experience with guns.
I am a little unsure how to start this debate. I have heard the member for Goyder, and I spoke to one of the minister’s advisors about the fact that I was under the belief that the number of disciplines had not been decided. I do not know whether the minister could give me a nod to say it has been decided.
Mr Henderson: The Prime Minister’s position is very clear.
Mr WOOD: We have not received a letter yet to say it is …
Mr Henderson: We have.
Mr WOOD: We have. So it is only two?
Mr Henderson: It is only two.
Mr WOOD: Right. So some of my wording here might have to change. Minister, I do realise this is not your legislation as such, although it is Northern Territory legislation, and I accept that you have, in your second reading speech, said that you disagree with what is happening; that the Northern Territory rules have been or are presently quite strict, and that you have been opposed to the reduction in the number of disciplines from two to five.
Be that as it may, as an Independent I do not have any great leanings towards the political party that is in power in the federal government. I will not be supporting this bill, simply because the cutting down of the disciplines, even though we cannot stand alone, is a very sad thing. We have strict laws and, by cutting down the disciplines, we restrict the Arafura Games and the Masters Games. We also restrict legitimate use of hand guns under the Northern Territory’s strict controls for people who want to use them for recreational purposes.
I have to say, though, that it is a pity that this sort of debate has to be rushed. Again, the minister might say that it is a requirement of the federal government but, if we are having COAG meetings, we could at least say to the federal government that this is a fairly important change in legislation and ask for time to have it put through at normal pace. I find that, once again, I have to race around discussing these issues to inform myself. As I said, I am not an expert on guns, but it is my job to find out about these issues because quite a number of people in my electorate own hand guns and are part of shooting associations. I need the information, and we should have more time to find it without it having to be put through on urgency.
As I said, and as the member for Goyder said, we do have strict laws. The NT Shooters Council is one of the groups by which I have been briefed. I have also been briefed by the government, and I appreciate the briefings. As the NT Shooters Council has said, one of the reasons we have stricter gun laws is because of the Monash University incident …
Ms Scrymgour: And Tasmania.
Mr WOOD: No, we are talking hand guns here. However, part of the problem was related to some of the slack management of pistol clubs in Victoria - the absence of probationary periods under which new members were assessed as to their suitability for membership, the means to purchase a firearm after a very short time as a member, and the means to purchase any hand gun without official scrutiny of its application to events or disciplines, to name a few. The NT Shooters Council say, in conjunction with an apparent lack of supervision or risk assessment of a member, these factors did little to obstruct the Monash incident.
I am highlighting what I believe is a deficiency in the process. After this incident, I believe the Prime Minister made a statement that there needs to be more stringent controls over hand guns and this led to a meeting of the Australian Police Ministers Council, which held a special meeting on hand guns in Sydney in November last year. I ask the minister to correct me if I am wrong. I believe there would have been a COAG meeting after that, which approved the recommendations of the police, and that was presented to our parliament in the form of this bill. Then, as a matter of urgency, the bill is rushed through because it is all required to be finalised by 1 July. The reason for this is, basically, because there was a shooting at Monash and slack regulations in Victoria last year. The focus is then said to be on reducing hand guns to make our streets safer and to disadvantage criminals.
If you really believe that was the case, shouldn’t government just ban hand guns all together? Most people in Australia would find that unacceptable because we do have legitimate uses for hand guns. The fact is that the federal government has used legitimate sporting shooters to ‘achieve’ these goals by tightening up on licensing requirements and restricting the types of guns used. However, is the real problem about poorly regulated sporting shooting clubs and the criminal use of guns? If so, that is perhaps where more of the emphasis should have been. It highlights the fact that there has been a breakdown in the process. Why weren’t those people - that is, sports shooting clubs - involved in discussions before the Australian Police Ministers Council? I say that because the NT Shooters Council have stated that after reading the Australian Police Ministers Council resolutions of November 2002, they could only conclude that whoever drew up the list of recommendations had a misunderstanding of firearms management, and that the inflexibility of the resolutions from the Australian Police Ministers Council and COAG were based on flawed directions to restrictions. To back that up, they produced a list of 22 points, which commented on the Australian Police Ministers Council’s resolution.
At the end of this list was a summary. At the end of the summary, they suggest that:
- …consultation be the order of the day before ending up with resolutions that are pointless and misdirected.
I realise that comes from a vested interest, but they do have a valid point that, basically, we have to react to something, where very few people except a limited number of police and other ministers were involved in the discussion. When we are dealing with such an emotional - and sometimes a legitimately emotional - issue, surely it would be better to include some of the legitimate bodies, such as the Northern Territory Shooters Council, upfront, so they can discuss these issues. We then have a more reasoned debate, not a rushed debate, about policing at that point and, hopefully, better input into what legislation is being put forward. I do not think the Northern Territory Shooters Council is opposed to national hand gun control. However, they wanted to see it done with a lot more input from bodies like themselves at the beginning.
We are now debating a bill which is to be decided during these sittings as a matter of urgency. It is a pity that, once again, we have before us a very important bill that will affect quite a few people in my electorate. I know this bill is subject to the whims of our federal colleagues, but I really have to ask why, perhaps at COAG meetings, we cannot spend a bit more time looking at the issue of adequate time for other legislatures to look at this act.
I have a couple of points to raise. I know, originally, there was a move to include fingerprinting in the bill. I am happy to see that the Northern Territory government has removed that. I do see, on both sides, the argument that there is good reason for having fingerprints. On the other hand, some people would say it is the thin edge of the wedge; it is reducing our rights. Are we criminals if we own a gun? If we have to have fingerprints taken, is that saying that we have done something wrong? The other question is: is it consistent? For instance, I own a rifle but I do not have to be fingerprinted, so why should a person with a hand gun have to be? On the other hand, I can see it being a valuable tool to control the illegal use of guns; to ensure that people who have guns are not criminals. Whilst I see the argument, I believe our present laws are strict enough to tackle that without the use of fingerprints.
One concern - and I believe it comes under the minister’s 28 points that we cannot change because they are COAG points - is that there appears to be duplication of responsibilities between clubs and police. Then there is the question of why the clubs have to do certain things that have already been checked out by the police, because of their requirements. You cannot get a licence unless you have safe storage for your gun, and there is a requirement for the clubs to do likewise. I accepted at the briefing that, hopefully, that will be shortened by little tick boxes in the forms, so people do not have to write lots of detail because, as most people would know, the people in these clubs are volunteers. You certainly do not want to be driving these people away from the sport they love simply because they have paperwork. Hopefully, that will be at least minimal or easy for people to fill in.
There are some other questions I would like answered. I am not sure whether the member for Goyder raised a similar question, which is the rationale behind why you have one calibre of gun being permitted and another calibre of gun not being permitted. What was the reasoning behind the cut-off as against the cut-off here. I would be interested to know that because the Shooters Council gave me a nice list of bullets. I gather that to use any of them pretty close to a person, you can certainly kill them. I would be interested to know why, in this document I have here, I have some marked blue - which I presume are permitted - and some marked pink, which now would be illegal. Why did the government make a cut-off at that point, and what was the rationale?
Minister, could you clarify what will happen with people who make their own bullets? In the buy-back, what equipment will receive a payment? Is it only bullets that you have purchased from a firearms dealer or, if you are making them yourself, will you get any reimbursement for those? Or do you have to do an awful lot of shooting between now and 1 July to use all those bullets? Is there any compensation for the equipment that is used to make those bullets as well?
As I said, minister, I realise that you spoke about the disadvantage the Northern Territory will suffer by losing the disciplines we have at the moment. Sporting shooters have made strong arguments for the five special accredited disciplines. My understanding now, as you say, is that the Commonwealth will accept only two. This will mean that, basically, that is the end of our Masters and Arafura Games shooting competitions, except for those disciplines that are still allowed, and that is disappointing.
One could say to some extent this is an overreaction because, in the end, if we are trying to stop criminals from using guns, will this stop them? They will keep their illegal guns under their pillows, as we saw in the NT News recently, probably not expecting someone to find them. However, I would imagine they certainly would not have been licensed guns.
In conclusion, whilst I support national control over guns, the extent to which it has now happened, where we will not be allowed to have our five special disciplines, very much disadvantages shooters in the Northern Territory. That is very disappointing. I do not know whether the Prime Minister has left a gate open for a change, but if he has not, then it is extremely disappointing for shooters in the Northern Territory. Because of that, I cannot support this bill.
Mrs BRAHAM (Braitling): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I know some people are rather surprised that I am speaking to this bill, because I do not normally. However, I am the Vice-Patron of the Alice Springs Pistol Club. Also, my Electorate Secretary is the Treasurer of the Alice Springs Sporting Shooting Complex, and a member of the Alice Springs Branch of the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia. As well as that, I have been lobbied by a large number of the people in those clubs. It is incumbent on me to put on record their concerns. I would like the minister to give me some answers to take back to these people regarding their concerns.
I understand the dilemma you are in, with pressure from the federal government. That does not mean to say that we agree with them. Certainly, the people I am talking about are good, honest citizens who love their sport, do the right thing, and yet now they feel as though they are being penalised by this bill.
I am concerned that you have received notification that there will not be five disciplines allowed. This affects not just the Arafura Games, but the Masters Games in Alice Springs. I was at the club last year at the presentations, and talked to people from around Australia. They are aware that sometimes there are some clubs that do the wrong thing, but they really value the disciplines that they shoot in the Masters Games. These people are genuine, good people who understand how to look after their guns, and the security that is necessary. They feel as though they are being targeted as criminals because of the actions of a few.
Minister, can you tell me: do you know of any criminal cases within the last 12 months involving a member of a registered shooting or pistol club? I would be interested to know. I believe there were four cases of criminal action with guns in the last 12 months. I am interested in whether any of those involved a member of a shooting club.
The point that has been made is that no matter what you do, you are not going to be able to stop the black market; it is still there. Members are well aware that if they wish to go out and purchase a gun, they can. You will not stop the criminals who want to get a gun. You are penalising responsible people and these amendments will have significant impact upon them.
There is a high level of concern about this bill amongst people in Alice Springs who are involved in this shooting sporting arena, and it is a pity that such things as the regulations were not declared before we debated this bill. We do not know the regulations that are going to be imposed. Until we know the details of the regulations, we do not know what impact this is going to have upon our sports.
I proposed the amendment about fingerprinting, about which I wrote to the minister last week. I am very pleased to say that he has agreed to do that. I have already passed that information on to the club members in Alice Springs and they are delighted that you said you will withdraw the fingerprinting element. They did feel that was one thing that would make them feel like a criminal. We appreciate that, minister, and are glad that you have done that. It certainly helps.
Minister, I understand that there will be an amnesty and people can take their hand guns and be compensated. However, I believe that this compensation will not apply to those illegal guns that are under the mattresses or the pillows. Perhaps you can explain why that compensation is not available to those people who have illegal guns, for whatever reason. It may not be for any illegal purpose - they may only have it because it had been passed on from family to family, or been brought from somewhere. There is no incentive for them to come forward with those hand guns if there is no compensation, so they may as well leave them in the cupboard. In the last buy-back, there was compensation for illegal guns. I have been told that by one of the dealers involved. Perhaps you can clarify that: why, in this compensation scheme, is there no compensation for the illegal ones? If you really want to get the ones that are illegal out of the cupboards, for goodness sake, at least give them that incentive to do so.
I know of a person who has a gun. They have had it for many, many years. They have never used it, but they feel almost embarrassed at having to go and hand it in because they feel as though it makes them a criminal because they have had this gun for so long and it has not been registered. If there was that incentive that they would get some decent payment for it, they would not be so shy about it.
We also need to talk about storage requirements. Clubs are very concerned about this because they thought they would have to go out and check the storage arrangements, which have already been checked by the police. I want to understand the responsibility of clubs in this matter now. Do they actually have to go and check member storage facilities or not? According to this bill, that is the way I read it. Perhaps I am not reading it properly. Perhaps you can clarify for us: if it has already been checked by the police, why do we have this within the bill for clubs to do it? I do not believe that is necessary.
Minister, you also have in this bill a proposal that the clubs must provide to the Commissioner of Police within three months after the end of each financial year an annual report giving the name and address of each person, the particulars of the firearms, and their participation. The feedback I have had from clubs is that to have this information compiled in one report to provide to police leaves them vulnerable. It may become a public document, and people will be able to access the reports and say: ‘Okay, this person is a member of this club, he has this many firearms, I am going to target his residence to take that gun’. They feel as though they are vulnerable and that you are leaving them open for people to know who has firearms and how they can access them. That is the purpose of my amendment: to delete that. If the police already have these records, why would we bother to ask the clubs to compile them in an annual report? Surely, if the police are doing their job properly, they already have that information and there is no need for this. I ask you to clarify that for me when we go into the committee stage.
Minister, I also want to talk about the Firearms Collector’s Licence. The bill requires regular attendance at association meetings. As we know, there is no club outside of Darwin or Adelaide. I have had communication from Col Jarrett in Alice Springs who said that following this, there has been a discussion about it, and that the Arms Collectors’ Council of the Northern Territory will set up a sub-branch in Alice Springs to meet the requirements of the bill. I want to know, Minister, whether that will suffice under this legislation.
On licence renewals, every year someone has to go in to a police station to renew their licence. We do not have to do it for our driving licences; that is every three years. Our ancillaries in police stations have enough to do without this continual stream of people coming in to renew their licences. There are, I believe, approximately 500 owners in the Northern Territory. That leads to a huge amount of time consumed in administrative matters that possibly could be overcome by making a licence for three years. It would streamline the whole process if we had a way in which the licences could be renewed for a period of more than one year, because I would say it is almost a waste of ancillaries’ time to be there processing these renewals. Minister, perhaps you could comment on that for me as well.
When I went to the pistol club last year, they were really keen on getting younger people involved in their club. As you know, a lot of our clubs have problems because they have older members and it is very hard to encourage younger members. However, they did have a program whereby they were doing that quite well. Minister, your bill says that no one can go along and have a go unless they are registered or have a permit. Therefore, if you take your young son along to the gun club and he says: ‘Can I have a go, Dad?’, you cannot let him do that; he has to have a permit. You are putting the cart before the horse. Surely, in many circumstances, we want to encourage people. They might try this and they may not like it, but at least they have had a go. Surely, the bill discourages people from joining the sport. I do not think that is what you intend: to discourage people from participating in this sport. I would imagine that you want this sport to continue, as we do most other sports in the Territory, particularly when they are conducted in such a controlled way. However, this stipulation that no one can shoot unless they have a permit seems to be a disincentive for clubs and people who wish to go along and see what it is all about. It is something that you should look at. Perhaps we could do it that way.
The concerns raised by clubs, that any person would not be able to drop into a club without prior application for a permit from the police - that is what this bill says.
Mr Henderson: Would you repeat that, please?
Mrs BRAHAM: The concern of the clubs is that any person would not be able to drop into a club without prior application for a permit from police. That is my question: is that so? Before you even go out to a club as a new person to shoot, must you have a permit?
Mr Henderson: To visit or to shoot?
Mrs BRAHAM: To shoot. If you are a visitor, and you do not have a licence and you want to have a go, must you have a permit?
It also says in your bill that a holder of a firearms instructor’s licence would be the only member to undergo or give any training with that person. There are only two approved firearm instructors in the Northern Territory at present, and they are both in Darwin. I know the police have wanted, for many years, to introduce a firearms instructors course, but this has not happened in the regional centres, rural or remote. Could the minister please tell us whether he is going to establish an instructors course in the regional centres to cover this provision?
Basically, that is a summary of the concerns that have been raised with me by people involved in this sport. I call it a sport because I know that they do it on a competitive basis. There is very good competition all around Australia. We have seen that ourselves in the Arafura Games and Masters Games. It seems to me that these amendments will not do anything to enhance the sport but, most of all, it will not, in fact, do what you are hoping to do - or John Howard, the Prime Minister, is hoping to do – which is to get rid of the illegal firearms in our society.
Minister, could tell us how many guns, already registered, will be illegal now that there are only two disciplines allowed? I would appreciate answers to all those queries.
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I contribute to this debate because it is a critically important debate, not because of the fact that there are certain elements of this bill that in themselves need to be discussed - and discussed at some length - and carefully considered, but because the central issue we should be thinking about very deeply is why this bill is before us at all.
The history of this gun buy-back scheme, first of all, came out of the Port Arthur shootings. The NT spoke loudly at the time, when other states in Australia were saying: ‘Isn’t it terrible that there are such lax gun laws in Australia? We have to do something about it’. What actually was the case was that the Northern Territory was far and away in front of other states and territories with licences, in the way sporting organisations, pastoral owners, and any other individual in the Northern Territory had to meet rigorous standards in being able to apply for and gain a gun, rifle, or whatever, and it was the other states in Australia that had to catch up.
Notwithstanding that, the Prime Minister had his way and, at the end of the day, the Northern Territory had to make some amendments which, in themselves, I believe were obnoxious because those things were forced unilaterally on Territorians. However, it was something that other states and territories supported - the larger states in particular at the outset - and that made the Northern Territory’s position harder to maintain. We did maintain a position as strongly and as hard as we could, and we got a range of concessions in holding that position, which watered down considerably what the Prime Minister had intended at the outset, and what was eventually included in nationally-agreed legislation. From that point, I believe that Territorians have adjusted to the new standards. The gun dealers were, I believe, particularly disadvantaged by that legislation. However, we have all had to learn to live with it.
Along comes some ratbag who undertakes a shooting at Monash University in Victoria and, by the by, he is the member of a shooting club. All of a sudden, Australia is up in arms again, saying: ‘We have to do more; we have not done enough about this gun buy-back scheme’. How is it addressed? The first step was that the Prime Minister decided that, like the first gun buy-back scheme, he was going to lead the way, and at COAG this issue would be discussed. I have looked at the transcripts from the news interviews from that first COAG meeting. One of the interesting things about that meeting was that the ABC News in the Northern Territory, and FM104.9 radio news, talked about the COAG agreement. One of the comments on FM104.9, on 9 December 2002 was:
- Chief Minister Clare Martin has signed off on an agreement for uniform national gun laws which include
mandatory gaol terms for offenders who break the laws. The new laws will come into effect in July next year.
Ms Martin says: ‘They will make the streets safer. Only people with a legitimate reason to own a hand gun will
be able to buy them’.
It goes on to say:
- A $200m national buy-back scheme is expected to remove a large proportion of illegal hand guns from
circulation in Australia.
The news of 8 December on the Internet reports also:
- Martin signs up for tough gun laws. Chief Minister Clare Martin signed off on the agreement at a meeting of
state and territory leaders in Canberra on Friday. The new laws will: ban all semi-automatic hand guns
with barrel lengths of less than 122 mm; ban all revolvers and single-shot hand guns with barrels under
100 mm; ban all hand guns with a shot capacity of more than 10 rounds; and restrict legal hand guns to
a calibre of .38 mm, with special dispensations of up to .45 mm calibre for accredited sporting events.
It is instructive to go back to the second reading speech of the legislation that we are debating today, which said:
- Honourable members should note that some of the details of these reforms are yet to be settled
between the Commonwealth and the states and territories. One area of disagreement concerns
the number of special accredited disciplines that should be exempt from the proposed category
H sports shooting disciplines organised by sports shooting clubs. The Northern Territory
government agrees that sports shooters make a strong argument for seeking the exemption of
five special accredited disciplines. The Commonwealth, on the other hand, asserts that only two
disciplines should be exempt.
I had a briefing for which I thank the minister. At that briefing, the officers present were very helpful in explaining the detail of the legislation. However, at the meeting came the catch-22: ‘By the by, we now have a letter from the Prime Minister of Australia, in which he has said: “That is it, all over red rover!. There are only two exemptions in sporting shooting classifications, and that is it. If you do not agree to that, there is no buy-back money coming from the Commonwealth. So, agree to the lot - agree to only two classifications of shooting, or it is all over.”’.
As I understand it - and I have a note here somewhere - the two classifications of shooting that are allowed are target shooting, the western action classification; black powder shooting is exempt and the issue of practical shooting is out. If you want to conduct practical shooting classifications for a calibre of weapon greater than .38 mm calibre, you cannot do it.
If we cut to the chase of this argument, there is the central issue: are Territorians disadvantaged by this new act? The Territorians who are disadvantaged by this new act are responsible, law-abiding Territorians conducting a sport that they have conducted for many years, and have done it well. They also undertake that sport in competition, not only in Australia but overseas. Those Territorians are disadvantaged in international competition because, for practical shooting in international competitions, using a weapon of over .38 mm calibre, they have no opportunity to practice in their home state. They can make arrangements to have weapons overseas, I suppose, and then go there and do some warm-up training as best they can in order to be competitive with a weapon they obtain in that jurisdiction but, for practical purposes, they cannot practice in their home state. The answer that the government will use would be: ‘Yes, but there is no other jurisdiction that will have practical shooting classifications of higher than .38 mm calibre, so they are not disadvantaged within Australia’. That is not the point.
It is also not the point to blame the Prime Minister. The blame for this legislation lies fairly and squarely with the Chief Minister who walked into a COAG meeting and agreed to something to which she should not have agreed. I would have thought the only position the Chief Minister should have held at that first COAG meeting was to say: ‘You have no agreement from the Northern Territory. You will only get agreement from the Northern Territory when Territorians can see exactly what you are prescribing for Territorians. Until you can do that, you have no agreement’. It is no good standing in the Chamber today and saying: ‘This is all the fault of the Prime Minister’. No. You can say that at the end of the day when you have had all your fights with the Prime Minister, put all your arguments to Territorians and the Prime Minister, and then you are overridden. When you say, on the day of the COAG meeting, that you have signed up, you are dead. That is essentially what happened, and it has been all over, red rover, ever since then.
Sadly, it was only a matter of time for those sporting shooting organisations that were hoping the Northern Territory would gain some sort of exemption were disappointed because the larger states would inevitably cave in, and cave in quickly, because of the politics of it. Now the Northern Territory government says: ‘We have no option except to pass this law, otherwise we will not get our $5m from the Commonwealth’. So what? Tell the Commonwealth to keep their $5m. Tell them we do not need it. Tell the Commonwealth: ‘Thanks very much. We have a regime in place; not only will our sporting shooters be able to conduct classification shooting up to .45 mm calibre, but they will also be able to go interstate and, for those who want to shoot .38 mm calibre, they can do so interstate’. What is wrong with that position?
Why does the Northern Territory have to meet every exemption of the Prime Minister? The answer, I guess, that the minister will give is that unless we agree to every item that is in the COAG agreement, the Commonwealth will not give us our $5m; the Commonwealth will not allow us to strengthen the legislation that had no fault in the Northern Territory - may have had problems in other parts of Australia – and if we do not do everything that the Prime Minister wants then we do not get our $5m. It is a pretty poor way to bring legislation into this House. It is also pretty poor when you turn around and blame the Prime Minister for all of this when, at the end of the day, the responsibility lies fairly and squarely with the Chief Minister.
I am not trying to preach, but I do know how COAG meetings work. They are pretty general in the way they have discussions. What you have ensure is that you are not a signatory to a communiqu to which you do not agree. I believe the Chief Minister was wrong to go in there and slide off the politics of it without thinking about the effect it would have on responsible, law-abiding Territorians; by saying: ‘We will make the streets safe! We have signed up to the COAG agreements. Aren’t we great?’ Maybe that is good politics. But sadly, in playing this sort of politics, good people are always hurt. The people being hurt in this case are probably some of the most law-abiding people in the Northern Territory. They are people who conduct their sport responsibly, keep records responsibly, and are very sensitive to any irresponsible activity in their own sporting organisations. What they can see is a sliding scale; a slippery slope where they had the first tranche after Port Arthur, and the second tranche after this idiot went mad at Monash University. They are saying: ‘What is going to happen next?’ There will be another shooting somewhere in Australia, and what will be next?
These are the times when governments have to stand up strongly. You may not win at the end of the day. I accept that, but you have to stand up. You do not cave on day one. The government of the Northern Territory should have seen that, by agreeing to COAG after one meeting, hitting the street with media releases, they would end up with the mess they have today. That is the most unfortunate part of this legislation.
The other part of the legislation that concerns me is, if you look at the requirements of the COAG agreement - and I am sure that the Chief Minister did not sit in that meeting and go through the pages of this stuff; there would have been a communiqu, an agreement in principle - what has resulted is that the Australian Police Ministers Council have taken an opportunity to get some of their stuff in there as well. The Australian Police Ministers Council are saying: ‘Here is an opportunity to get something through that we have been pushing for, and we can roll it all up in one piece of legislation’. That is fine if it is responsible, protects Territorians, and is absolutely necessary. I do not believe it is. There is one part of it that is crazy: this notion that somehow a .357 mm Magnum is less lethal in a sporting shooters’ organisation than a .44 mm Magnum. God damn! A .44 mm Magnum or a .357 mm Magnum will take you out as easily as each other. Why, in God’s name, does the Northern Territory government sign up for something that says: ‘We agree that a .357 mm Magnum is okay, but a .44 mm Magnum is no good’? I do not understand the logic of it.
What has happened is that the bigger states are playing the politics of this issue against the responsible shooters in the Northern Territory. That is sad. The powers of the Police Commissioner are worrying. I stand to be corrected, and I had a briefing at lunch time, but I do not believe that any Police Commissioner should be given the absolute power that he is being given under this legislation: no review, no appeal, nothing. He can just revoke a person’s licence based on information that he has received and, under this guise of police intelligence, he does not have to reveal any information to anyone. You can be a person who is seen to have an associate who has impugned your reputation, and the Police Commissioner can make a decision to revoke your licence, and that is it.
The Police Commissioner might be right, and I am sure on most occasions, if this occurs, he would be right. I do not doubt his ability to make those decisions, nor his authority. I do wonder why the person involved has no appeal, because certainly, under current legislation - and I am sure the Shadow Attorney-General would have pointed to things like the Misuse of Drugs Act - where these sorts of things occur, people have a right of appeal. If there is any concern about anyone else or sources being revealed through that appeal process, there are practical ways of getting through that. It could be a private appeal to a magistrate, for example, with no one else present. I find it strange, to say the least, that the Police Commissioner has been given such arbitrary power, and I do not believe that the amendments are required under the terms of the COAG resolution.
Madam Speaker, there is nothing that can be done with this unless you use your discretionary vote, which is an interesting scenario - I am not putting any pressure on you at all in that regard. Unfortunately, the situation in which the Northern Territory finds itself is that we prematurely agreed to a scenario before we knew the outcome. Piece by piece, if there are any arguments to be put, they have been whittled away. The Commonwealth - and they are pretty good at this sort of stuff - eventually gives you a package whereby you agree to the lot or you get nothing, and that is the situation in which we have ended up.
What I believe the Northern Territory should have done – and I stand to be corrected; the minister might wish to correct me on this one - I am not sure whether Western Australia has gone as far as the Northern Territory as yet, they may have. What the Northern Territory should have done is, first, not agreed to anything at that COAG meeting. They should have reserved their position and maintained that reservation throughout. If the point of agreeing to COAG came, it should have come as late as today or tomorrow. That, unfortunately, is not the case.]
I believe that the legislation is wrong in what is being required of shooters in the Northern Territory. It is wrong to suggest that there is some obnoxious difference between a calibre of pistol that is greater than a .38 mm calibre and a .45 mm calibre. The argument that was put is that one weapon is more concealable than another. Well, if anyone has seen Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, they know big a .357 mm magnum is, so do not give me the argument about being more concealable; that is stupidity.
We have been rolled by the Commonwealth on an issue that is purely political. I find that sad. What it does point to is the difference between a CLP and a Labor government in the Northern Territory. What you do …
Mr Kiely: You are Liberal, they are Liberal, you are the same.
Mr BURKE: The member for Sanderson says: ‘You are Liberal, they are Liberal’. Well, I can tell you, at the end of the day, the CLP member federally has himself a problem because the position of the CLP in the Northern Territory is that the status quo should be maintained. That should have been the position of the Labor government of the Northern Territory because that is what Territorians believe: the status quo should have been maintained.
They should have said, at the COAG meeting, that there is no agreement from the Northern Territory to make these changes, and we should have stayed back from any agreement until such time as we got common sense. Because no one did that, the Commonwealth has had its way. If a few of the states that could see common sense saw the Northern Territory taking a lead, maybe they would have followed. Maybe states like Western Australia and Queensland - and Queensland would probably have agreed and probably would still agree – that the issue of two classifications rather than five or more - and we are really only talking about the difference between types of target shooting at longer distances with pistols of about .38 mm calibre; it is not as if it is a major issue to deal with - would have seen the common sense of responsible sporting organisations being able to continue to conduct those activities.
However, you are gone; you have rolled over, and it is all over. It is unfortunate that, in this legislation, we have had some late amendments - and I make the point that whilst the amendment today is understandable, we received one amendment yesterday afternoon, and another amendment from the minister after lunch today. If it had not been for the censure motion, we would have been debating this at 3 pm.
Mr Henderson: It is the same amendment.
Mr BURKE: Well it is not exactly the same amendment because there are some words that have changed. One of the words is that …
Mr Henderson: It is the same amendment.
Mr BURKE: It is not. If you look at the schedule of amendments you gave us yesterday, it says, under section 110A: ‘… receive compensation at the prescribed rate …’. The one we received at lunch time today says: ‘… receive compensation at the rate referred to in section 110(5)(a).’. The prescribed rate and that rate can be interpreted as quite different. ‘Prescribed’ rate might be the rate that we determine in the Northern Territory as the prescribed fair and reasonable rate. The prescribed rate you are now introducing is the rate that the Commonwealth has now prescribed for us. That in itself needs some debate. Maybe the Northern Territory government wants to kick in a bit more than one-third because the people who are concerned are going to be disadvantaged because of the costs of the weapons they hand in.
The notion that is in there – and I ask the question …
Mr Kiely: Well, no one will hand in any Bofors this time.
Mr BURKE: Well, you have the numbers, you will get it through. At the end of the day, the people who are affected will know.
Ms Lawrie: Have you got the numbers?
Mr Ah Kit: Have you got the numbers, that is the big question.
Mr BURKE: And if you want to hand in …
Mr Kiely: Here come the numbers.
Mr Ah Kit: Have you got the numbers?
Mr BURKE: I do not imagine people who are interested in this legislation are interested in that sort of nonsense.
Mr Ah Kit: Well it is happening tonight.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, order!
Mr BURKE: I wonder whether the member for Arnhem knows - if he would just listen for a second. If you have a .44 mm Magnum and you shoot with it in practical classification today, and you say: ‘Well, bugger this, this thing is no good to me. I am handing in my .44 mm Magnum; I will get my compensation for it and I will buy myself a .38 mm’, this legislation now says: ‘No. Not only can you not hand in that, you have to hand in every weapon you have. Not only do you have to hand in every weapon you have, you cannot get another one for five years’. Tell me where that is in the COAG agreement because we have had issues, under the guise of the Prime Minister getting his way, that I believe have come through the APMC. Some of it might be right, but it needs its own separate and special debate.
We have put practices in here that particularly disadvantage the sporting shooters affected by this legislation. They are affected not only in the classifications they can shoot, but by a stupidity in the calibre of weapons they can use. Now they are affected by the fact that, if they want to get rid of a weapon that they can no longer use, they have to hand in all of their weapons and cannot get a licence for five years. Those three things alone point to the stupidity of this legislation.
Everyone in the Northern Territory wants a safer community. Everyone in the Northern Territory does not want hand guns in the hands of irresponsible people who should not have them. However, the legislation that we had in the past was good legislation. It is legislation that has been changed and improved, and also improved at considerable cost to responsible shooters in the Northern Territory, through the changes introduced after the Port Arthur shooting.
We are now presented with legislation following an incident that was none of the Territory’s doing, and with changes that have no practical worth in the Northern Territory, and do nothing to achieve any greater safety for Territorians. All it really does is says to a good sport that they can no longer conduct a number of classifications in the way they conducted them before. It says to a number of shooters: ‘You have weapons now that are useless and we will give you some money for them’. More importantly, it says: ‘If you hand back your licence for one of those weapons, you lose all of your weapons as well, and cannot get a licence for five years’.
Madam Speaker, it is a disappointing state of events. If the government was honest, they would stop pointing the finger at the Commonwealth and accept the position fairly and squarely as a position that they have put themselves in right from the outset. The opposition will not support the legislation.
Mr KIELY (Sanderson): Madam Speaker, I support of the Firearms Amendment Bill 2003. The purpose of the bill is quite clear, and that is to ensure compliance with the Council of Australian Government reforms relating to hand gun control, and the Australian Police Ministers Council’s National Firearms Resolutions to introduce new restrictions on the accessibility of firearms, and to clarify various provisions of the act to better facilitate its administration.
I participated in a debate during the historic and well-received visit of parliament to Alice Springs last sittings. In that debate, I made mention that it is a belief of mine that the rationale for the introduction of all amending legislation should be clearly articulated for our constituents’ benefit and the word ‘legislator’ should not assume a level of prior knowledge to be present within the overall community. It is within this framework that I have structured my contribution to the complex issue of firearm control.
I have made mention of the Council of Australian Government, as have a number of speakers before me, and the need for this legislation to comply with reforms agreed to by that body. COAG, the acronym that is being thrown around this place, is the peak inter-governmental forum in Australia and is comprised of all Australian governments. COAG comprises the Prime Minister, the state Premiers, territories Chief Ministers and the President of the Australian Local Government Association. The Prime Minister chairs COAG. The Prime Minister, Premiers and Chief Ministers agreed to establish COAG in May 1982, and it first met in December 1992. It is a body that has been there for quite some time and it is a well-used tool for governance.
The role of COAG is to initiate, develop and monitor the implementation of policy reforms which are of national significance, and which require cooperative action by Australian governments, such as the National Competition Policy; gas, electricity, firearms, and water reform; and the reform of Commonwealth, state and territory roles in environmental regulation. Issues may arise from, among other things, ministerial council deliberations, international treaties that affect the states and territories, or major initiatives of one government, particularly the Commonwealth, which impact on other governments or require the cooperation of other governments.
There are over 40 Commonwealth and state ministerial councils and fora which currently facilitate consultation and cooperation between governments in specific policy areas; initiate, develop and monitor policy reform jointly in these areas; and take joint action in the resolution of issues that arise between governments. In particular, ministerial councils may develop policy reforms for consideration by COAG and oversee the implementation of policy reforms agreed to by COAG.
On 21 October 2002, at about 11 am, a shooting incident occurred at Monash University in Melbourne. A person entered a tutorial room on the 6th floor of the Sir Robert Menzies Building and allegedly fired indiscriminately into a tutorial group. Two people were killed and five wounded before the alleged gunman was subdued by a lecturer and students. It was subsequently reported that the alleged gunman was a licensed pistol owner with access to several hand guns, including semi-automatic pistols and a .357 mm Magnum revolver.
On 22 October 2002, the Prime Minister, in Question Time in the House of Representatives, commented on the tragedy and foreshadowed that he - the Prime Minister, the person whom the Leader of the Opposition seems to be disavowing any knowledge or any creative role in this - would raise with the state Premiers and Chief Ministers of the territories a proposal to further strengthen gun laws in Australia.
The Prime Minister’s stated objective in raising the matter at inter-governmental level was to see whether there are additional things that we can do to take more weapons out of society, consistent with protecting the rights of sporting shooters in a legitimate sense. The Prime Minister contended that the taking out of firearms which followed the Port Arthur shooting tragedy in 1996 had been successful in reducing the murder rate involving guns in Australia.
A similar observation was made in the Senate at Question Time by Liberal Senator, the Honourable Christopher Ellison, Minister for Justice and Customs, and Senator Andrew Bartlett of the Australian Democrats, when they noted the distinction between homicides committed with firearms and firearm offences that did not result in death, such as armed robberies and gun threats. The Senators advised that Australia had seen an increase in crimes committed with hand guns, combined with the concern over trafficking in illegal hand guns.
Indeed, the Minister for Justice and Customs, Christopher Ellison, issued a media release on 16 May 2003, stating:
- The issue of traffic in illegal hand guns remains one of the utmost importance to the ACC, which is
indicated it remains the subject of special investigation.
The ACC is the newly created Australian Crime Commission which is a combination of the functions of the former National Crime Authority, the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence and the Office of Strategic Crime Assessment.
It was that shooting incident at Monash University which prompted the Prime Minister to place firmly on the COAG agenda the need to reduce the number of hand guns within our society. COAG, or more accurately the Australian Police Minister’s Council - which is one of a number of ministerial councils that are part of COAG, and was the council charged with carriage of these reforms - is not a paper tiger. In general terms, they considered that they were presented with a proposal that lacked any detail. The NSW position, and one to which we in the Territory subscribe, was that participation in lawful sporting activities is a genuine reason for firearm possession by legitimate licensed shooters.
Debate in the council has been quite strong on the issue of firearms control, and the position adopted by our Liberal Prime Minister. No matter what he does to distance himself from it, that is his man in Canberra; he and his CLP mates are always prattling on about having these tete-a-tetes with the Prime Minister and having great influence - where were they?
On 28 November 2002, it was reported that state and territory police ministers ganged up - contrary to what he would say in here - to undermine the Commonwealth’s proposed ban on hand guns, prompting an angry Prime Minister to wish ‘a curse on them’. This is the lot that he is saying rolled over. You have the Prime Minister, the highest officer in the land, cursing the states. If you want to get into the depth of passion of the Prime Minister - and we have all seen that he is not averse to rolling places, and the Middle East is one small example. Right? Such is the passion that this man has brought to this debate.
Some states reserved the right to opt out of a hand gun ban altogether, instead proposing major restrictions that would make it harder to obtain guns. The Prime Minister hinted that he might be prepared to use Commonwealth Constitution authority over importation laws to overcome the states’ intransigence. We know the powers of the Commonwealth, and we know that they would use these powers to roll the states.
In early December 2002, COAG released a communique that set out the agreed outcomes in regard to hand gun control. COAG agreed on a national approach to restrict the availability and use of hand guns, particularly concealable weapons. The agreement will result in a major reduction in the number of hand guns in the community and will significantly strengthen controls over access to hand guns. COAG endorsed the 28 resolutions made by the Australian Police Ministers Council and agreed that legislative and administrative measures to implement the resolutions should be in place by 30 June 2003. The resolutions include:
a system of graduated access to hand guns for legitimate sporting shooters based on training,
experience and event participation;
I would say that would preclude the member for Goyder.
giving shooting clubs greater access to information by requiring a prospective member to produce
a police clearance prior to acceptance as a member, information on other shooting clubs a person
belongs to, and the current ownership of firearms;
more stringent requirements to prevent club-shopping by potential members of gun clubs, including
better access for clubs to information from licensing authorities; and
allowing the Commissioner of Police in each jurisdiction, subject to appropriate safeguards, to refuse
and revoke firearm licences and applications on the basis of criminal intelligence and other relevant
information.
COAG agreed to restrict the classes of legal hand guns that can be imported or possessed for sporting purposes to those meeting recognised sporting shooting classifications in the Olympic and Commonwealth Games and other accredited events. COAG noted the proposals of the APMC, but agreed that hand guns will be limited to the maximum of .38 mm calibre, except for specially accredited sporting events when hand guns up to .45 mm calibre will be permitted. These details will be considered by the Commonwealth, state and territory authorities as a matter of urgency with final arrangements to be agreed by COAG. This is the section of the agreement to which I will return shortly.
COAG noted the importance of removing readily concealable hand guns from the community. As a result, COAG agreed that semi-automatic hand guns with a barrel length of less than 120 mm, and revolvers and single shot hand guns with a barrel length of less than 100 mm, will be prohibited. Highly specialised target pistols, some of which will have a barrel length of less than 120 mm, will be allowed. These types of pistols are large, visually distinctive, and not readily concealable, due to their overall size.
COAG also agreed that reducing the number of hand guns held illegally in the community should be accompanied by a compensation scheme for licensees who are compelled to hand in hand guns, operating from 1 July 2003 to 1 July 2004. COAG agreed that an amnesty will be enforced from 1 July 2003 until 1 January 2004, during which time owners of illegally held hand guns can surrender those weapons to authorities without incurring a criminal penalty for possession of that weapon. COAG agreed that the states and territories would introduce necessary legislation as a priority, and there will be ongoing consultation between police ministers on arrangements for the buy-back and amnesty. COAG will agree to the final arrangements at the national approach.
I believe all this background information in relation to the position COAG has in bringing about legislation on this issue - which crosses jurisdictional boundaries - and the passion the Prime Minister brought to this debate, informs us as to the content and rationale underpinning the legislation before us today.
I would also hope that the member for Goyder, Yosemite Sam, has listened to this background so that he may be better informed on this matter. So far, his public contributions to this debate have been erroneous. This government is not meekly following the lead of the southern states, as he claimed, while clutching his para-ordnance 45 mm ACP hand gun in the Litchfield Times recently. I would like to return to the agreed position that hand guns be limited to a maximum of .38 mm calibre, except for specially accredited sporting events where hand guns up to .45 mm calibre will be permitted.
Last sittings, I spoke in an adjournment debate on my pleasure at opening the IPSCNT Hand Gun State Titles. I went on to also put on record our government’s efforts to ensure that the proposed firearm amendments would be such as to enable the ongoing participation of club members at international competitions. That is to say, the Martin Labor government was trying hard to have five, not two, sporting disciplines exempted.
I went on in my adjournment debate to criticise the lack of effort to support sportsmen and women by the federal CLP member for Solomon, who sits with the Liberal government in Canberra. After all, it is the federal Liberal Party that is responsible for the demise of international sports shooting at the Arafura Games by their position of demanding that there be only two sporting disciplines. I said then, and I repeat: the member for Solomon, Mr Tollner, who so loudly called for a brigade of so-called freedom fighters to join him on his crusade to safeguard all Territorians’ rights, was kowtowing to Canberra by his silence on this matter. No matter what those on the opposition benches say about this debate, they support the hypocrisy of their CLP colleague in Canberra. Their only contribution to this debate is to confuse, take up the popular position, and bark that they are about freedom.
Mr Burke: This is supposed to be a debate, not reading your script.
Mr KIELY: That is what you are about, sport. Let us get it on the public record, that is what you are about.
The truth is they are about themselves. They yearn for the government benches, and they would sell their souls to the devil if it meant that they could take us all back to the dark ages of CLP waste and arrogance.
I have had quite a number of people make representations to me about the proposed firearm amendments, particularly while I was at the Micket Creek complex. I have also received a letter from a shooter in Alice Springs, which said that shooters do not want the Martin Labor government to fold and give way to Canberra. We have been right in the thick of it, putting forward the case why the governments of Australia - because that is what we are dealing with here - should allow five, not two, shooting disciplines, and why we have no objection to the ownership of .45 mm calibre firearms by licensed shooters. We tried hard; we stood up and were counted. However, the Northern Territory is a small jurisdiction and we cannot go it alone.
The simple facts are these: for many years, Australian political leaders, from all sides of politics and all jurisdictions, have agreed in principle that nationally consistent laws governing guns are required. This continues to be the case. The federal government has flagged it will ban importation into Australia of guns outside the range of defined calibres, which includes the .45 mm calibre hand gun. The majority of states have banned, or will soon be banning, these calibre guns. This will have the effect of putting competitions using .45 mm calibre hand guns in the history basket in those states and the ACT. Territory sport shooters will not be able to travel interstate or overseas in possession of firearms in excess of .38 mm calibre, due to the federal and state restrictions. With inconsistent laws between states, we would face jurisdiction shopping and potentially set our own Territory as a Mecca for illegal hand gun trading and all associated problems that accompany such illicit trade. In this context, a ramshackle of state laws would make hosting national sporting events very problematic.
It is the nature of politics that you have to make compromises for the greater good. Australian society, through its federal, state and territory governments, has decided to restrict the type and calibre of hand guns which will be available to the general population. This is not an issue of individual freedoms and rights. We are not Americans, although some in this House certainly wish we were, nor do we share a common constitution. No Australian citizen has a right to own a firearm. We, as a government, have represented our constituents well, far in excess of those federal and Territory CLP opposition people, and we will continue to represent the best interests of our community as a whole.
Mr Burke: Don’t lose your place on the script there, Len.
Mr KIELY: I thought it was important to think this out and have it all in front of me, to get it on the record, because this is an important issue.
I am saddened that my friends in the shooting fraternity will not be able to go to the range and use their favourite pistol and participate in their favourite sport. It brings me no joy to be in here bringing in this law. However, I will tell you that we had a go; we stood up and were counted and made representations at COAG, contrary to the opposition, who did nothing …
Mr Burke: After you agreed.
Mr KIELY: He did nothing! The opposition …
Mr Wood: That is not what the Shooters Council say.
Mr KIELY: Hang on. The opposition did not make any representations to Canberra through COAG. They did not even brief their own federal member. Yet, they come in here and have the temerity to purport to be the freedom loving people who look after the poor downtrodden and disenfranchised people of the Territory. That is not right. I cannot sit here and let them get away with that. I want it to go on record, before I do have a little shot at their inability, and their opportunism to climb on the back of a very, very serious issue and then try and make out what a great mob they are. Well, they did not stand up in 1996 or 2003. It was us, the Labor government. We are here for the Territorians. You guys are riddled with your own divisions and you are trying to find an issue, so that you can look tough. Well, this ain’t the one to do it on.
Madam SPEAKER: You are getting away from the subject.
Mr KIELY: No, Madam Speaker, I am not getting away from the subject here, I am right on the money. I am right on the money …
Madam SPEAKER: Keep to the bill.
Mr KIELY: I am right on the money because they put up this falsehood about their position on this. They do not have a position.
Mr BURKE: A point of order, Madam Speaker! For the record, the Central Council of the CLP has passed a resolution that the status quo should be maintained. So, if you are not aware of those facts, do not tell lies in the Chamber.
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order, but do …
Mr KIELY: I do object to ‘telling lies in the Chamber’.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Sanderson, do get on with it.
Mr KIELY: I believe I have made my point as to the CLP’s position on this …
Mr Mills: Not very well.
Mr KIELY: You can put as many opportunistic motions on this through because you cannot carry your numbers. You cannot carry the numbers at a party room meeting.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Sanderson, I asked you to address the bill.
Mr KIELY: Yes, all right, Madam Speaker.
Madam SPEAKER: You are being rather repetitious.
Mr KIELY: It brings no joy to the members of government to introduce this bill, but it is a responsible approach. The fact is that the Territory is not an island; we are part of Australia.
Everyone else is going around and signing up to the Prime Minister’s position on this. It is not about money. I do not think we give a fig about the money as such. The fact of the matter is that you cannot leave or enter the Territory with a .45 mm, so any interstate or international competition is out. Everything will be limited. If you are shopping for a .45 mm and you pick one up on the black market, this is where it will come if we are the only state with it - we are it! We will only attract humbug like you have never seen before in your life.
Members interjecting.
Mr KIELY: They neglected the problems out in the communities for ages. Well, this will bring on more humbug than you have ever seen, and that is the position that they would take. We are bringing this legislation on and going with it because there is little alternative. We are not doing it for the millions that you say. The reality is, it is happening around us. You either …
Mr Mills: You caved in.
Mr KIELY: Well, member for Blain, you are like a squirrel at the end of winter, you have no nuts. Well, I tell you what …
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Sanderson, withdraw that.
Mr KIELY: I withdraw, Madam Speaker, I was carried away for a moment.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Sanderson, I am getting a little tired of your repetitious, stupid comments. Get on with it.
Mr KIELY: Well I have, Madam Speaker, I think I have made a couple of good points.
Madam SPEAKER: And you are going to vote against it?
Mr KIELY: I refuted the opposition’s case …
Mr Burke: I don’t think so.
Mr KIELY: Oh, I think I have, and quite clearly. Ours is not a position of opportunity; it is a position of reality. The sporting shooters will know it for what it is, and they will know you for your cheap shots.
Mr HENDERSON (Police, Fire and Emergency Services): Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, the member for Sanderson, for his passionate and erudite contribution to the debate. I acknowledge that this is contentious legislation, and thank people for their contributions to debate this evening.
However, we have to go back - and it does not matter what the member for Goyder or the Leader of the Opposition have to say on this issue of whether the Territory caved in or not - to the fundamental point as to whose agenda is this. Whose agenda is this? There is absolutely no doubt that the agenda lies with the Prime Minister of Australia, one John Winston Howard, who has used every opportunity presented by tragic incidents, such as Port Arthur and the Monash shooting, to reduce the number of guns in the Australian community. It is a John Howard Liberal Prime Minister agenda.
The Northern Territory is a part of the COAG process. Although we are not a state, we certainly aspire to be one and need the support of the Commonwealth and the other states. We are a Federation of states, in Australia, and we have to play our part. In some instances, there is going to have to be some compromise by all of the states in trying achieve uniform legislation in certain areas. That is what the COAG process is all about. All of the states, including the Northern Territory when the CLP were in government, signed up to uniform gun laws across Australia.
Therefore, at some point there was going to be compromise by all of the states in the Commonwealth in achieving that - unless I am reading it wrong and members on the other side do not believe that we should have uniform gun laws across Australia, and that we should somehow secede from the concept of a Federation of states. At some stage there is going to have to be some compromise. We can play all the politics we like about this issue but, if we do believe in the Federation of states, and that, in the interest of this nation and the people of it, uniform national gun legislation is something that we should be working towards, then we are going to have to come to a point of compromise. That is where this legislation is now.
There is some history to be told of the fights that we have had, and the work that has gone into this. Like the member for Sanderson, and all 25 members here this evening, we all recognise that some Territorians are going to be disadvantaged by this legislation, and law-abiding Territorians they are. However, in the interests of uniform legislation there has to be some compromise.
For the Opposition Leader to suggest that if he were still Chief Minister, somehow, at this point of the COAG progress, we would hang outside of this and refuse to sign up and we would not be passing this legislation in this form is blatant hypocrisy. In opposition, yes, you have to oppose; that is fine. However, this issue has been running since November last year. I came to this portfolio in February. This issue has taken up extraordinary police resources, resources in the Justice Department, and resources out of my office.
I pay tribute to my Chief of Staff, Mark Nelson, who has worked absolutely tirelessly in continual and constructive dialogue with the NT Shooters Council, which is the peak body for the shooting fraternity in the Northern Territory. We have worked extraordinarily hard in reaching the Territory’s position that we have taken, not only to COAG, but to a number of police ministerial councils. Police officers have made numerous trips interstate to meetings at officer level throughout the country - well over a dozen in six or seven months - as well as phone conferences, to try and accommodate a consensus position among the states and the Commonwealth. It is not as the Leader of the Opposition stated, that we just caved in and have been playing catch up ever since.
Mr Burke: You caved in at the outset in principle.
Mr HENDERSON: The Leader of the Opposition likes to gild the lily a bit. The commitment the Chief Minister made at the initial COAG meeting was uniform national gun legislation. It was the position of all of the states and the Commonwealth. It was the Prime Minister’s agenda. There has been an extraordinary amount of work. It has been the biggest single issue in terms of consuming my time as police minister.
Unlike the member for Goyder, the Leader of the Opposition, and my colleague, the member for Sanderson, guns have certainly not been part of my life and that is so for many people. From numerous meetings I have had with the NT Shooters Council, representations from individual firearm owners, and branch members at my own Casuarina Branch of the Labor Party who are members of shooting clubs, I have been on a big learning curve. I can certainly say that I feel for the law-abiding, honest people who are sporting shooters who feel, once again, that they have been targeted as a result of tragic incidents at Port Arthur and Monash.
The hypocrisy from the Leader of the Opposition and the CLP is astounding. We did not know what the opposition position was going to be on this because we had not heard one word on this issue from opposition members - despite this being an issue since November last year - until the member for Goyder appeared in the Litchfield Times holding his weapon of choice saying: ‘I will die in the ditch to protect your rights to have these categories of firearms’. We did wonder whether that was the official opposition position, given that the member for Goyder is not the shadow spokesperson in this area, or it was just the member for Goyder being the member for Goyder.
We have done a bit of research to determine, given that it is the Prime Minister’s agenda, what has been on the federal parliamentary record from MHR for Solomon, Dave Tollner and Senator Nigel Scullion. Surely, if this is such a significant issue for the CLP - the Territory party that stands up for Territorians - one of them would have said something in the federal parliament about this outrageous attack on Territory rights and lifestyle by the Howard government. We have done the Hansard searches. One Dave Tollner has said not one word. What did the freedom-fighting Dave Tollner say, the person who took out the ad in the NT News saying we should all be able to ride around in utes with guns and that we are losing the Territory lifestyle? He has been elected by the people of the Northern Territory and is paid significant money to represent them in the Commonwealth parliament. This is such a burning issue that the CLP is so passionate about, with motions passed through Central Council of the CLP, yet Dave Tollner has said not one word in federal parliament about it.
We then go to the other Chamber to see what Senator Nigel Scullion has said. Nigel Scullion’s profile must be minuscule. I do not know what he has done since he has become Senator for the Northern Territory, but he has been pretty silent. But, yes, he has spoken on this issue in the federal parliament, and I go to the Senate Hansard of 3 December last year. From a very acquiescent Senator Scullion, a question without notice was asked of the Minister for Justice and Customs. This is the passionate commitment that the independent CLP of the Territory has made on standing up for the Territory’s rights on this issue. This is the one and only statement in the federal parliament from either of the CLP representatives. It is a question from Scullion to the Minister for Justice and Customs. It is pretty much a pansy question:
- Will the minister update the Senate on the Commonwealth proposal for comprehensive hand gun reforms?
Are there any impediments to the Commonwealth’s hand gun reform plan?
Then Ellison gets stuck into the states for being obstructionist and failing to come into line. The hypocrisy of the opposition is laid to rest by the question without notice, the dorothy dixer dished up from Senator Scullion to the Minister for Justice and Customs to allow him to get stuck into the states for having the temerity to stand up against the Howard government’s agenda on hand gun reform. That question alone totally derails any integrity that the opposition has on this bill, and the position they have in here this evening because it is hypocrisy in the extreme.
There has been, until today, absolutely nothing on the public record from the Territory opposition on this case, apart from one newspaper article in the Litchfield Times featuring the member for Goyder. We have a position that has developed on the run after a briefing that was provided this afternoon. It really shows - and I am disappointed in the opposition on this - that they have taken a purely politically opportunistic position. I can say that each of the - I believe it is 27 - registered gun clubs around the Northern Territory will be receiving a copy of Senator Scullion’s question without notice in the Senate to show that the hypocrisy of the CLP opposition knows no bounds. They will say one thing in the party room, another to their Liberal Party and National Party colleagues in Canberra, and something else in this Chamber. Well, fellows, you have been caught out - hook, line and sinker. You have no integrity in this debate whatsoever.
If we look to the buy-back that the Stone government presided over in 1996, it was much more contentious than this one. We talk about the rhetoric in here tonight, about law-abiding Territorians having their rights eroded. Look at the scale of what is being proposed here - and as I say, it gives me no joy to bring this legislation before the parliament - or what is going to happen as a result of this legislation this evening, compared with the buy-back in 1996, when 9474 firearms were purchased in the Northern Territory. To answer your question, from the records that the police have, potentially how many hand guns will be purchased as a result of this legislation and regulations? We are talking about 2500. The buy-back in 1996 had three times the impact that this will have.
However, this was a Howard agenda item, and always has been. Due to the federated nature of our states and all of the states agreeing to national firearms regulations, the Commonwealth is in a unique position, particularly with the Northern Territory when we are funded 80% from Commonwealth revenue. We certainly want the Commonwealth and the states to endorse and support our push for statehood to show that we can be a mature, fully-fledged state in the federated states of Australia.
They are hypocritical because they had an opportunity to stand up to Howard in 1996 and they did not - for the same reasons that we cannot. The scale of the buy-back in 1996 was way ahead of the scale of the buy-back today. That is a little of the generality of the debate which will show people who are going to read this debate the hypocritical nature of the opposition.
I will go to some of the specific issues that were raised by members of the opposition and the Independents. In the original bill and the requirement to fingerprint people before the issue of a category H licence, yes, government has had a rethink as a result of representations from the sporting shooters community. We had been discussing that provision with the NT Shooters Council; it was not slipped in without any notice. However, I do not resile from the strong views that the police, and myself as police minister who had carriage of this legislation, have. As the member for Nelson said, there were good reasons for that provision in doing everything we can to ensure that hand guns are not issued to people who should not own them.
The advice of the police is that the fingerprint record or a DNA swab is the only sure-fire way of determining somebody’s identity. A number of people throughout Australia have been convicted, under false identities, and are serving custodial sentences. The only sure-fire way that we can determine that people with a criminal record are not issued with a hand gun licence throughout Australia is by this provision or a DNA swab. Because that DNA swab has not been retrospective in many jurisdictions, that would not work, so the fingerprint record was the only requirement. We accepted that; we brought it in. We were discussing that with the NT Shooters Council, and it goes to show that this government does listen.
The whole method of passing legislation is to bring it before the House, leave it on the Table for a one month period - even though we have had to bring this on within three weeks – and receive comment from the Independents, the opposition, and the broader community. It just goes to show that this is a responsive government that listens. We have listened to concerns, and the genuine cries from the sporting shooters community who say that this really is an insult, I suppose, to their law-abiding status. I am pleased to say that we will remove that clause today. That requirement is in place in Victoria. We are aware that New South Wales has gone part way to that requirement but, as the member for Nelson said, many people think it is the thin end of the wedge, and in the future COAG might get there. Our position in COAG would be against that. It is not on the COAG agenda at the moment, so we are deleting that clause from the bill tonight. It does go to show that we have listened to the arguments from the police, from the sporting shooters community and, for the best possible outcome for everybody, we have responded.
If we look to the issue of the PM’s position on whether we accredit the five disciplines or go to two, we only received the letter from the PM yesterday. His and the Commonwealth’s position has been solid throughout these negotiations, that only two events would be exempted in the .45 mm calibre. We have used all of our efforts to try and sway the Commonwealth on that, but the correspondence arrived from the PM yesterday confirming his position. In essence, the rationale of the Commonwealth is that the two events identified by the Commonwealth only work with .45 mm calibre hand guns, whereas the other three events can operate with either .38 mm calibre or .5 mm calibre, and exempting all five events would significantly undermine the intention of COAG to restrict sporting shooters to .38 mm calibre except for specially accredited events. The outcome of exempting all five events would be that most sporting shooters are not affected by the new laws and only a limited number of hand guns would become subject to the buy-back. That is the Commonwealth’s position.
We are very solidly for an alternative view, but it is obvious that the Commonwealth is not going to move. Victoria and New South Wales are right in behind them, and we understand that the other states are about to move in the same way in achieving consensus. There is no reason, at a practical level, to hold out by saying that, in the interest of Territory shooters, we are not going to accept the two; we are going to allow the five. The fact is that all the other jurisdictions will move. There would be no competitions apart from internal Territory competitions where our shooters would be able to practise those disciplines.
Since December last year, the Commonwealth has amended regulations to the Customs Act, which prohibits the importation to Australia of .45 mm calibre weapons, apart from the two that are exempt under these provisions. The Commonwealth has actually moved ahead of COAG in the Customs regulations. Therefore, even if shooters from the Territory wanted to compete overseas, they would not be allowed to bring those guns back into Australia under Customs regulations. Certainly, even for our Arafura Games, which was a prime competition shoot that we were trying to protect, no competitors would be allowed to bring weapons of those calibres into Australia because Customs would deny them that opportunity. On behalf of sporting shooters in the Northern Territory, from a practical level, there is nothing to be gained in protection of their sport in the face of all the states and the Commonwealth mandating this position. It is gone. I am sad to see it go, but that is a fact of life. You can have a bit of political hot air about this, but it is not going to achieve anything for the sporting shooters. In fact, as they retire those guns, they are not going to be able to replace them because nobody else in Australia will be selling these guns. The gun retailers will not be able to import them. It would not have been death by a couple of dozen cuts rather than a thousand. That is the rationale for the Commonwealth’s position and the majority of the states: it is going to happen and there is going to be no more competition in Australia in those particular calibres.
The other key issue that people have talked about this evening is the Police Commissioner’s absolute power in refusing a hand gun licence if he becomes aware, has a suspicion, or has criminal intelligence that a person should not have a hand gun; and why his decision is absolute, and that there is no avenue of appeal. There has been some discussion about whether the interpretation of COAG is that there should be no avenue of appeal. My understanding is that is the way all the states are interpreting it. It is somewhat silent, but there is good reason for it to be. The policy rationale for this is that, as the member for Sanderson rightly said, firearms and the right to hold firearms are not a right under the Constitution; it is a privilege. In terms of the public policy position of doing everything we can to ensure that firearms do not end up in the hands of people who should not have a firearm, then an administrative decision has to be made.
I can understand the theoretical points that no person should have absolute power to make such decisions but, at the end of the day, I have absolute confidence and trust in the integrity of not only of this Police Commissioner, but any Police Commissioner that follows. People do not become Police Commissioner unless - and some people might say that this is a good reason why we should not do it, with people like Terry Lewis in Queensland under a different regime. However, at the end of the day, if we were to find that somebody genuinely was denied the right to a firearms licence and they got the court of public appeal to make that claim, we could always amend legislation if it is proved that the power confirmed on the Police Commissioner under this legislation is abused. However, I do not believe it will be abused. It is only in the best interests of community safety that, if criminal intelligence does come to the police that such and such a person is in possession of firearms and he or she should not be, it is in society’s interests that as soon as possible, those weapons are removed from that person.
With reference to the Court of Criminal Appeal, that can look at criminal intelligence police are holding in camera, you are talking about people who have been charged under the Misuse of Drugs Act. If convicted, they are potentially facing a gaol sentence, and there is a very real consequence to the civil liberties of an accused person who is found guilty as a result of police possibly abusing their power. What we are talking about here is information that is in the best interests of the broader community, and someone will not lose their livelihood - unless they are involved in activity such as trading in illegal weapons - or their rights as a result of the Police Commissioner exercising his power under this clause. It is a COAG requirement, and it is about targeting organised crime. We see accounts in newspapers all the time of illegal weapons seized from bikie gangs. This gives the police a more proactive power, when they have intelligence about those issues, to seize those weapons and to make the NT a safer place.
As far as law abiding sporting shooters who use the Micket Creek gun club and live in the northern suburbs, unless there is very good reason, the police will not be knocking their doors down and removing their weapons under this clause. The commitment from the government is that if there is a rash outbreak of police abusing this power and the court of public appeal is saying: ‘This is an outrage because two dozen people have lost their licences and they are law-abiding, church going citizens who are members of the Lions Club and never had a conviction in their life’, we will certainly revisit that position. I do not think it is going to occur, though.
I am running out of time. There were many issues raised. I have covered the two major issues of concern. Madam Speaker, you raised a number of issues. One was compensation for the hand back of illegal weapons. I ask for a 10 minute extension of time so I can answer your question …
Dr TOYNE: Madam Speaker, I move an extension of time such as would allow my colleague to conclude his remarks.
Motion agreed to.
Mr HENDERSON: This is a complicated bill. There is very good reason for that. My advice is that in the last buy-back in 1996, there was the capacity to buy back illegal weapons. The reason was that the value of such weapons was minimal. My advice from police is, again, in trying to achieve uniform national gun laws, legislation was so weak in some states that there was a very blurred line between what was legal and illegal. In buying those guns out, that was the provision at that time, but it really did not harness too many illegal weapons. The fundamental principle is that the police do, from time to time - and will in this instance - be holding a general amnesty as well as a buy-back. The public policy principle is: why would you compensate and financially reward someone for holding an illegal firearm? It is illegal for them to have the weapon; the weapon is not registered; they are not a registered owner; they are breaking the law; and if they do have a weapon under the bed that is not registered and they are licensed to hold, they are knowingly breaking the law. In the public interest, yes, we want those guns back so there will be a general amnesty, no questions asked - and you can stop breaking the law and feel better about yourself. Why should we financially reward people who are breaking the law? That is the reason there is not a general buy-back of illegal weapons.
I would urge all Territorians - anybody who is going to read this Hansard - that if they do have an illegal gun at home which is not registered, and they want to get it out of their house and ease their conscience, they can hand it back in under an amnesty provision, no questions asked, as opposed to the police potentially finding them in possession of an illegal weapon, being charged, facing court, and a penalty being applied.
There was a general question about registered pistol clubs, in that they might be facing some sanction if they do not comply with the regulations. That is just part of the legislation. Another issue was why COAG requires clubs to provide information to the police about members of the club and the shoots they participated in when the police already have that information. Again, it is a COAG requirement. In some of the states, they are going to have to do this work on behalf of the police, with the clubs having to endorse or state that the person who is a member of the club has secure facilities at home to store their firearms.
The issue here, in the Northern Territory, is that yes, police do have that information, because they check every household that has a firearm. It will be worked through with the clubs, by the police, that the clubs are, essentially, going to endorse storage facilities. They are not going to have to go and visit the person’s home because the police have done that. However, in some states - I am not sure which ones - the clubs will have to go and physically check somebody’s home to make sure they have a storage facility. The practical application of this reform will be that the clubs will endorse, once the police have advised them that storage requirements have been met.
Police are not going to make public the information that they receive from the sporting shooters clubs regarding the registration of their members and the events that they participate in. Even under an FOI application, the police will not make that information available. Again, other states’ legislation is going to require that information to be provided. Well, the police have that, as you rightly say. It is a COAG requirement.
What is going to happen, as a result of the passage of this legislation, is that a team from the Firearms Unit will be visiting all of the 27 clubs in the Northern Territory. They will work with them toward a practical application of these codes to make it as easy and as uniform as possible. The service that our sporting clubs will have from our Territory police will be way and above the support the clubs will get from the police in other states. I am absolutely convinced they will do a great job.
There was a question about antiques collectors, and whether the sub-branch in Alice Springs, or other sub-branches, will be allowable under this legislation for antiques collectors to register. The answer is yes; there have already been meetings on that. You will even find applications where people who collect antique weapons and might live on a very remote station can affiliate with a regional club for these requirements. There will be a practical application so people in the regions are not disadvantaged.
Madam Speaker, you raised an issue about licence renewals and why this should happen every year. My advice is there is no change. Already, sporting shooters and people with these types of guns have to register every year. Practically, it is the only way for the police to check the participation rates of those shooters, to ensure that there is a check every year. My understanding is the practical reality of this is that each shooter will be issued with a card for their discipline, and that card will be punched at the club every time that they participate in a shoot. It will be a fairly simple process to present that card: ‘Yes you have competed in so many shoots, that has been verified by the club, your licence will be re-issued’. So, hopefully, it will not be too onerous a process. The re-application for a licence occurs already.
The issue about juniors rocking up at the club and young Sammy wanting to have a go at a shoot, then yes, it is a part of the COAG reforms that a permit will have to be applied for. Again, the lofty principle that is being applied by the COAG reforms is that nobody should get their hands on a hand gun unless they are authorised to do so - whether they are 10 years old or 50 years old. A basic check will have to be done in before they get their hands on a hand gun. Again, it is a COAG requirement. I know people are not going to be happy, but that is the basic principle being applied there.
On the question of how many guns will now be illegal as a result of only two categories in excess of .38 mm being allowed, the answer from police records is around 2500 in the Northern Territory. However, we cannot be absolutely certain of that. Madam Speaker, I hope that deals with your issues.
I have said enough with regard to the position of the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Goyder.
I have said what I have had to say about our part regarding our position at COAG and in the Federation. Any historic reading of this debate tonight will show the hypocrisy of the opposition on this issue. This is a genuine attempt by this government, working constructively with the peak body in the Northern Territory, the Northern Territory Shooters Council. I would like to pay my compliments and convey my thanks to that representative body; they have been very easy to work with. They have been absolutely committed to making sure we get the best possible outcome here. We have worked with them to ensure the best possible outcome under the circumstances. I can advise that, with the police working with the sporting shooters clubs to put the new regime into place, clubs are not going to be out on a limb having to work this out themselves. The police, through the Firearms Unit, will be working with those clubs and we will see this uniform regime across the Northern Territory.
It gives me no great pleasure to bring this legislation here this evening. I acknowledge that passions run high in this area but, at the end of the day, let us not forget whose agenda this is - the Liberal Prime Minister of Australia, one John Winston Howard.
Motion agreed to; bill read a second time.
In committee:
Clauses 1 to 11, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 12:
Mr HENDERSON: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 42.1. Under clause 12, in proposed section 15B(3) and (4), omit ‘the whole subsection’ and substitute:
(3) Subsection (2)(c ) does not apply in relation to a person who, at the time of applying for
a category H sports shooter’s licence, is the holder of:
firearm that was granted for (or partially for) the genuine reason of
sports shooting; or
(c) a corresponding licence.
The purpose of moving this is to delete the fingerprint requirement.
Amendment agreed to.
Mr HENDERSON: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 42.2. In proposed section 15C(a) omit ‘the whole paragraph’ and substitute:
(a) the only firearms that can be registered under the licence are prescribed firearms;
The proposed section was intended to provide that the holder of a category H sport shooter’s licence could only register prescribed firearms. This amendment clarifies that intention using simple language.
Mr BURKE: Minister, in your wrap-up, you said that .45 mm calibre was allowed in the Northern Territory for two classifications of shooting but not for the practical shooting classes, the three exempt categories. You cannot use .45 mm?
Mr HENDERSON: Yes.
Mr BURKE: But you can use .45 mm in the two allowed categories?
Mr HENDERSON: In the two allowed categories.
Mr BURKE: Can you tell me what are the prescribed weapons that are allowed in that category?
Mr HENDERSON: The prescribed?
Mr BURKE: What are the prescribed weapons in those two categories?
Mr HENDERSON: Yes. What will be allowed or prescribed are single or western action and metallic silhouette.
Mr BURKE: That is it? No other?
Mr HENDERSON: That is it.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 12, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 13 to 17, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 18:
Mr HENDERSON: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 42.3. In paragraph (b) omit ‘the whole paragraph’ and substitute:
(b) by omitting subsection (3)(a).
The intent of this clause to delete section 24(3)(a) of the act, requires the holder of firearms collector’s licence to give the Police Commissioner an annual record of the firearms purchased or sold over the previous 12 month period. There is no need for a firearms collector to provide a record to the commissioner, therefore it may be deleted. This amendment was proposed by the Firearms Advisory Council. It just means that collectors do not have to renew this licence every 12 months.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 18, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 19 and 20, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 21:
Mrs BRAHAM: Mr Chairman, this was the clause regarding the information that clubs have to provide to the commissioner. The information I am provided is that the clubs did not feel that they should have to address that when the police already have all those statistics. I move that paragraph (b) of section 21 be omitted.
Mr HENDERSON: In response, I addressed it in my wrap-up of the bill. Member for Braitling, I understand the concerns of the clubs and shooters that this information may get into the hands of people and they might potentially be targeted as owners of these types of guns. I can assure honourable members that police will not make this information available to the public under any circumstance, even an FOI request, and that the police will be working with the clubs to ensure that that information is secured as appropriately as possible. This is a COAG requirement and the government is unable to support your amendment.
Amendment negatived.
Clause 21 agreed to.
Clauses 22 to 24, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 25:
Mr HENDERSON: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 42 4. After paragraph (a) insert:
(aa) by omitting from subsection (1)(b) ‘disqualifying offence or an offence of violence’
and substituting ‘disqualifying offence, an offence of violence or an offence against
this Act; and’.
The reason for that is that this amendment expands the operation of the automatic revocation of a person’s licence, permit or certificate under section 40 of the act. It is proposed to include the automatic revocation of a licence, permit or certificate for an offence against the act and forms part of the proposed three tier regime.
Clause 25, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 26 to 38, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Clause 39:
Mr HENDERSON: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 42.5. In proposed section 110(5)(a) omit the words ‘the prescribed rate’ and substitute:
- the rate specified in the National List of Compensation Values for Hand Gun Buy Back 2003 as
published from time to time by the Commonwealth.
The amendment’s proposed subsection, by deleting the ‘prescribed rate’ and replacing it with the ‘rate provided in the Commonwealth’s National List of Compensation Values for Hand Gun Buy Back 2003’ means there is no requirement for the commissioner to prescribe or amend a rate in the Territory regulations.
To pick up the obvious question of ‘Have we seen those prescribed rates?’, the answer is no, but we are expecting to see them shortly. Any concerns that members have about whether the compensation is going to be appropriate, are dealt with under the Constitution; that is, if you acquire an individual’s property, you have to provide fair and adequate compensation. I have confidence that that will be the case and the rates will be the required amount and ensure that people are compensated.
Mr MALEY: Minister, are you saying that, just like when you signed up to the COAG agreement without seeing the particulars, it is fair that this legislation will come into force and shooters still will not know how much they are going to get when they hand their firearm in? You are saying that is an acceptable situation. Is that what you are saying?
Mr HENDERSON: No, I am not saying that. There is no way that, as of 1 July when this legislation will come into effect, shooters will not know what the compensatable value is. My advice is that we expect this information from the Commonwealth in a matter of days. It will be publicly available on the Internet. I give an assurance that, as soon as I have that information, we will get it out to the 27 clubs around the Territory. However, it will be published prior to 1 July.
Amendment agreed to.
Mr HENDERSON: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 42.6. In proposed section 110(6) after ‘Commissioner must’ insert, ‘(subject to section 110A)’. This change clarifies that a firearm which has been voluntarily surrendered under proposed section 110A of the bill is not to be registered by the commissioner.
Amendment agreed to.
Mr HENDERSON: Mr Chairman, I move amendment 42.7. After proposed section 110, insert new clause:
- 110A. Voluntary surrender of category H firearms.
prescribed for that section and can be re-registered, the person in whose name the
firearm was registered may voluntarily surrender the firearm to the Territory and,
subject to subsection (2), receive compensation at the rate referred to in section 110(5)(a).
firearm held under the person’s licence.
voluntarily surrenders a category H firearm under this section, and the person is not eligible to
apply for the grant of a category H sports shooters licence for 5 years from the date of the revocation.
I will explain that change; I did not get a chance in my response to the second reading. This amendment has come in late as a result of the Prime Minister agreeing to fully fund the voluntary buy-back of category H firearms. I would like to clear up a point of confusion raised by the Leader of the Opposition. An analogy is that if I am a sporting shooter and I have a range of hand guns, including the .44 mm magnums that the Leader of the Opposition said, as well as a whole heap of .38 mm calibre weapons, that there is some sort of compulsion.
This clause is aimed at sporting shooters who decide, as a result of this legislation, that they want to get out of the sport all together, and they have hand guns across different calibres and categories, then this allows for a compensatable buy-back of allowed firearms of the .38 mm calibre. Under the previous provision, if somebody wanted to exit the sporting shooters arena altogether, they would only have received compensation for guns in the calibre of .38 mm and above that were not exempt, and everything else that they handed in would not have been compensated. This provision is aimed at - and it is actually a better outcome - those people who voluntarily want to exit the sport, so they will be compensated for allowable guns during the terms of this buy-back.
The policy rationale behind that from the Commonwealth is that it has the capacity as an incentive to take more guns out of the system. There are no force requirements here. If I want to keep my .38 mm calibre guns, I still can, but I have to hand back my .44 mm. I will be compensated for that, and I am allowed to keep my .38 mm calibres and register them in the usual regime. However, if I want to exit the sport all together, and I have a range of calibres, including legal as well as what will be illegal after this legislation goes through, I can be compensated for my guns. It allows me to exit the sport and to be compensated. Obviously there has to be a provision, if you are going to receive compensation, that you cannot apply for a licence for a period of five years. There might have been some confusion there, Leader of the Opposition. This is not a big grab for weapons intended to disenfranchise people. It just gives some people who may want to exit the sport all together an option to be compensated for legal guns under the new regime.
Mr MALEY: Minister, you, on your high horse, say the aim of it is to take more guns out of the system, and you use an example - and that example is true and correct, fair enough. However, if you read subparagraph 2 carefully, it says compensation is payable only if a person surrenders every category H firearm. Therefore, if you have 10 guns and you want to get rid of nine – they are all .38 mm, a legitimate calibre under the new scheme - under this provision you do not get compensation for those because you have to hand them all in.
So how can you say, on the one hand that the aim of it is to take guns out of the system, when your legislation says they all have to go. You are not going to take any guns from this particular person because why would he get rid of nine guns? If he wants to keep one, he will keep the 10. If you were really serious about what you say, you would say that any gun voluntarily surrendered, if it is in a prescribed form, will attract compensation. Your provision deals only with ‘all’ firearms being surrendered.
There is another point I would like you to clarify for the sporting shooters of the Territory. In subparagraph (3), not only do you have the provision requiring all of the guns to be surrendered, you say that if they surrender it, they are penalised by losing their licence for five years. There is an immediate …
Ms Lawrie: Will they take the money?
Mr MALEY: If you can read, and not just squawk …
Ms Lawrie: I can read – loser!
Mr MALEY: There is a loss of a category H sports licence for five years from the date of revocation. Minister, how can you say with clear conscience that this provision is really aimed at taking more guns out of the system, when it not only penalises innocent and legitimate gun owners, it puts a restriction on them owning any firearms for five years?
Mr HENDERSON: Mr Chairman, the member for Goyder has it wrong. If you look at the headline clause here, this is talking about the voluntary surrender of category H firearms – voluntary. There is no compulsion here …
Mr Maley: Yes, I agree with that.
Mr HENDERSON: … and the policy aim is that, the way the buy-back was originally structured without the Prime Minister accepting fully funding the voluntary buy-back before, at the moment if you have guns of 38 mm and above they were not going to be exempt; that is, the single or western action or metallic silhouette. Anything else you have to hand in, and be compensated for; it is a mandatory compensation. Those weapons will be illegal post- this legislation coming into effect. There was a requirement, regarding compensation, to compensate.
If you then want to re-register your single or western action - you do not want to have it bought out, you are allowed to have it - that would be registered under the new requirements, if you meet the criteria. For the .38 mm calibre weapons that you have, you will be registered to be allowed to have those guns again, if you meet the criteria. Therefore, the only weapons that could be purchased back, without this reform, were the .38 mm and above that were not exempt; that is, the two exemption clauses.
This allows for somebody who voluntarily wants to exit the sport in its entirety: ‘That is it, I pack up. I do not want to be a member of a sporting shooter’s club any more; I do not want to participate in events any more. I have these categories of guns across calibre ranges - some .38 mm and above, some below. I can be fully compensated’. So, it is a forward step, not an regressive step. For those people who voluntarily want to cease being a sporting shooter all together, and not to shoot again - ‘I want to exit the sport’ - under this provision they will be compensated. The policy rationale is: we want to reduce the numbers. This is going to get some out of the system that otherwise would not be compensated and, as a result of not being compensated, I suppose there is the temptation for some of those guns to either go under the mattress or find their way on to the black market.
That is the rationale. It is about a voluntary buy-back for people who want to exit the sporting shooter’s scene all together - cease being a sporting shooter and a member of a registered club, and just basically get out and take the opportunity now, while they can be fully compensated.
Mr MALEY: Minister, I understand that example and the policy behind it, but can you just clarify subparagraphs (2) and (3). Are they specifically what the Prime Minister requested you pass through this parliament in accordance with the COAG agreement? Or are they something that you have relied upon the advice of your department and drafted yourself? Are they specifically what was required?
Mr HENDERSON: Mr Chairman, my advice is that, yes, this does meet the PM’s and COAG’s requirements. The PM’s office has not drafted the legislation, but the advice is this meets the rationale.
Mr MALEY: Does it go further though, than what the …
Mr HENDERSON: No, no. I do not think it goes further. We are talking about the voluntary action of an individual sporting shooter holding a firearms licence, who, as a result of these changes says: ‘It is all too hard. I am only a marginal shooter, I do not participate that often’. Remember, these changes will be made nationally and there have been very lax regulations in a number of states, regarding the number of sporting shoots that people participate in. Nationally, the policy aim is giving an opportunity for people who are probably marginally involved in the sport - not totally and passionately committed to it – being able to exit the sport and to be compensated. The buy-back - there until December this year or whatever - is to facilitate people thinking: ‘Well, I am not going to be able to do 12 shoots a year; my job is too busy and it is all too hard, and I will compensated’.
Without this provision, under the original proposal, in the number of guns being brought back, there would have been: ‘Yes, I will take my guns back that will be illegal, because I do not want to be in possession of illegal firearms, and get the money back from those. But the .38 mm that I have - well, hell, I am not going to be compensated for it, put it under the bed, forget about it’. It is a temptation, possibly, to sell it on to the black market. That is the policy rationale. My advice is that these two clauses go to the heart of that. It is all about trying to facilitate a total exit from the sport for people who cannot comply, or do not want to comply, with the new regulatory regime.
Mr MALEY: Minister, I understand completely the policy aspect behind this. I have no doubt that this clause does meet the requirements imposed upon you through COAG. However, I am asking you to state on the record: did the Prime Minister or the COAG representatives, through this agreement, specifically require you – specifically - to pass legislation requiring that all the firearms are surrendered before that person is compensated, and that that person has to be penalised by losing their licence for five years? Was that specifically in the requirement or the request received recently which formed this amendment?
Mr HENDERSON: The advice is yes.
Mr BURKE: I understand how this applies to a person who wants to be out of the sport. I do not understand why the licence is revoked for five years. However, if that is a requirement by COAG, which you have said, the whole of that amendment, well, that is it. Can you point to where in the act it allows for the person to just hand back the one weapon? You have given the case of a person handing them all back and wanting to get out of the sport. What I want to see is where it shows the person who just wants to hand in the .45 mm. Can he hand in the .45 mm only and receive compensation without having to hand back any others?
Mr HENDERSON: Bear with me. Mr Chairman, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. If he goes to clause 110 of the amendments …
Mr Burke: The amendments?
Mr HENDERSON: The original bill that we are amending with these amendments. The rationale is that all firearms - sporting shooters’ hand guns that are currently held - have to be produced to the police under this new regulatory regime. So all guns have to be produced, and you might hold a range of them.
Everything in the calibre of .38 mm and above that is not prescribed – that is everything that is not a .45 mm single western action gun or the metallic silhouette – will be acquired by the police, and you will be paid compensation for them. If you wish to keep your .45 mm single action or western action and your .45 mm metallic silhouette - assuming that you can meet the personal requirements - you will be registered and allowed to have those weapons.
For everything .38 mm and below, if you choose to keep those, you may and you will be re-registered. If you want to surrender, you have to surrender all to get the fully compensated buy-back.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 39, as amended, agreed to.
Remainder of bill, by leave, taken as a whole and agreed to.
Bill reported with amendments; report adopted.
Mr HENDERSON (Police, Fire and Emergency Services): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I move that the bill be now be read a third time.
As a closing third reading contribution, I thank honourable members who participated in the debate tonight, particularly through the committee stages. It is contentious and I hope that I have allayed some of the concerns of members of the opposition.
Mr BURKE (Opposition Leader): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I add my thanks to the police for the cooperation they have provided so the opposition could more fully understand the bill before us tonight.
Motion agreed to; bill read a third time.
MOTION
Note Paper – Public Accounts Committee Annual Report 2001-02
Note Paper – Public Accounts Committee Annual Report 2001-02
Continued from 28 November 2002.
Dr BURNS (Tourism): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to the Public Accounts Committee Annual Report, year ended 30 June 2002. I do this, obviously, as someone who occupied the chair of the Public Accounts Committee, which it was my pleasure to do. I thank all members of the Public Accounts Committee, and the secretariat, particularly Mr Terry Hanley and Ms Ros Vogeli, for the all the very hard work they did when I was chair.
I believe the Public Accounts Committee, as the report shows, has been very active during the reporting period, and that is a credit to everyone. It shows the amount of work we were faced with; some of which was very challenging. However, I believe all members of the committee rose to that task and endeavoured to look at the items that were before us. I will precis some of those things. Before I do, it is also very pleasing to look on page 4 of the report and see that the meetings were very well attended by all members, and that is to be commended. That shows the interest that all members showed in the activities of the Public Accounts Committee.
We did, of course, have a very difficult issue to deal with. One of the first issues was the inquiry into the budget data published in the 2001-02 budget papers. That inquiry has been spoken about quite a lot, and I am not going to go over it. Everyone is on the record with their opinions and feelings on that issue. It was a major inquiry. It was, to someone very new to parliament and a new chair of the Public Accounts Committee, a big learning curve for me, and I was very grateful for that involvement. It was very challenging at times, but, as we do in life, we get through things; we get stronger because of them and, if we are willing to learn, it is a very positive process for us.
One of the other major works on which we embarked was the establishment of an Estimates Committee, and next week we will see estimates phase 2. It is good to see the cooperative way in which the government and the opposition have worked together to try and streamline the estimates process. The first one was very much a work in progress; a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and we all worked hard. There were some difficulties there which were identified through a subsequent review within the Standing Orders Committee within which people also worked cooperatively and constructively. The estimates process next week will be another step forward.
This will be the first time that the estimates process has not included without written questions, which is what we saw in Tasmania. In some ways, it gave that estimates process a little more focus. To some degree, we were a little distracted by the multitude of written questions that were before the committee. I know the member for Nelson had some issues about whether they should all be read out, and whether they should be in the Hansard. However, at the end of the day, the process has been added to by the fact that people do not have to compose written questions. A multitude of public servants do not have to now spend hour upon hour composing the answers to questions which, I suspect, in many instances - apart from the person who was supplied the answer - there probably was not a lot of follow through with them. Basically, that is a step forward.
I appreciate the work of Mr McNeill, the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, who briefed us on quite a number of occasions in relation to our work in the Public Accounts Committee. There were a few issues relating to standing orders, the conduct of the hearings, the conduct of witnesses, the public hearings process, and contact with the media, with which there were a few problems.
I do not want to rehash the whole issue, but I, as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, was concerned - I still am – with the member for Drysdale being the subject of an inquiry within the Public Accounts Committee - an issue that he was intimately involved with – and still continuing to sit on and be involved in the deliberations of the committee. As chairman, I found that particularly difficult. I believe the lines became blurred for everyone, and I do not think it was a particularly helpful process. I know the member for Drysdale contended that he had every right to say that he did not have a conflict of interest. He based his view on, I guess, a ruling or a precedent within the Commonwealth parliament in relation to conflict of interest being strictly focussed on whether someone had a pecuniary interest that was a conflict of interest. However, pecuniary interest is an important aspect, but there is more to conflict of interest than pecuniary interest. The conflict that I believe existed was not a pecuniary interest with the member for Drysdale; it was his actions and involvement as the former minister.
The matter of looking at that particular standing order about conflict of interest is one that is still before the Standing Orders Committee. I do not want to say too much about that because that is a matter being discussed by that committee. However, it is something that I feel strongly about.
Mr Iain Summers, who, of course, was a former Auditor-General for the Northern Territory, gave us a number of briefings on his reports to the Legislative Assembly. What Mr Summers had to say was very illuminating; I respect his knowledge and experience. He had a number of views about the issues that came before the Public Accounts Committee. Sometimes they were very technical, and I would have to be honest and say that I did not understand all of them. However, they were very important issues, particularly related to the uniform presentation framework, and what was in and out of the budget scope. For me, it was illuminating to find out more about auditing practices, procedures and nomenclature, which was very good.
Mr Ken Clarke and Ms Jennifer Prince, Under Treasurers, and Ms Kathleen Robinson, Director of Financial Management Reform, talked to us about the implementation of accrual accounting in the public sector. This is a very important issue. There has been a transition, as everyone is aware, to accrual accounting. It does present difficulties. It has presented difficulties interstate, particularly the identification of assets always being a challenge.
There are other aspects in relation to accrual accounting, of course, one being the transition from having cash figures in one year and accrual figures in which can produce what appears to be anomalies. We investigated some of those through the estimates process last year. As we get further into accrual accounting, hopefully, those issues will diminish and we will be comparing apples with apples and oranges with oranges. I appreciated that aspect. The Public Accounts Committee adopted very much a watching brief about accrual accounting, and I suspect that they are still watching that closely because it is very important for that transition to be very smooth for everyone concerned.
One issue that I was very keen about as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, and I believe is ongoing with the committee, is in relation to internal audits within agencies. I have been on the record here before voicing my concern that at least two of our major agencies - that is Health and Education at the time that I came onto the Public Accounts Committee - had not really had an internal audit for three years. We are talking about agencies with a combined expenditure of probably $800m - $0.8bn - and there had not been internal audits done in those agencies for a number of years. This was reported on a number of times by the Auditor-General. Whilst no one is suggesting any impropriety or that money was ripped off by anyone within these agencies - or at least I hope no one is - the main question is that internal audits are a very powerful management tool because it tells you where you are spending your money; it gives you an idea of how efficiently you spend it. I believe internal audits are crucial to any organisation, whether it is a government organisation or a commercial non-government organisation. You would not find too many commercial organisations who would not be carrying out internal audits. It is just part and parcel of business; shareholders expect it, they want that rigour and transparency.
I will not name names, but there was a view in some quarters that the CEO should just be able to go around and see how the business is operating and get a feel for it - just count the pencils, so to speak, and ask people how things are going. That is no way to manage and that is not the way this government is going to manage. I am hopeful, and I trust that the Public Accounts Committee is continuing with that particular line of inquiry. We are not trying to be punitive to agencies, but it was obvious when the replies came back from a letter that the committee wrote to agencies asking about internal audits, that there were some agencies that were very focussed on that. However, I felt some agencies’ responses were a little soft. The Public Accounts Committee is one avenue through which internal audits should be tightened up because it is a very important aspect of doing business.
There were questions asked about capital works expenditure and, basically, I believe that work is ongoing.
One thing that I was very proud to be involved in, as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, was the Northern Territory Public Sector Annual Report Awards. That is a way in which there is a lot of rivalry and competition between the agencies regarding their annual reports. It is just not about putting out a glossy - nice photos and very high quality print. What was looked for by the judging committee of which I was a member was a whole range of things. There were probably 20 items that Iain Summers developed regarding what we should be looking at. One of them was about the quality and accessibility of the financial information. Another was about HR policies, and what the agency’s view of its employees was. It was really the whole navigability of the annual report because a lot of annual reports have all the information, but it is very hard to access it. An aspect we were looking at was the accessibility of the information.
There was a range of issues in relation to these awards. The competition was very tight. The awards of excellence for 2002 were the Darwin Port Corporation, Department of Transport and Works, and Territory Health Services. Awards of merit went to Department of Corporate and Information Services, Department of Sport and Recreation, Northern Territory University, Northern Territory Tourist Commission, and Territory Housing.
One of the things that I really enjoyed as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee was being able to meet with the Chairs of Public Accounts Committee elsewhere in Australia. This was under the umbrella of the Australasian Council of Public Accounts Committees. I was very grateful to meet the chair of the Victorian committee, Mr Peter Loney, who is a very experienced politician. He is no longer Chair of the Public Accounts Committee; he has become Deputy Speaker of the Victorian parliament. He is someone with a lot of integrity, wisdom and experience in public accounts and estimate committees. I was very glad to be mentored by Mr Loney. I am not afraid to confess to that. He took me under his wing, and I really benefited from that, and a friendship has grown out of that. I thank Mr Loney.
I am also grateful for the opportunity to attend these meetings, which canvassed a range of issues. It was Mr Loney’s vision or plan to render assistance to other countries and developing regions, particularly members of the CPA, to develop public accounts committees and have the scrutiny and accountability that is so important for developing countries. He is, and remains, very committed to that. He did a lot of good work in that regard. If you have a good system - and public account committees are a very good thing for parliaments all over the world - it is a very good idea to try to support others who are trying to establish themselves and have that transparency in government.
Going through the summary of meetings, briefings and public hearings, I do not want to go into too much detail except to say that it demonstrates the activity of the committee over this reporting period. Whilst, as I said earlier, a few of the inquiries we had were very challenging, I thank all members of the Public Account Committee for their interest and their hard work. Everyone on the committee worked very hard and made big contributions. I might not have always agreed with people; we did have our differences and a few tense times. However, at the end of the day, we all had one thing in mind: openness and transparency in government, particularly in respect of the money we spend on behalf of taxpayers of the Northern Territory, and bringing scrutiny to bear to make sure that money is spent efficiently and strategically. That is the major role of the Public Accounts Committee and, of course, the Estimates Committee in which we are all going to be involved next week.
I will close on that. I notice that there is a dissenting report. I do not wish to get into that. I have been accused of being biased and making erroneous comments to the National Public Accounts Committee Forum. On that last one, I did not think I had made erroneous comments to anyone. However, out of respect for the members from the other side, I asked that that be withdrawn; I did not want to upset them. That never went into print. Personally, I stand by what was in there, but it obviously upset other members on the other side.
Regarding the accusation of the chairman’s bias, I try to be as fair as I can. I know it would not have pleased everyone, and that some people would have seen or felt that I was being biased. However, I always strive as much as I can to try and be fair. I might not have met everyone’s expectations, and if I did not, I apologise for that.
With regard to the conduct of the Estimates Committee, as I say, we did have our tense times. There were issues there. I mentioned the conflict of interest that I found very difficult but, overall, if you look at the whole picture, the Estimates Committee went as well as it could. I certainly try to be fair. A lot of people complimented me on my performance as Chair of the Estimates Committee. I would like to think that it was the job that I did on the Estimates Committee and the Public Accounts Committee that really earned the respect of my Caucus colleagues and induced them or persuaded them, if you like, that I should have a chance as a minister. I am very grateful for that.
I would like to leave the negativity of the dissenting report and try and close on a positive note. Once again, I thank Mr Terry Hanley, who works tirelessly. He was a great support to me, particularly, as I said earlier in my speech, as I came in as a new parliamentarian who has never sat on a parliamentary committee before. Terry advised me without ever crossing that line of professionalism or anything like that - just as we have with the Clerk and the Deputy Clerk; just professional advice without any bias, without any tint of partisan politics about them, just straight down the line. With all the paperwork and the administrative support, I cannot fault Terry. I felt rather sorry for Terry, in the Estimates Committee last year, because there was a hell of a lot of administrative work in collating all the questions and getting the process right. I know there were some complaints from some quarters about questions being out of sequence. I do not think there was any intent in that. It was just the sheer volume of work and the system that Terry had to work with - and Ros and others. I am deeply appreciative of the work that they did for the Estimates Committee and for the Public Accounts Committee. Once again, I thank members of the Public Accounts Committee for their efforts and for their contributions.
Dr LIM (Greatorex): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I contribute to the report by the Public Accounts Committee, which was tabled in November - as long ago as November last year, seven months ago. It has taken a long while to come around and, obviously, did take a long while, as the person who moved for adjournment of debate could not remember that he did so.
The report was fairly bland. It contained very little that told the reader what the committee did for the previous 12 months. In fact, the tabling statement hardly filled an A4 page. Again, it spoke very little about what the committee did, and had not the member for Johnston spoken to some degree about the part that he played in the PAC, there would be nothing there at all.
Obviously, my interest in speaking at this juncture is to comment on the dissenting report, which the member for Drysdale and I signed together. We felt that there was a need to record those points that we put in it, to ensure that there was some completeness in the PAC report for last year.
The member for Johnston drew some points from the dissenting report, in particular the point about his comments to the National Public Accounts Committee forum. The member for Drysdale and I wanted to draw attention to that fact because the then Chairman of the PAC purported to present the committee’s view to the National Public Accounts Committee Forum. That was not the case. The then chairman went to the forum and presented his personal point of view on what was occurring in the Northern Territory. However, once he got there, the report that he presented gave the impression that the committee was of the view that he held. It was important for the opposition to state its point of view, and get the chairman to withdraw. Whether the chairman withdrew that report because of his due consideration of members opposite - which I tell you, in the meeting itself, was not the case. It just was not the case; the member for Johnston really withdrew because he was found to be wrong.
He was guilty of committing a serious error, and I thank him for doing that. He accepted that the error was his and he did the right thing. Unfortunately though, he had already presented the report to the national forum, so it was heard by all and sundry at the forum, and there was no way he could withdraw that. He learned the hard way that the next time he goes to a national forum, he better make sure that members of his committee, or the committee formally, agrees with his point of view before he does that otherwise he will just get himself into more strife.
That draws me to the second point, which was the chairman’s bias. It was because he was so biased about the whole thing that he went off to a national forum and went off the deep end with it, and reported to people what we were doing up here. If that was not an indicator of his bias, then I will eat my shoes.
Mr Henderson: Where are all your mates?
Dr LIM: If the Leader of Government Business wants to be cheeky about that, let us call for a state of the House. Want to do that?
Dr Burns: Make sure we have the right numbers.
Dr LIM: That is right. You had better count, hadn’t you?
Let us talk about the chairman’s bias. The chairman, right from the day he sat in the PAC, was a very biased chairman. He was very apt at ensuring debate did not flow in a fair and an even-handed way. He was so blatant that, at times, I found it difficult just to tolerate sitting in the same room with the committee. I am not going to bring in any particular reference to what you did or not. I believe, even with the presentation of the report, things that occurred within the committee should stay within committee, and that is fair enough.
The then chairman, and also the current chairman, spoke about the establishment of a new Estimates Committee. That was good; we went to Hobart and learned from their experience in the way they conducted their estimates process. The member for Drysdale then travelled to Queensland to look at their system whereas, on my way from Tasmania I stopped in Adelaide to look at the South Australian process. Accordingly, we reported our findings in those respective centres.
The Estimates Committee could have been a lot better. The government did not know what it was after, how to set about a process and, because it kept procrastinating on its decision was the reason why the secretariat got into all sorts of strife. You know that! The member for Johnston smiles at me, obviously in agreement. It was because the government did not know what it was doing; it could not make up its mind. Because of that, we had very last-minute decisions made about how the committee process would take place. As a result, the whole thing fell apart. There was so much work put on to the secretariat within the last two weeks before the estimate, hence the way that the whole process became very unwieldy. We did not have enough time to question all the ministers and some ministers were great filibusters. They did it very, very well, and unfortunately, it wasted a lot of precious time. With this year’s estimates, I look forward to the new change and I will be interested to see how this process comes about this time.
Point 5 of the dissenting report speaks about how the government tried to pursue an individual using the mechanism of the PAC. In the 9 years I have been in parliament, that was the very first time that a PAC has been used as such a vehicle. It is very bad that in this parliament, where we have a PAC which is supposed to look at how public monies are being expended on behalf of Territorians, that committee is used to pursue a political agenda. That is really something that should not be tolerated by any parliament. But could we convince the government that that should not happen? No, we could not. The chairman was so biased on that matter alone that you could not talk sense to that man. You spent months on that - a lot of money and time was spent, a lot of public servants were pulled in to address the committee - and at the end of the day, the report that was put out was a ‘nothing’ report. It did nothing, it said nothing, it exonerated the members that you targeted.
It exonerated the member for Drysdale, it exonerated the member for Katherine. That is the point. You used the PAC on a political exercise, and you got absolutely nowhere. To date, I have not heard that anybody there said: ‘Oh, sorry guys, we did the wrong thing’. Not a word!
You guys have to think about it. You used a very significant committee of this parliament to try to achieve a political agenda. The day might come that it might turn around and bite you on the bum, then where are you going to be? Remember that before you came to government, the Labor Party had the policy that it was going to reform the PAC. It was going to make it open and accountable; your open and accountable government. Well, that is definitely not the case. You have a PAC that is dominated by the government, where the chairman has a casting vote. Now, you think about it. You were the ones who came up with, ‘bless our hearts, bless our souls, we are doing it in such a nice way, such an open-handed way, that we will never try and hide anything’. You and your transparency and this fiscal …
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex, could you please direct your remarks to the Chair.
Dr LIM: Well, I am saying that you, meaning the government, and your Fiscal Transparency Act …
Ms Scrymgour: Yes, we are.
Dr LIM: Yes, you are, and you stand over there trying to say: ‘Hey, we are so open’. Open with the opaqueness of glass, that is what you are. That is where this government has tried to fool Territorians, and I tell you what: Territorians are not fooled by you. They know that this open and accountable government is nothing but. Even your FOI legislation has been emasculated to just about nothing. Remember, you talked about how transparent you would be, how fair you are going to be to Territorians. Through the PAC exercise this government has forced very senior public servants to leave the service - Mr Ken Clarke, Mr Paul Bartholemew, and later on, Doctor …
Mr KIELY: A point of order, Madam Speaker! It has been said in this House before today the reasons why …
Dr LIM: … his name will come back to me in a minute. That is the problem …
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Greatorex, there has been a point of order called, excuse me.
Mr KIELY: The Under Treasurer who has been before the PAC has stated that he did not resign because of reasons associated with any work carried out. The same as Mr Bartholemew. He knows what the truth is.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Sanderson, there is no point of order.
Dr LIM: The PAC dissenting report, states at point 7, the termination of two senior chief executive officers, Mr Ken Clarke and Mr Paul Bartholomew, as a result of PAC inquiries.
Dr Burns: That is your opinion.
Dr LIM: That is in the report.
Dr Burns: You wrote that; Gerry did not write it.
Dr LIM: There is no point of order. It is published, it is a tabled document in this parliament. That is what you guys need to know. You have to understand that. You do not, you see, that is your problem. This parliament is full of loud, new members who have no idea about sanding orders, and that is your problem.
Members interjecting.
Dr LIM: You try to stifle debate through your bullying tactics. Whenever someone gets up to speak, you try and drown the person out with your loud interjections. You are not going to get away with this. People in the public service know how you intimidate public servants, and Mr Ken Clarke and Mr Bartholomew’s terminations are significant indications of what you have done.
This point number 8, is that not very significant? When you have the unprecedented action – and it is unprecedented, I have never come across this - of a PAC member, the member for Sanderson, unbeknownst to the rest of the committee, obtaining government-sponsored legal advice to pursue another member of parliament. The member for Sanderson pulls a face. He knows that he did that.
Mr KIELY: A point of order, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker! I did not pull any face. He cannot attribute actions to me.
Dr LIM: Just talk to your member ...
Mr KIELY: No, no, no!. I will not put up with that.
Madam ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Sanderson, there is no point of order. You have stated your view that you did not pull a face. Member for Greatorex, continue.
Dr LIM: Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, as I say, the member for Sanderson sought legal advice at great cost to the committee, without referring to the committee in the first instance. Had it not been for the estimates papers that we accidentally …
Mr Kiely: I will answer that one real soon.
Dr LIM: … perusing many lines of fine print, that we saw that entry. When we tried to seek an explanation, there was all hell to pay for it when the question was asked. It is unprecedented that a member of this parliament would seek legal advice on how to pursue another one in this Chamber. Is it not an indication of how the PAC has been so prejudiced in its actions? Let us hope there will be no more of this in the future, that the committee can work together in a gainful way for this parliament, and explore how public monies are being expended by the government, and report fairly to the parliament. That is what it is all about. That is why a parliamentary committee is formed: to report fairly to the parliament.
The resources provided to the PAC have been reasonable. Most things that we wanted to do have been achieved within the budget that we had and, hopefully, those resources will continue to allow us to do the work that we have been set up to do. We have been liaising with the Auditor-General a lot more than in previous years, in my experience, and it is a good thing that the Auditor-General comes to talk to us at frequent intervals and provides us with some development as well. I am not an accountant, and I do not believe that any other member of the PAC is an accountant, so having an accountant such as the Auditor-General teaching, training and giving us development to our roles as PAC members will always be good. I look forward to more instruction from the man who is able to provide unbiased and frank advice, pointing us in the right direction. When we go off in the wrong direction, he does pull us back so that we can refocus our efforts.
The PAC report, in this instance, was a bit bland. It does not tell the reader what we did in the last 12 months. We did a lot of work. The work looking at the previous government’s last budget was a significant amount of work. That was not reported on, but I thought this report should have referred to that earlier report that we tabled in this parliament. It did not do so in a very direct way.
As regard the committee’s efforts with – this was raised by the member for Johnston, regarding the …
A member: The general audits.
Dr LIM: No, not the internal audits, the departmental reports that are put out and the sponsorship that the PAC provided for judging the best agency report. This year, let me tell you, the number of reports that were submitted for the award was drastically down on previous years. We have put some questions to the agencies as to why they have not submitted the reports. It might be that they have lost interest, or whatever, so that is a concern. We like to see the agencies continue to submit their reports because producing an annual report is about accountability and allowing the Auditor-General to ensure that outcomes are being achieved for public monies expended. Hence, the quality of reports are such that that sort of information should be readily accessed from those reports. If those reports being produced are not of the right quality, it makes it very difficult. For a lay person like myself reading an annual report, I like to make it as easy as possible, otherwise it just makes my work so much harder.
With those few remarks, Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I acknowledged the tabling of the PAC report and added some comments about why we - we meaning the member for Drysdale and myself - had to put in a dissenting report so that those points that were left out could be formally incorporated into the tabling of the report.
Mr KIELY (Sanderson): Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, I address the Public Accounts Committee Annual Report, year ended 30 June 2002. It was indeed a pleasure to serve on the Public Accounts Committee. The members, even from both sides, I found to be interesting, under the stewardship and chairmanship of the member for Johnston. I thought it was a great committee to be on; it was certainly into the parliamentary process at the deep end.
I believe, with the help of the Legislative Assembly staff, that we managed quite well. I would like to acknowledge the help of Mr Terry Hanley and Ros Vogeli. Their assistance over the year was much appreciated by myself and other members. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance by Mr Iain Summers, the previous Auditor-General. He was a great asset to the committee in his briefings. He would take all the time in the world to step us through some rather complex matters.
There were a number of interesting reviews that we conducted through the year. The members for Johnston and Greatorex have both addressed those reviews. I would have to agree with the member for Greatorex, that the report, as you read it, does not really go into the work that we did and the passion, and the effort of all members - the members for Johnston, Barkly, Drysdale, Greatorex, Nelson, and myself. Everyone contributed in their own special way, and for that I am thankful.
There were times when we had some robust discussions in the committee. From those little moments, I remember when we were going through the evidence that we had gleaned when we were doing the report on the budget data published in the 2001-02 budget papers, and so on. We had all this evidence and transcripts before us, and we were looking to pull out of that our findings, and I can remember sitting around the table for quite some hours with Terry and the other members of the committee and stepping through it all. That was pretty hard work, but we got through it. To tell you the truth, when we sat down I could not see the light at the back of the tunnel, but we got through. I commend all members of the committee for the work they have put in, particularly the helpful effort of Jane Large, which I thought was exceptional. I would like to give all those people public recognition here in parliament for the work that they did, which was fantastic. We came in within budget, which was pretty good for us. On a Public Accounts Committee, I guess that is one of the things you try to do.
The actual report and the going over of what the committee did has been pretty well gone into. We went into the Estimates Committee and how that was formed, and the fact-finding mission that all of us went on to Tasmania, I believe, except for the member for Barkly. The member for Drysdale went to Brisbane to gather more information, and as well the member for Greatorex went to Adelaide to gather more information. This was much appreciated, and they contributed separately reports on their trips. It was very helpful for the committee to make their deliberations on how we should be tackling the estimates process for the first time. I would say that, for the first time in the Territory, it was not such a bad effort.
There were things happening in the dynamics and in the set-up, with the logistics of the Estimates Committee that we learned from; so we have changed. In particular, it was not a good move, in hindsight, for us to suggest that we have all members of the opposition arraigned along a bench with the members of the committee as well - it was just too unwieldy. I am sure that the modifications that the committee has put forward and the parliament has adopted for this years estimates sittings will be a far greater improvement. That is not to say that we are chucking the baby out with the bath water. I thought for a first time effort that it was a good try and we learned and are building on it.
I too would like to comment on the dissenting report. The members of the opposition seem to have a pattern of dissenting reports, no matter when the PAC brings something down. This is not their first dissenting report and I am starting to get the feeling that, no matter what reports the committee submits, by practice and habit, they will submit a dissenting report. Well, anyone can put in a dissenting report and I would not try and talk them out of it and take away their right to submit a dissenting report. However, you really have to have substance in a dissenting report. You just cannot sit around making baseless allegations or assertions and putting in things which I believe are blatant falsehoods. I will demonstrate that to the Legislative Assembly in a moment. If you are going to put in a dissenting report then you have to be able to demonstrate what it is about. You just cannot put something in and claim it to be true and then not expect to get shot out of the water when it is going to be shown to clearly be untrue. I will get to that.
I will just roll over a couple of the points of the authors of the dissenting report, the two CLP opposition members. An Independent is an independent, they are not part of government so we should make a distinction that it was the CLP opposition members who put in this dissenting report. That was the members for Greatorex and Drysdale. The report, by the way, was submitted on the 26 November 2002. That date is fairly critical to the report as we go through. It says: ‘(1) The Chairman Dr Burns, erroneous comments of the National Public Accounts Committee’.
The member for Greatorex’s recollections of what occurred in committee when the member for Johnston came back and reported on his report to the committee is not quite how I remember them. We are both going on memory, so I am not saying that my memory is any better than the member for Greatorex’s. However, from my memory, it went something along the lines of the member for Johnston had said that the committee had not got out and about. This current committee was calling in witnesses and had a rather large review, or inquiry, on its hands, which had not happened for quite some. The members of the opposition said: ‘No, well that is not right, we did do something to do with barge landings, or something, out in communities. We travelled all over the Territory looking at all these barge landings’ - something of that nature. The member for Johnston said: ‘Oh, I might not have put it in that category, but all right’. He agreed, there was no to-ing or fro-ing: ‘All right, yes, perhaps I did make an error of judgment there and I will correct the record’.
Dr Lim: ‘Perhaps I did’! There you go.
Mr Dunham: He admitted he was wrong. Don’t you understand that?
Mr KIELY: That he did. Yes, no problems there. He provided a written report after that, with the inclusions of that fabulous work that the other PAC had done before us. However, there was no argy-bargy about that. As soon as it was pointed out, he accepted their point of view and that was fine. So really, if that is worth a comment in the dissenting report, then go for it, put it in there, because the member for Johnston - and I will support the opposition if that is what occurred. By all means, you are right, have a dissenting report on that point, sure.
The point that the Chairman was biased, I do not agree with that whatsoever, and members of the public and the members of the media will not agree with that point. They saw the way he handled himself and, as a matter of fact, I would say I was as much on the end of the member for Johnston’s tongue lashings when I stepped out of line, probably more so or at least on a par with the members of the opposition. I have not jumped on this report and said he is biased. I believe he did a good job, under some very extreme circumstances at times, might I say. Under some very extreme circumstances and provocation he managed to hang in there and do a marvellous job. There was equity in his decision-making all the way through. The respect with which he handled the members of the opposition in the Estimates Committee, was very professional, at a very difficult time. I do not think there would be too many members on the opposition team - except for those two other members of the actual committee - complain about the member for Johnston’s professionalism. I completely refute point No 2, the Chairman’s bias.
No 3 was ‘the PAC’s role in establishing the initial operation of the Estimates Committee’. The PAC was charged with going down, finding out and coming back to parliament with what they considered was a good model, and we did. As a matter of fact, you, as members of the PAC, did extra fact-finding side trips to Brisbane and Adelaide, so you must have thought it was a worthwhile effort. What are you doing here? Are you saying your role was pretty crook? Because you were part of the PAC, you are part of the PAC. I find it incredible that you put a dissenting report down on your own efforts. If you want to do that, then go ahead and I will support you on that. I thought it was a good job, but if you reckon you did not do a good job, go for it. But do not wrap me up into it, okay?
I would like to talk about the point of the conduct of the Estimates Committee. I remember at one stage I was sitting between the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Treasurer, and the things they said in my ear - well believe me, I am really happy they did not carry them out. Members would have to agree it is not very often that I could get too shocked around this joint, but I was pretty surprised that day. It will be one of the lasting endearing memories of the Estimates Committee that I have taken away with me, that one; it was a beauty. However, let me say that there were also other things that went on at the end of the table in that Estimates Committee. I remember the member for Johnston having to have some serious words with the member for Araluen for conduct - the way he handled that was pretty generous. So I believe that the conduct in the Estimates Committee - you, members for Drysdale Greatorex, were members of the Estimates Committee, so I do not really understand why you are dissenting about your own behaviour. However, you have the right to.
‘The committee’s single-minded pursuit of former Treasurer, Mike Reed MLA, over the issue which is now both commonplace and …
Mr Burke: Yes, that one.
Mr KIELY: Yes, that one. That is amazing. We all know the trickiness that went on. We all know; we did a whole inquiry on it.
Mr Dunham: So how much did Health blow-out by this year? $20m.
Mr KIELY: Hey? Look, we all know what went on; about the slippery dealings out the back, when it was a quick conversation while passing in a hallway, which the Under Treasurer clearly stated was what the Treasurer said to him.
Members interjecting.
Mr KIELY: Come on! This came out. When you say ‘The single-minded pursuit of former Treasurer, Mike Reed MLA, over an issue …’, we had you, member for Drysdale, who conveniently was on one side of the fence, and you jumped over to the other. You were interrogated for your actions in this whole affair. It was you and the Treasurer; you were all part of it. We did not just pursue the MLA, you were right in the sight scope too.
Mr Dunham: I was censured before I went in, mate. I know exactly what the scope was.
Mr KIELY: It was not just the former Treasurer, Mike Reed; you were in it up to your neck and we had to have a look and find out what went on, and we did. Once again, I refute that. It was not just the Treasurer. You were in it up to your neck. I have never seen anyone be judge and juror and write the rules of evidence themselves, but you managed to do it. I give him full credit because that was the best slippery politics I ever witnessed.
Mr Dunham: So you think we were judging in the PAC? You still do not understand our role, do you?
Mr KIELY: Member for Drysdale, it was not …
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Sanderson, pause for a moment. You will have your chance to have your say. We will hear the member for Sanderson in silence.
Mr Dunham: He was inviting comment, Madam Speaker.
Mr KIELY: No, I am not!
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Sanderson, talk to me!
Mr KIELY: Madam Speaker, I point out that it was not just the member for Katherine in the frame. No, there were a number of former ministers: the former minister for Education who has gone now. so I will not say his name. I might invoke him! Once again, there were a number there, so I have to refute that claim.
‘The government reneging on its commitment to reform the PAC’. It is a shame that they did not go to the front of this report before they wrote their dissenting report. What does it say here?
- Committee membership.
With the proposed Assembly on Wednesday 1 August, the following Committee membership lapsed:
Eric Poole, MLA (Chairman), John Elferink, MLA (Member), Paul Henderson, MLA (Member),
Terry Mills, MLA (Member), Peter Toyne, MLA (Member).
Five. On Tuesday 16 October 2001, there was a new structure provided for the inclusion of an Independent member: Burns, Dunham, Kiely, Lim, McAdam, Wood - six. How, in your dissenting report, do you come up with the government reneging on its commitment to reform the PAC? Isn’t it there? We reformed it. Five when you were there: three government; two opposition. What do we have? Six. I can see why you got into strife in that inquiry. You cannot count! Five and six.
Mr Dunham: I do not mind him inviting comment, Madam Speaker, it is just …
Madam SPEAKER: You just sit there quietly and listen.
Mr KIELY: He does not understand what the word ‘reform’ means. He cannot tell the difference, but he and the member for Greatorex thought it was good enough to pen a dissenting report. I am glad I am able to help you: five on this hand. One more is six. Have you got that? That is all it takes to sort out that point.
‘The termination of two senior chief executive officers’. Time and again they have been in here - you were probably glad to see Mr Ken Clarke go, weren’t you, because he put you right in the frame, didn’t he? You and your mate, the Treasurer.
Mr Dunham: Are you still talking to me? I would like to answer that.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Drysdale, enough!
Mr KIELY: It has been before this Assembly that Mr Ken Clarke resigned for his own reasons, as did Mr Bartholomew. They were not terminated; they resigned. As a matter of fact, it was the subject of a Public Accounts Committee inquiry. We had the Commissioner for Public Employment before us. The members for Drysdale and Greatorex are part of that committee. We spoke to them about the termination and the exit from the public sector of these people. The Commissioner for Public Employment laid it fair on the table what went on there; that they left of their own volition. This was way before – and this goes back to my point about untruths in their dissenting report - 26 November.
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Madam Speaker!
Mr KIELY: Yes? Well, it is true.
Mr DUNHAM: He cannot allege that the dissenting report contains untruths unless he does so by way of substantive motion.
Madam SPEAKER: No, you cannot allege that.
Mr KIELY: All right, I will not allege it, Madam Speaker. I will put it on record, however, that they were present at a Public Accounts Committee hearing where the Commissioner for Public Employment stated categorically that these two CEOs did not leave because of these matters. They knew it, yet they went ahead and put this statement in their report.
Let me get to point 8: ‘The unprecedented action of a PAC member, the member for Sanderson, obtaining government sponsored legal advice to pursue another member of parliament’. I have here advice marked ‘Confidential’ from De Silva Hebron, Barristers and Solicitors, a worthy firm. This is the advice sought:
You instructed …
That is, I:
- … instructed that there is a current sitting of the Public Accounts Committee with respect to particular
budget data for the year 2001-02.
Of particular interest to the Public Accounts Committee is the apparent artificial reduction in the
2000-01 budget carried out for the purpose of presenting a false increase in the 2001-02 budget
figures for certain government departments.
- In particular, you …
The member for Sanderson:
- … seek advice as to what constitutes malfeasance in circumstances where (a) the minister has directed
a public servant to alter the figures; or (b) the public servant has acted without specific direction from
the minister and of his own volition to alter the figures.
Where does it say in there that I was obtaining sponsored legal advice to pursue another member of parliament?
Mr Dunham: You were.
Mr KIELY: Where does it say it in there?
Mr Dunham: The PAC did not, mate.
Mr KIELY: If I understand the member for Drysdale correctly, he is saying that the people who authored this document are lying, because …
Mr Dunham: I am saying that is not from the PAC, it is from you.
Mr KIELY: … clearly, it is not what you think. Now, Madam Speaker, this whole report was tabled in the parliament …
Mr Dunham: Where was it tabled?
Mr KIELY: … following the Estimates Committee, when I remember they gave a rigorous grilling of you and your CEO.
Mr Dunham: You did not bring it to the PAC?
Mr KIELY: Madam Speaker, this report was always sitting up with the secretary, always sitting there. This report was about me getting information to find out what constituted malfeasance - right? – and nothing else, so that I had a good idea about what I was looking for, because I did not understand what this was. This was well before 26 November 2002. They, the opposition, and members of the parliament, all had access. Everyone has had access to this document. This was actually provided to members of the PAC.
Mr Dunham: When?
Mr KIELY: This was actually provided to members, well before 26 November 2002. Therefore, Madam Speaker, I say to you, that they knowingly and willingly put a falsehood in this statement. They knowingly and willingly put in a lie, because it is all there.
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Madam Speaker! Under standing orders, he cannot allege that a lie is in this parliamentary document, which is carrying the crest of the parliament of the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory, unless he does so by way of substantive motion.
Mr KIELY: I withdraw it, Madam Speaker. I withdraw it unreservedly.
The dissenting report is the biggest crock that I have ever seen. I expect to see it more in the future.
Motion agreed to; paper noted.
TABLED PAPER
Standing Orders Committee - Second Report of Ninth Assembly, June 2003
Standing Orders Committee - Second Report of Ninth Assembly, June 2003
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I table the second report of the Standing Orders Committee for the 9th Assembly, which is a progress report on the committee’s review of the draft Members Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards and proposed amendments to the Legislative Assembly (Register of Members’ Interests) Act. The report also contains recommendations involving a range of issues dealt with by the committee during the last 12 months.
First, in regard to the code of conduct and register of members’ interest legislation, I am able to report to the Assembly that the committee has met on six occasions and, in the course of its inquiry to date, has sought and received a number of submissions which are listed in the report, and has met with the consultant involved in the draft of the two matters referred to the committee, Mr Howard Whitton. The committee has also taken evidence from members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly Standing Ethics Committee, which presented comprehensive submissions to the committee.
At its most recent deliberative meeting, the committee considered the draft code in detail, clause by clause, and has reached general agreement on the provisions contained in a number of clauses. Further consultation will take place between members of the committee and their colleagues, with a view to further consideration by the committee of the outcomes of these discussions at future meetings.
I indicate to members of the committee that it was proposed that the committee seek an extension for the reporting until 2004 - in a motion we passed today - to enable the committee to further consult individuals and others in respect of issues which have arisen in the course of consideration of its reference in this material.
Members will also recall that, in its report of the accuracy of budget data presented in May 2002, the Public Accounts Committee made a recommendation to refer Standing Order 263 to the Standing Orders Committee for its consideration and report. Having considered the matters raised in the context of the Public Accounts Committee report and the written advice provided to that committee by the Clerk, the committee considered the issues of concern raised by the Public Accounts Committee and resolved that it should recommend that Standing Order 263 be amended to include ‘interests other than pecuniary interests’, as matters which should concern members in respect of personal interests, in particular, in respect of participating in committees proceedings.
Members will also be aware of the issue relating to breastfeeding - an interesting discussion for parliament – and the implication of standing orders, which was raised following an incident in the Victorian parliament. The Standing Orders Committee has considered the issues raised and concluded that the relevant Northern Territory standing order is similar in wording to that in the Victorian Legislative Assembly and, accordingly, it is available to Madam Speaker, at any time, to rule that if a member was required to be in the Chamber, it would be in order for that member, if necessary, to bring an infant into the Chamber to be breastfed. The committee recommends that the committee not amend standing orders at this time.
The Standing Orders Committee has drawn to its attention an apparent anomaly between the time allowed for the ringing of the bells for quorums, which is currently set for two minutes in Standing Orders 36, 37 and 39, and the provision for bells to be rung for three minutes for divisions. It was explained to the committee that, when the Legislative Assembly moved into this building, it was agreed that division bells be rung for three minutes in order to allow members to be able to access the Chamber from the furthest parts of the building. In an apparent oversight, the time for ringing the bells for quorums was not extended. Accordingly, the committee recommends that Standing Orders 36, 37 and 39 be amended to allow the bells to be rung for three minutes.
MOTION
Print Report - Standing Orders Committee - Second Report of Ninth Assembly, June 2003
Print Report - Standing Orders Committee - Second Report of Ninth Assembly, June 2003
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the report be printed.
Motion agreed to.
MOTION
Adopt Report and Recommendations - Standing Orders Committee - Second Report of Ninth Assembly, June 2003
Adopt Report and Recommendations - Standing Orders Committee - Second Report of Ninth Assembly, June 2003
Mr HENDERSON (Leader of Government Business): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly adopt the report and recommendations of the Standing Orders Committee, and that I have leave to continue my remarks at a later hour.
Motion agreed to.
STATEMENT BY SPEAKER
Alice Springs Sittings – Post-Event Review
Alice Springs Sittings – Post-Event Review
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, I am pleased to report to the Assembly that the Department of the Legislative Assembly has carried out a post-event review of the Alice Springs sittings in respect of the planning, support and administrative arrangements.
As you can appreciate, this event was very much a learning experience for the department. Despite the knowledge gained from regional sittings in Victoria and Queensland, it was evident that no two venues are the same regarding the staging of the event. Essentially, Alice Springs provided a significant challenge due to the distance travelled and the level of support required. Irrespective of some initial concerns, most of these were quickly allayed due to the support available in Alice Springs from the commercial sector, and the assistance provided by the Chief Minister’s Department. I should also make mention of the volunteer support provided from the Education Department and from a number of electorate offices.
The analysis of the overall planning and implementation was considered adequate, but highlighted a number of minor technical issues. In the main, this required some local purchase of goods and services that were not readily available on site, to complete a number of technical tasks. These issues were quickly resolved by having staff on the ground early and, in some cases, up to six days in advance of the first sitting day. The experience gained, however, will ensure the lead-time for planning will be considerably reduced if the same venue is used. Apart from the convenience and local knowledge, this will also recognise savings in accommodation and allowances by reducing the days absent from Darwin.
Recently, the Clerk wrote to all members and staff seeking any feedback that may assist in future planning. Some responses have been received. However, I would encourage members to consider the event while it is still fresh in their minds. For your information, I will table a summary of the analysis thus far. In addition, I have also provided a cost summary of the direct and related cost for the sittings.
You will also be aware that we conducted a one-day Youth Parliament following the last day of sittings. This was well received and was conducted utilising staff who were already in Alice Springs. In flowing on from the sittings, it also provided the opportunity for members to be involved or witness the young parliamentarians perform in the Chamber. It is proposed to repeat this event in two years, noting the economy of effort and savings achieved.
Honourable members, I table this report for your consideration.
ADJOURNMENT
Mr VATSKALIS (Transport and Infrastructure): Madam Speaker, I move that the Assembly do now adjourn.
I have the pleasure of informing members of the parliament about an honour bestowed upon one of Darwin’s citizens. Mrs Noriko Smit is a well-known member of the Japanese community in the Northern Territory. On 24 February 2003, Mrs Smit was presented with a Head of Diplomatic Mission Award from the Japanese government by the Deputy Consul-General, Hiroshi Manabe, on behalf of Mr Shigenobu Kato, Consul-General of Japan in Sydney. Mrs Smit received the commendation in recognition of her enormous contribution providing assistance to Japanese tourists, business people and government missions for many years. Her tireless effort as a leading member of the Japanese community has been outstanding.
Among her many activities, Mrs Smit has voluntarily maintained Japanese graves. She has also offered her assistance to the Consul-General of Japan in Sydney on several occasions when accidents have occurred involving Japanese nationals in the Territory. Her contributions have enhanced the safety of Japanese. Her voluntary work includes taking care of injured Japanese and visiting them during their hospitalisation, as well as providing assistance with transportation for Japanese victims involved in accidents at remote locations such as Alice Springs and Uluru.
The Head of the Diplomatic Mission Award is conferred on individuals and groups based overseas for recognition of their contributions and achievements promoting relations between Japan and other nations. A silver cup is also presented with the award to those who have contributed to Japanese national protection. I congratulate Mrs Smit on being the first person, not only in the Northern Territory but in Australia, to be recognised by the Japanese government for this award.
I would like to speak about Mr Bill Franklin, who retired from the Northern Territory Public Service on 22 June 2003 after serving the Territory for over 36 years. During this time, Mr Franklin provided a high level of technical involvement in setting and maintaining material testing standards throughout the Territory. He is currently employed as Manager, Technical Services, with the Road Project Division in Palmerston.
Mr Franklin has worked in all major centres in the Northern Territory. He began his career in the Northern Territory public service as a technical assistant in Katherine in 1966, before moving to Alice Springs in 1971. After promotion to technical officer in 1980, he moved to Tennant Creek. During his time in Tennant Creek, a new purpose designed material testing laboratory was built. Mr Franklin had a major hand in fitting out the new facility. After another stint in Alice Springs as a senior technical officer, Mr Franklin was promoted to Senior Technical Officer, Grade 3, in the Systems and Research Branch of Roads Division in 1986. During this time, he was involved in the preparation of maintenance programs throughout the Territory based on his background knowledge of testing standards, leading ultimately to the introduction of quality assurance into work contracts.
I wish Mr Franklin and his family the very best for the future. I trust he will enjoy his retirement after a very active career in the Northern Territory Public Service.
In the past few weeks, I have opened in a number of events in my electorate, especially in the schools. First of all, the Alawa Primary School sports day was held over three days, on 10, 11 and 12 June 2003, and the event was won by Goyder House. The children had prepared their own banners, and colours. The teams were Manton Crocodiles, green colour, with Trudi Goodworth and Bryan Astley as captains and Kieren McDonald and Ranelle Singh as the vice-captains; the blues, the Finnis Kingfishers, headed by Justin Lim and Jessica McMaster as captains and Shlok Sharma and Camille LeLievre as vice-captains; and the Goyder Dingoes with yellow colour, headed by Kevin Howard and Heather Mulholland as captains, and Paul Papapavlou and Stephanie Breuer as the vice-captains.
Nakara Sports Day was today and I was very pleased to be there in the morning to declare the games open. It was a fantastic morning of a beautiful day, and the children were very excited about the sports days, two days before the holidays. There were a number of parents watching their children. I have to admit, I have been to the Nakara Primary School sports day before, and it is a big event, with a large number of kids participating and a large number of parents barracking. The four groups there were: Johnson, yellow colour, with Victoria Tracy and Eric Blanche as captains, and Taylor Noonan and Alex Bates as vice-captains; followed by Kingsford-Smith with purple, with Haley Newy and Adam Schwarz as captains and Andrew Chum and Alice Cotton as vice-captains; Erhardt with the green colour, with Rachel McLean and Nathan Jones-Cubillo as captains and James Carson and Grace Murphy as vice-captains; and last but not least, there was Hinkler with the red colour, with Max King and Claire Humphrey as captains and Amanda Riley and Yianni Lolias as vice-captains.
I have a very soft spot for the children in primary schools, and certainly, many of them achieve not only in education but also in sports. Brienna Logie from Holy Spirit Primary School is going to Perth in July for the National Callisthenics Championships. She is a very good athlete and I have high hopes that she will finish in a very good line. Another exceptionally good athlete, who I had the honour to watch running last year, is Candice Liddy, currently studying in Year 8 at Dripstone High School, an ex-Nakara Primary School Citizen of the Year last year. She is going to represent the Territory in the under-15 Hockey Championships here in Darwin, during in the school holidays.
The events do not finish there. Recently, I attended a function at the Darwin Surf Life Saving Casuarina, of which I am patron. I was pleased to be there when Mr Jim Luchich, the Manager of Darwin Theiss, donated a ‘rubber duck’, an inflatable rescue boat, to the club whose captain is Mr Gary McKinnon. The name rubber duck sounds funny, but the price is not; it cost in excess of $8000 and, together with a Yamaha outboard motor, in excess of $25 000. That is a wonderful donation that will help the lifesaving club perform its duties and train many athletes, junior and senior.
Last but not least, the Dripstone Children’s Centre on Ellengowan Drive provides a great service to many residents in Casuarina. We all know how difficult it is to find a good child-care centre or, indeed, a child-care space in Darwin, with increasing demand by the young population. On 7 June, the Dripstone Children’s Centre held a fete that was a great success. A few weeks ago, the manageress of the centre told me of some problems with the centre. It is becoming old, and they cannot raise the significant amount of money they need to renovate; in particular the space for Year 2.
I was pleased to offer them a transportable purpose-built child-care centre from the former Tiwi campus which is not being utilised any more. I took them to see it and they were very impressed by the quality of the structure, which has toilets and showers designed for the little citizens, and a purpose-built kitchen that is superior to what will you see around Darwin. I gave them the transportable child-care building, and I am very pleased to learn that the Development Consent Authority recently approved the relocation of it to the Dripstone Children’s Centre. I wish them every success.
Mrs AAGAARD (Nightcliff): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, the Queen’s Birthday long weekend also saw the annual celebration of Greek culture with the hosting of the Glenti by the Greek Orthodox community. The Glenti has been on the Darwin event calendar for more than 10 years, and has become bigger and better every year. This year was no exception, with Bob the Builder and presenters of The Big Arvo in Darwin to entertain the massive crowds.
For the first time, Glenti ran over 1 days. Saturday night saw the introduction of a ‘taverna’ night which, from all accounts, was a great success. Glenti is an opportunity for the various Greek community organisations to come together and showcase a diversity of culture within Greece itself, from the food to music and dance. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Greek youth of Darwin perform traditional dances. This year, there were dancers from Kalymnos, Crete, Cyprus and parts of mainland Greece. I would particularly like to congratulate some of the dancers: Jasmine Cleanthous, Chris and George Christakis, the Siriotis family, and the Kathapoulos family. I congratulate all the young people who performed during Glenti for their outstanding performances. I further want to acknowledge the dance instructors and parents who also put in many hours of hard work for these performances.
The wonderful Greek food we all enjoy so much at Glenti is prepared by the Greek community’s various not-for-profit organisations. I would like to acknowledge the groups and praise them for the many hours of commitment they put into the Glenti. Thank you especially to the Greek Orthodox community who hosted the event, in particular members of the committee, President John Nikolakis and Tony Miaoudis. I make special mention of Mrs Lilliane Gomatos who is the Chairperson of the Glenti Committee. I congratulate her on another excellent Glenti.
I have the honour of having the Greek Orthodox School in my electorate. I know that the community bands together before the Glenti to prepare the dolmathes, and various other foods that we enjoy on the day.
I would like to mention the Cyprus community, especially Leo and Helen Cleanthous; Leo and Katherina Athanasiou of the Kalymnian Brotherhood; Stratos and Angellica Puolos of the Hellenic Macedonian Association; Maria Paterakis of the Cretan Association, who is also a valued member of my staff; Lydia Tsirogianis from the Olympic Soccer Club; Manuel and Nistsa Kotis of Hellenic Soccer Club; and the young people of the Pan Hellenic Youth Dancers.
I look forward to a bigger and event better event, as is the tradition, next year.
I move on to another subject which has already been highlighted this week; that is, smoking. Smoking in Aboriginal communities is at even higher rates, sadly, than in the rest of the Northern Territory community. In some communities, the rates of smoking reached 70% to 80%, and this is a terrible tragedy for the Northern Territory. I am, therefore, very pleased to announce four grants which I have made to four different communities to try and combat this smoking. These are grants that have actually gone to communities to tackle these problems.
The first one goes to Yugal Mangi Community Government Council to introduce a smoke-free sport and recreation hall within the community, through murals painted for tobacco and other drugs by the local community and youth, including education about these issues. This was for $3000.
The second goes to Nganmarriyanga School near Palumpa to develop a resource flip chart in language about smoking stories by local youths for use as a teaching resource. This was another $3000 grant.
The Bagot Community Council grant was to assist the community to provide alternative activities for a range of educational activities for Aboriginal health workers, women’s group, community development employment program, to assist in a youth health week sports day, and to prioritise health issues that need to be addressed by the community and was for $3000.
The Marle Ingkherekenhe Arndaritjika women’s centre is implementing smoke free areas as part of the introduction of tobacco legislation. The Alcohol and Other Drugs workers are assisting this community to plan and provide an educational workshop for implementing this process. The grant is also $3000.
I congratulate those communities for the enthusiasm and initiative in applying for these grants, and I sincerely hope that the work that they put into this will actually make a huge difference in relation to reducing the number of people who die from smoke-related diseases in communities.
I was also pleased to be able to sign off on 15 projects for Northern Territory schools relating to smoking. These were health promoting grants of $500 each, and they went to a range of schools around the Territory. Once again, we have extraordinarily high rates of young people taking up smoking. One of the aims of our new legislation is, in fact, to deter young people from taking up smoking. To have 15 schools around the Territory with young people who are keen to undertake projects at those schools relating to not smoking, is an excellent thing for the Northern Territory. It is my great hope, in the future, that young people will not be taking up smoking at the alarming rates that they have been over the past few years.
My congratulations to the following schools, which each received $500 to undertake projects to prevent the increase of smoking amongst young people. They went to: Taminmin High School, for the project entitled ‘What smoking really does to you’; O’Loughlin Catholic College, for ‘Staying smoke-free’; Nemarluk School, ‘Smoke-free/effects of smoking’; Sanderson High School, ‘Enjoy life without smoking’ - and I understand that the member for Sanderson was able to present that cheque to that school and they were very appreciative of the member being able to attend; the Nightcliff High School for ‘Smoking - unhealthy and expensive’ - and I was very happy to be able to attend the Nightcliff High School to present that cheque, as well; Tennant Creek High School, ‘Successful tips to end smoking’; Adelaide River School, ‘Smoke-free tidy town’; Wagaman Primary School, ‘Stop smoking jingle’; Centralian College, ‘Smoking – what gets up your nose’; St Johns College, ‘Quit triathlon’; Shepherdson College, ‘Yolgnu – please stop smoking’; Borroloola CEC, ‘Smoke-free school’; ANZAC Hills High School, ‘Smoking is choking’; St Johns College, ‘Things you can’t do when you smoke’; and Darwin High School, ‘Smoke-free signage’.
My congratulations to all of those schools, and I wish them all the best in their projects to ensure that young people try to either quit smoking, or do not take it up in the first place.
Mr BONSON (Millner): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, tonight I talk about a dear friend on a sad occasion - more than just a friend, a mentor, a leader of the community, someone I respected greatly. Unfortunately, the man I am talking about recently passed away. His name was Wally Langton Nickels. He was born on the 17 June 1950 and died on 8 June 2003. I have known this man all my life.
I will just read from a book which contained his eulogy and some notes for some people to read. It has on the front:
- In loving memory of Wallace Langton Nickels, 17 June 1950 to 8 June 2003
And there is a photo of him:
- Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
- Son of Wally (deceased), and Jessie Gypsy Nickels (deceased). Brother of Ali (deceased),
Cathie, Vivienne (deceased), Walter (deceased), Keith, Mary, Lloyd and Mark (deceased).
Uncle to Tommy and Lizzy, Leo and Diane, Walter, Charles and Colleen, Sian and Jamie
Sedet, Tyson. Great-Uncle of Johnathon, TomTom, Joanna, Jessica, Duana, Vivienne,
Janaya, Tommy Ty, Trevor and Tanesha Mare. Great friend of Colleen and daughter,
Kathy Burns …
There are many others.
The service was held at the Memorial Uniting Church, on Thursday, 19 June 2003 at 11 am. The booklet was handed out by Lulu Ah Mat, neighbour and long-time friend of the families.
The Entrance song was Easy by the Commodores, and the pallbearers were Arnhem Hunter, Fenton Antuon, Robyn Taylor, Danny Maha, Warren Raye and Kimberley Hunter.
The eulogy was by a good friend of mine, Micky Mullins. It goes:
- It was Wally’s request that his family not wear black at his funeral. Wally was born on 17 June 1950 at
the Derby Hospital, in Western Australia. When he was a couple of months old, his parents and sisters
moved to Darwin. The family lived at Parap Camp, Gardiner Street, and Wilmot Street.
He attended Darwin Primary School and Darwin High School where he was head prefect. He worked at
FATSIS, where he formed a lasting rapport with staff and students who once attended there.
Wally’s achievements were many, indulging in his love of Aussie Rules, basketball and soccer. He was a
life member of the Waratahs Football Club and the Rebels Basketball Club. In both, he was a player and
coach. His passion for martial arts prevailed and many of his trips overseas were to pursue his goals to
better himself at this sport. Wally was a very proud and independent man. He gave his all but never asked
anyone for help.
Don’t shed too many tears for me. Don’t grieve too much for me. Recognise the happy times we had
shared together. I’m free of sickness and pain. I’m now at peace.
Kathy Burns was like a stepdaughter to Wally. She spoke words of kindness about his effect on her life. Ronnie Baker, an ex-President of Waratah Football Club and a stalwart, spoke kind words. Carmie Dunn and Natalie Hunter spoke about Rebels basketball, and you have heard about his martial arts passion. Pallbearers at the cemetery were Leo Nickels, Peter March, Peter Goodrem, Doogsie, Micky Mullins and Danny Long.
Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, as you can see, Wally was a special man. Everyone who knew him was greatly touched by him. I thought about the words I wanted to say; I cannot really articulate them at this stage. One thing I really wanted to say was a lot of young men and women grew up rough in Darwin and Wally was able to put us all together - and when I say ‘rough’, I mean we had some really rough boys and girls who mixed with us, and he was able to direct us. There was so many people who turned up for whom he had a direct influence on their lives. Over so many years, I think about the people he helped. For him to die at 52 is quite sad.
I must extend special thanks to the Burns family: Porky, a very good friend of his and good friend of mine, Jeremy and Theresa, Stevie, and Lua. I like what was mentioned at his wake: ‘According to Wally, no alcohol to be consumed at the bar’ and the bar would be closed for the wake, and re-opened. That was the type of man he was.
Wally was special in a lot of ways. He was also a healer. On a number of occasions, he helped to heal me. He did this for many people, even though he did not like to speak about it, but he was happy to do it. I am upset because very few people are decent, and he was a really decent man. It is so sad. However, he was a positive man, too, a very positive thinking man. I never heard him criticise a person in my life. Often, I would sit for hours talking to him. I just wanted to say that that Keith and Lloyd and Wally and Aunty Cathie had a very strong influence over many young people in Darwin and they still do.
What amazed me was the number of people who came to show their respects. I do not think there was a person in the house that he never helped. I am quite sad to talk about this tonight - I did not want to be; in fact, I wanted to come in here and talk about the good things. Obviously, he had a great love for martial arts. When I said that a lot of people lived rough, he used martial arts to steer them on the right path. He was anti-drugs and alcohol, but he understood if people used them, and he always looked for positives in people.
His love for basketball knew no bounds. He was my coach for many years and we were very successful. He had the respect of so many people in the basketball community because he was more than just a basketball coach. Obviously, he had a great love for football, and the Waratah Football Club. He shared that love.
Wally will always be remembered. We can learn a lot of lessons from people like him, a very decent man. I would like to read the poem his family chose:
- Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
- Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I would just like to thank his family and Wally for all his memories.
Ms MARTIN (Fannie Bay): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I would like to share tonight in adjournment, news of an exhibition currently on display at the Museum and Art Gallery at Bullocky Point. Earlier this month, I was invited to open Keeping the Peace, the Story of Australian Peacekeepers. This exhibition is a travelling one from the Australian War Memorial. It highlights the role played by Australian peacekeeping forces for more than half a century. The director of the Australian War Memorial, Major General Stephen Gower AO, was in town for the opening, and I took the opportunity to discuss ideas about ways in which the Australian War Memorial and the Museum and Art Gallery can work together in presenting the military history of our region and, in particular, Darwin. Stephen Gower said he was committed to sharing the resources of the Australian War Memorial through a program of loans and exhibitions - step one.
Also at that opening, it was great to hear a fascinating perspective on keeping the peace from the Commander of Northern Command, Air Commodore Stephen Walker. He gave his personal experiences in that opening.
The exhibition itself features visual art, private papers, documents, costumes, audio-visual interactors, and objects, and is both an historic and an aesthetic delight. The exhibition highlights the strengths and the capability of Australian forces, and shows their track record for coolness under pressure in the most difficult of situations. The exhibition illustrates the contribution paid by those troops in the service of world peace, in situations where there was conflict, strife, civil war and violence - and the Australian forces have been in some of the most difficult places on the globe. They have been there keeping the peace.
I thoroughly recommend the exhibition, Keeping the Peace, the Story of Australian Peacekeepers, and encourage members to visit, take your children there. It is an important part of Australian history.
As we all know, we had a most successful sittings of the parliament in Alice Springs at the end of April. One of the things that happened after we had finished our sittings was the Youth Parliament. The Youth Parliament moved, quite smoothly and quickly, into the space that we had used, after we had finished in the Convention Centre, on 2 May this year. Honourable members will be aware that the objectives of the Youth Parliament program are: to create and develop in senior secondary school students an interest in their system of government and parliamentary processes; involve them in public speaking and debating; discussion of ideas of importance and documenting ideas; to provide a forum for young people to express their views on matters of concern to them; to provide governments with a document of acts passed by the Youth Parliament, which are an expression of young people’s concerns, and which may be acted upon by government; and to hold a YMCA youth project which, while developing many skills, is also of considerable value to the personal growth of the young people involved.
The students at this year’s Youth Parliament were from Alice Springs High, Yirara College, Our Lady of Sacred Heart College, St Philip’s, ANZAC Hill High School, Nyangatjatjara College, Nhulunbuy High School, and I believe there were also some from schools in Darwin.
The bills debated included a bill for an act related to security at airports within the Territory; a bill for an act to reduce the incidence of substance abuse by Territory youth, by providing for education, community support, and by requiring offenders to spend time performing constructive community work; a bill for an act to provide for organ donation by adult Territorians; and a bill for an act to reduce damage to health, property, violence and community disruption arising from the inhalation of petrol fumes.
There was also debate on a matter of public importance relating to the need of Northern Territory youth to be heard. I am sure all members will join me in acknowledging the following students and their supervisors for their contribution to the Alice Springs Youth Parliament: from Alice Springs High School - Beth Sharp, Julia Winterflood, and Tracy Oades; from Nyangatjatjara College - Peter Coombes, Zack Calma and Sandra Taylor; from Yirara College - Edwin Cook and Dale Campbell; from Our Lady of Sacred Heart School - Aimee Dixon, Brooke O’Connell, Ashlee Gosling, Meredith Pearson; from St Philip’s - Courtney Ingham, David Caffery, Dale Harker, Sarah Schubert, Tina LaPalombara and Alex Politt; from Nhulunbuy - Brad Chesson, Rebekah Haig, Kate Barrett and Linda Barrett; from ANZAC Hill High - Trent Leleu, Brendan Kelleher, Adam Davies, Bernard Lucas; and from Centralian College - Kurt Schultze, Holly Pezet and Ian Sharp. I extend my congratulations to all the Youth Parliamentarians and all those involved in training and supporting them - particularly those from our Assembly who have supported the young aspirants in their day of activity.
The breakfast we had to start the Youth Parliament’s day was probably the coldest breakfast time I can ever remember. It was held in the forecourt of the convention centre, and I suppose somebody thought a May morning would be warm. It was probably the coldest breakfast time and some of the young folk were too cold to eat. They just sat there hugging themselves, looking for blankets, and only made a cursory attempt at the food. However, I am sure they had a great day and will remember the breakfast.
Going to a more recent event, last Sunday the first FFUN event was held in Dundas Park in Weddell Street, Parap. FFUN is a new program sponsored by the Darwin City Council and it stands for Families and Friends Uniting in Neighbourhoods. The objective of FFUN is to create strong neighbourhoods through recreation in a safe community environment. The Parap Residents Association was approached by council to coordinate this pilot event. The residents group thought that a ‘park warming’ for the suburb’s newest park was a good way to go. Over 100 people from the area attended an afternoon of good old-fashioned fun, and took the opportunity to reconnect with their neighbours in a social environment.
There were lots of activities, including a neighbourhood cricket match, hoola hoops, skipping, and totem tennis fueled with free ice cups and a sausage sizzle. Many children, and even some brave adults, had their faces painted, while the whole crowd was entertained by the unplugged country music of The Duanes. Blake Cowley did a fantastic job of keeping the little ones under control on the cricket pitch. The local aldermen - Ian Fraser, Carole Miller and Deputy Lord Mayor, Chris Tilley - attended and, I believe, had a good time. Jess Horn, Annette Millikins, Richard Coates and Steve Van den Nieuwenhof cooked. All that was demanded of me was to provide the barbecue. Mind you, I failed at doing hoola hoops, which I had not done for about 40 years. There were pictures taken of the failure.
Thanks to Vicci Reid and Veronica Anderson, the hard-working contacts at the Darwin City Council, for what was a great afternoon. Last, but not least, I pay tribute to the hard-working committee of the Parap Residents Association who all lent a hand to make this a relaxing and a wonderful afternoon.
I would like to inform the House about a gala event that was held on the island of Bermuda from 27 April to 1 May this year. It was a conference of elite businesswomen who belong to a group called The Leading Women Entrepreneurs of the World. Since 1997, nearly 300 women business owners from 45 countries spanning six continents, have been honoured with the awards from this prestigious organisation, including the Territory’s own Marilynne Paspaley. The House should would be aware that these women entrepreneurs collectively own companies worth $120bn - a phenomenal average of $400m per honouree. Marilynne Paspaley played an especially prominent role in this year’s conference. She was accompanied by fellow Territory businesswomen, Karen Brown, from Karen Brown Gallery, and Heather Brown from Di Croco Crocodile Products, as well as prominent Aboriginal performing artist, George Rrurramba. George gave an Aboriginal cultural performance at the final lunch of the conference, and reports are that it was very well received, Karen Brown sold out her collection of contemporary Aboriginal art, and Heather Brown made impeccable contacts with fellow businesswomen from New York, Los Angeles and Bermuda, and business for her company is likely to follow.
I am pleased that my government was able to support Marilynne Paspaley and the others with assistance to get freight to Bermuda, and that the Protocol Unit of my department was also able to assist. So successful was the Northern Territory contribution to this year’s conference that Marilynne has been able to persuade the organisers to bring the event to Sydney next year, with a strong focus on follow-up visits to Darwin and the Top End. I commend Marilynne Paspaley for playing such a leading role in helping business women follow their dreams and for always putting opportunities for the Territory first.
I wonder how many of my colleagues are aware that it is Back to Morse Week in Darwin. This week, the old Morse Codians will be in town on their annual pilgrimage from Adelaide keeping the tradition of morse sending alive. In Lyons Cottage on The Esplanade this week, 94 year old George Maine and his colleague, the comparatively youthful Brian Haskin, will be sending free telegrams for visitors by morse keying along the phone lines. These telegrams are then sent to their destination by Australia Post. This festival, celebrating the telegraphic history of our town, takes place every year in the dry season. I would especially like to thank John Ahfelt, the local old morse codian who, together with his colleagues in South Australia, is responsible for organising this wonderful event. John and his family have worked tirelessly for years promoting and supporting this event and I applaud his and the other old morse codians’ efforts for promoting the historic technology so important to our city’s past.
In my capacity as Minister for Arts and Museums, I note with pride and pleasure the announcement of this year’s Beat Awards sponsored by Rotary Clubs of Darwin. These awards are a celebration and recognition of Top End youth and performing arts. Award winners are to be congratulated. Beat Awards went to Penny Cameron who won the Tham Thamarajah Memorial Prime Award; Scott James who won the Nick Paspaley Memorial Prime Award; Kristy Rickert, the Peter La Pira Award; the Bank South Australia Award was won by Cassandra Williams; another Bank South Australia Award by Jonathan Connell; and the TIO Award went to William Cowie. The Rotary Club of Darwin had an award, which Angelina Duan won; the Best Foundation Award for Year 12 was won by Guy Bannister, Joshua Mu and Joanna Wells; the Foundation Award for Year 11, Zaira Tomassi and David Bruce; and for Year 10, Angelina Duan and Elli Richards. Encouragement Awards were presented to Rochelle Chin, Kate Gore, Alexandra Haslett, Andrea Ho, Judith McFarlane, Timothy O’Hagan, Rachael Tolliday and Emily Wilson. Congratulations to all our young performing artists and participants for the excellence in achievement.
Mr WOOD (Nelson): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I would like to talk about a couple of things that have happened in my area. The major highlight of the rural area was the 25th Freds Pass Show held recently, and 25 years shows that it is a stayer. It has been through its ups and downs. It started as a very small country festival, built up to a very big show, then had the staggers, you might say, for a couple of years. However, now under the new management, it has really shot forward as, I believe, the best show in the Territory. I do not say that necessarily because I live out that way, but seeing the crowds that turn up for it reflects that it is a true country show
It is a very friendly show and there is not the pressure you sometimes get on families at other shows. That, of course, is deliberate because the amusements at Freds Pass Show are limited so that the amusements do not take over the show. That has been a policy of whoever has been running the show for many years.
I have to thank certain people and one is Karen Relph who is full-time CEO of the show, who was appointed two years ago by the Freds Pass Management Board because APEX, which used to run the show for many years, was struggling for numbers and finding it very difficult to continue to manage the show. It is through her great leadership that the show has come back to being what it used to be in years gone by. It has all the normal things of a country show: the produce and the livestock. The livestock is special in the rural area because Taminmin High School is our only agricultural secondary school and many of the students proudly show off the cattle and goats from there. It is the one day of the year when they can show off to the local people what they produce at the school.
We have the normal things like the parachutes, horse events, and lots of commercial displays. People are coming to realise that the show is a great place to advertise. We have the Emergency Services Games where the local volunteer fire brigades pit themselves against emergency services. We have the Litchfield Gift, which was thankfully saved this year by Tattersall’s and we are very appreciative of the sponsorship. In my case, I am very much appreciative of the $50 for coming third in the master’s. Having sponsorship is going to ensure the Litchfield Gift continues as the most prestigious professional foot race in the Territory. I can say that with confidence because it is the only professional foot race in the Territory.
There was the usual amusements, and you would probably include the pollies in that. There was a great concert on the Saturday night, with a huge crowd, and of course, all the normal food stalls.
One thing about the Freds Pass Show is that it does help so many local people. Lots of the schools, through their school councils, help with car parking and ticket collecting, and they all get a percentage of the takings. Therefore, not only is it a great community event for the whole area, but people do find it a good way of fundraising.
I congratulate all those people who have kept the Freds Pass Show going throughout the years. I believe the way it is going now, it will easily go for another 25 years. Although in Australia shows are tending to disappear, this is one show that is not. In fact, Landline ran a small story on the Freds Pass Show two weeks ago, and one of the things that was commented on was that, even though shows around Australia are tending to drop off, this one is surviving, and surviving very well.
On another local issue, about two weeks ago, I was asked by the Year 5 children at Bees Creek Primary School, which is looked after by Mrs Steadman, if I could come along to their class and talk about legislation from a local government and Northern Territory government perspective. That was a very interesting day, especially when I told them that our local council does not have any by-laws. That confused them a bit. I did explain that there are other laws that apply in the Litchfield Shire.
The most interest shown by the children there was in discussions about possible tail docking legislation and hoon legislation, or the amendments to the Traffic Act. I was surprised by the amount of support, believe or not, I had for the legislation to prohibit burnouts and donuts and all that sort of thing. Whether the kids think the same thing in about 10 years time might be interesting, but at least they showed a lot of support for that type of legislation. Tail docking certainly created a bit of interest, although I am not sure what they thought about it in the end. I am sure it would have stimulated some discussion at home, and I know they will start to discuss whether it is a good thing or not.
It was a very enjoyable day. Most members who go to their local school find that kids ask them lots of questions. I always find it a very enjoyable time. It is a great break from being in the office, and I just enjoy the company of kids; they are refreshing and they bring you back to earth very quickly. I thank Mrs Steadman and all the Year 5 kids for inviting me to Bees Creek School.
Just quickly on another item, members might have noticed I have asked a couple of questions about Coolalinga service station today. I did so in the hope that we can somehow help this business. It is not just a matter of me trying to push for a particular road to go into this service station come hell or high water, regardless of whether it could cause car accidents or not. You have to understand the history of this service station. It has been there a long time. It was originally owned by Len Cant who is one of the first people to move into the Coolalinga area. In fact, I believe he is the one who named it Coolalinga.
He went into receivership, or if it was not receivership, it actually closed down for a period of time. Laurent Lehars bought it and developed it again as it is today. It is a very popular service station. It has always been just one of those places where a lot of locals go to get their fuel, milk, bread, ice and beer when they are going fishing. He was one of the first there. Later came Bob Biddlecombe, who bought the land nearby and developed, you might say, the main shopping area of Coolalinga adjacent to the service station.
In the last two years, Woolworths has built, and they have made huge changes to the way we look at Coolalinga now. Coolalinga is a very successful shopping centre. I wonder where Woolworths are going. They are now putting in a Woolworths Service Station. A lot of people say that is great, you get cheaper fuel. I doubt whether you get cheaper fuel; I am sure you pay for it through your groceries. I cannot see Woollies giving out anything for nothing. There is no doubt that Woolworths have been a great boost to the economy in the rural area. However, I sometimes wonder whether they are not just about making a nice profit, but they are about wiping out a lot of the local business. They might say that is what business is all about, but they are a lot bigger than everyone else. This new service station will be a threat to the Coolalinga Mobil service station. That is what I have been referring to.
I raise the issue of a company called UniGas wanting to invest $150 000 into this service station to provide the ability for large trucks - the road trains drivers who want to switch over to gas - to be able to come into a service station, which they can now using the current entrance. That would help Laurent to be competitive, because he is going to be in for a lot of competition from the Woolworths service station.
If they are to remove this second entrance, not only will he not get the gas installed, he is more than likely going to be losing business from the cheaper fuel down the road. He is an independent. Woolworths have a lot more power than him, and they will probably sell fuel at much cheaper prices. Therefore, he has this double whammy if they close this piece of road. The department is saying: ‘It is not negotiable - that is it!’ Yet my argument is that we have road planners who surely can design something there which makes this entrance safer, or safe for them to allow it to happen. What you have there, in case people do not know, is two entrances meeting at the one spot. Although it appears to be dangerous - I have used it quite often and you shudder and think this could be a problem - as far as we know, no one has ever had an accident there. The reason is because everyone is so careful there.
You could put traffic calming devices, change the layout, or mark out the road better. There are all sorts of things I believe good engineers could do to allow this service station to retain its second entrance. I am trying to put this into perspective. I believe the government should really rethink this because we should be supporting small business. This bloke has been there a long time. It is not easy surviving today. He has lots of bills; he runs the caravan park there. That has its good times and bad times. Usually the Dry Season is the good time and the Wet Season is not so good; he has been battling on. He wants to expand, because he believes there are other people - there might even be a national tyre chain – who would like to put a store in that area as well. However, they all feel if this second entrance is cut off, then they are not really interested.
I hope that the government does not sit on, you might say, engineering purism, for the sake of: ‘We will not allow anyone to drive through that second entrance any more’. They have to give a little and spend a little more money to improve the access. As I said before, we can spend millions and millions for ConocoPhillips. They do not pay a penny towards the infrastructure we are putting in for them. I do not see why you cannot use the same principle for this small business person.
Quickly, before my time runs out, I was going to thank the Minister for Essential Services for his invitation to go and look at the power poles. He included an invitation for the member for Goyder. I appreciate that, and I would be very pleased to go down and have a look. I must admit, I did go down and have a look a couple of weeks ago when the poles were lying on the ground, so that was not much good for a photo shot. However, you are right, it has taken a long time. I know it is not in my area now, but it was one of those things that I believed that I had to keep pushing. People might say we could have lived without it. My feeling is that those power poles were in the road. My further feeling is that, if you want to develop the Territory then you have to put good infrastructure in. You do not go half way and say: ‘The poles will be all right, we will put the road to the side’. You have to look 50 years ahead. Those poles being moved out of the road now will allow a good bitumen road to be developed. Leonino Road is an access road through that area. I thank the government for that, and I am looking forward to going down and seeing the poles shifted with the minister and the member for Goyder.
Ms SCRYMGOUR (Arafura): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I speak in the adjournment of a couple of people and events in my electorate - or more specifically, in Maningrida.
The individual that I want to quickly talk about is Bill Fogarty. Bill has been committed to homeland centre education and has worked in the Maningrida homelands since 1998 as a teacher; in 2000 as a project manager for the Indigenous Education Department in Darwin; and within the homelands context, returning in 2001 to the Maningrida homelands as the senior teacher. Despite having some problems with his health throughout this period, Bill has remained committed to working within one of the most difficult and challenging educational contexts offered in the Northern Territory. Bill acknowledges that the homelands education program is an integral part of community development for traditionally orientated indigenous people wishing to live in their home countries.
He has raised the standards and expectations of homeland education through professional development of indigenous staff, improving the delivery of programs in multi-aged classrooms, inclusion of all children within homelands educational contexts, and seeing education as a right for all children within their homelands. His own personal commitment to the consideration of all homeland centres on an equal basis has meant an improvement of services across the board. His dedication to including indigenous people in the management and decision-making process saw the start of the first homelands action group in Maningrida. He has been a prime mover behind the recent success for Nielns Homeland Centre’s workshop in Nhulunbuy some months ago. Bill has always pushed and worked hard alongside his indigenous teachers in the homelands to gain recognition and commitment by government for homeland education to be seen as core business.
It was a delight to listen to Bill and other homeland teachers - some of them are teachers who are resident in Maningrida, and others were visiting teachers - singing in Galiwinku language the other night at the recent launch of the Homeland Boys CD. Bill and the other teachers were invited to sing a song with the other bands that were programmed to sing that night.
The reason I talk about Bill Fogarty tonight is that he will be leaving Maningrida and the homelands. He worked alongside all of the Aboriginal teachers - and me before and after pre-selection - talking and passing on his knowledge of the homelands and education. His passion and dedication meant he was pushing for a long time to have homeland education which sadly, was not even on the radar screen with the former government, and neglected for such a long time. It will be a big loss in Maningrida, one the Aboriginal teachers are not looking forward to when he leaves in two weeks time.
It was a privilege and an honour to be asked to launch the Homeland Boys CD in Maningrida last Thursday night. The launch of the Homeland Boys CD was made possible with the support of many individuals and organisations. I will just mention them quickly. From the Maningrida CEC, Lyn Hollows, the principal; Helen Bond-Sharp who is the assistant principal of homelands; Bill Fogarty who is the EG2 homelands teacher; Horace Wallawalla who is the assistant teacher and also the lead singer of the Sunrise Band; Chris Pascoe who is the assistant tutor; Nicki Pascoe, assistant tutor; from the Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation, Warren Nunn, who is the manager of the homelands shop; and from Kakadu Studios, which is a registered training provider; Ken Hutton, director/trainer; Dave Lutor, who is one of the tutors; and Chris Lutor, tutor.
What I saw of the Homeland Boys that night was young men whose pride and ownership of the music which they had created, elevated them to heights of total confidence. This was in total contradiction to what I had seen the day before, after spending two nights in Gunbalanya community, regarding alcohol abuse and the violence as a result of that abuse. Going from Gunbalanya to Maningrida and seeing the diversion of music, is looking at positive aspects for these children. We, as a government – and everybody - should be making sure that any strategy of dealing with youth issues in remote Aboriginal communities should see music as a real and viable opportunity and use these programs as a means of diversion - a positive not negative opportunity.
I did promise all of those young men there, that I would read their names into Hansard, and I will do that quickly, if I may. I will go through, just quickly, some of the names and then I seek leave to table the list of these names for the Hansard record. Some of the names of the young students - and I presented all of these students on that night with certificates because they had all achieved competency in certain units, and all of those units are recognised within the Australian qualification framework. I will read their names quickly: Delton Pascoe, Cedric Campion, Nathaniel Narwilil, Manoah Narwilil, Duiane Richards, Preston Campion, Zimreon Campion, Caleb Campion, Elson Campion - that is a very famous name out that there, there are plenty of Campions - Linton Nabegeyo, Shadrack Cameron, Rowen Pascoe, Nemiah Pascoe, Simeon Pascoe, Barry Pascoe, Rusell Jordilla, Rexy Pascoe, Terrence Pascoe, Manuel Pascoe, Amon Cooper, Aaron Pascoe, Joel Pascoe, Isiah Pascoe, Jackran Cooper, Danny Narwilil, Annas Carter, Carlos Cooper, Lethan Brown, Daniel Campion, Jason Pascoe, Selwyn Pascoe, Regan Namanjelk, Rafael Wurrkidj, Asher Campion, Thadius Nabeyego, Sebastian Pascoe, and Gideon Campion.
There is also a list, which I will also table with this, which lists the homeland areas and also some of the bands. There was the Kuninjku Band, the Rembarranga Band, the Djining Band, the Burarra Band, and the Shadow Band, which was the senior high school band from Maningrida.
It was a fantastic night and feedback has indicated that the event was well received by all. There would have been close to about 200 people from a lot of the homelands that came in, and this has certainly set the scene for more of the same in the future. This is a huge step forward for the TRY groups as they now have an offer, particularly at Maningrida and with the Homeland Boys, of paid work on a regular basis as a result of this launch. It has all has not been in vain and it has elevated these young men to a different height.
Mr BALDWIN (Daly): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I too want to talk about a show, amongst a few other things: the Adelaide River Show, which was held just a couple of weeks ago. I would like to say thank you to my colleague for participating in that show, as one of the judges in the Country Music Talent Quest that is part of the Adelaide River Show. The show is made up not only of the talent quest, which has been going for some years now, but also the gymkhana, the campdraft, the rodeo and the show itself, of course. It was a great weekend.
I would like to congratulate all of those involved in putting it together again: the many helpers locally around Adelaide River; the committee of the Adelaide River Show Society; the President, Max Corliss; and Marty Davey, in particular, who is the Vice-President, and has done a great job in the role of financial manager during the last year or so. He is moving on to Alice Springs and I wish him all the best down there. He has done a great job in managing the finances of the organisation.
The country music talent quest was a great day, although a bit long for some. Some of the judges had to sit there for a long time listening to all sorts of country music - some not so good; some very good. The beauty of this talent quest is that it has, as its major prize, a trip for the winner to go to Tamworth to study and workshop their music and, through that, create a name for themselves and better their talents. There have been some great people go through the Adelaide River Country Music Talent Quest - Sara Storer is one who is now very well known in the country music scene. This year, a lady called Mandy Garling won that prize and she will be off to Tamworth. You know the Garling family; this is Richard’s daughter. She was very well received. There is a great talent in that girl and I am sure we are going to see a lot more of her. There are all sorts of categories, of course, and many people enter. It is a great day if you like country music, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker.
Mr ACTING DEPUTY SPEAKER: Love it!
Mr BALDWIN: Well, I hope to see you there next year because the Chief Minister’s representative was a no-show at the show, which was unfortunate. We had it all lined up to do the opening and, as the patron I was there along with Marty Davey representing the committee. Unfortunately, we had to give apologies for the Chief Minister’s representative. We held off for a half-an-hour past the scheduled opening time that was on the program, waiting to see if that person would turn up and, unfortunately, they did not. They were apparently held up in Darwin for some reason.
Congratulations to the organising committee on another great weekend. We had a great turnout at the campdraft, with fantastic nominations. People come from all over to that campdraft because it happens a couple of weeks before the Pearl of the North Campdraft and Rodeo. Therefore, they use Adelaide River and test their talents against the locals. You also see quite a few interstaters at both campdraft and the rodeo. The rodeo was, as usual, very exciting.
The show society’s next event is this Saturday. Anyone in this House interested in races …
A member: Yes.
Mr BALDWIN: Yes! I recommend to get down there on Saturday at 1.30 pm for the start of the races. This will be a great race day. The Adelaide River races are becoming very popular. This is the Adelaide River Cup. It is a fantastic day, and growing every year. We have a high level of nominations again this year. We will have six or seven races with at least six horses per race. We have great sponsorship from locals - all sorts of people including betting companies. It will be another great day there. Of course, it is a unique race day because this is the only fully turfed racecourse in the Northern Territory. The owners and trainers like to use the course because it is soft on their horses, but it also is prelude to the Darwin Cup Carnival because it happens to coincide with the beginning of the carnival period in Darwin. It is a great day and we expect …
Mr Wood: It is hard on the punters, soft on the horses.
Mr BALDWIN: Yes, well I am not getting into the punting side of it.
It is a great day and we expect 2000 to 3000 people this year. If you have any interest at all and you are not doing anything on Saturday, it is a great place to be. I hope to see you all there.
Also, just quickly, on that weekend was the Batchelor reunion, celebrating 50 years of the township and the school of Batchelor. It was a great weekend full of events. I was able to attend the 50 year reunion of the school, which you yourself, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, represented, I assume, the minister for Education, and made a speech. That was a fantastic turnout. The unique thing about it was that they had a roll call from 1953, and there were eight students present for the roll call, plus the original headmaster. It just so happened that three of the people who were on the roll now live in the United States, but two of them did not realise they only live 30 miles apart until they came back for the assembly the other week. That just shows what a small world it is.
Thanks to all of the people involved in putting that together, particularly Ros Jones and, of course, the school principal, the school council, the community and the community government council there. It wound up with a ball on the Sunday night, a dinner/dance, and it was fantastic and a great showcase of Batchelor and the 50 years since its inception.
The Merrepen Arts Festival was on the same weekend. The Darwin Symphony Orchestra were playing there on the Saturday night with the famous Merrepen Arts Festival on the Sunday. The Chief Minister was there to open that, and I had the opportunity to co-open with her. There was a good turnout. The numbers were probably down a little on last year, and that is to be expected, because this is the first time it has clashed with the Adelaide River Show. However, it was also the first time it has been held on a long weekend such as it was, and that clashed with a whole lot of things, like Glenti and other important functions that kept some people away. However, it was a great weekend. The Darwin Symphony Orchestra was as great as ever. There was a fantastic turnout there, and a well put together composition of music. The art work that was on display the next day was certainly as good as it ever gets. They were very happy with the sales from the art, and also the auction. I would like to say a big thank you to Tony Pickering who was the auctioneer there. He comes down for every Merrepen Arts Festival and conducts the auction. He did it under some difficulty this year, because he did not have a microphone. He still did a great job. He is a great natural talent as an auctioneer, and manages to get every last cent out of those participating.
Mr Wood: A true auctioneer if he gets every last cent out of you.
Mr BALDWIN: Yes. That was certainly a great event, and congratulations to the Merrepen Arts Centre people: to Ming Hoeschle, the coordinator who always does a great job; all of the artists and the people involved in displaying their wares, including their art; all of the others who are involved in making sure people have a great visit when they come to the Nauiyu community; and to all of the sports people who attended. Unfortunately, this year, I understand Barunga Festival was not held. Therefore, Nauiyu picked up on that, and all of the football, softball and so forth benefited from those teams that would normally go to Barunga, coming over to the Daly area.
It was great to see another Merrepen Arts Festival. I understand next year they will be going back to the first weekend in June. Hopefully, that will work out and not clash on the long weekend again as it did this year. To all of those involved in those very worthwhile events: well done! To all of those who like to have a punt - perhaps yourselves, ministers - Adelaide River Showgrounds, this Saturday, 1.30 pm, will be a great race day. You can catch a bus; there will be lots of buses going if you want to catch a bus.
Mr Vatskalis: Cannot make it, have to open the Masonic Homes.
Mr BALDWIN: Oh, you have to come down. Get out in the country; mix with some country people. It is going to be a great day and I look forward to everyone being there and some excellent racing as we usually see at this event in Adelaide River.
Dr BURNS (Johnston): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, tonight I would like to talk about the Portuguese community in Darwin; which makes an incredible contribution to the Darwin community. I know they have held their Portuguese National Day recently and a number of members attended. The members for Casuarina and Karama were there with me, and I believe the member for Port Darwin was also there, as well as the Lord Mayor.
I would like to give a contribution on the Portuguese National Day and particularly want to thank Ana Bentes who has actually written this. She assisted me with this and I would like to dedicate this to Portugal’s National Day.
10 June is Dia Da Camoes, and marks Portugal’s National Day. It is called Dia da Camoes in honour of the great Portuguese poet, Luis de Camoes, whose poems, naval expeditions and recordings of the expansion of the Portuguese empire and its discoveries of the world during the 15th and 16th century helps Portuguese people and, I guess, people outside the Portuguese community, redefine and unite all the Portuguese speaking world. This is why Portugal’s Day is not only celebrated by the Portuguese in Portugal, but also by every Portuguese ethnic community or country that used to belong to the former empire, or where the Portuguese language is spoken such as Goa in India, Angola in Africa, Macau in China, nations like Canada and Australia which have significant numbers of Portuguese speaking people and, of course, East Timor.
The event was held at the Portuguese and East Timorese Social Club where I have attended many, many happy social functions. Here in the Northern Territory, the Portuguese and Timorese community began their celebration of Portugal’s National Day on Saturday 7 June with an evening party at the Portuguese and Timorese Social Club. Like every party that is celebrated by this community, there was an abundance of food with many of the dishes derived from all the different countries of the former empire of Portugal. I was fortunate to be there that night. There was an abundance of food, fine wine and great companionship. This ethnic diversity is very much transcendent and alive in the music and dance that was celebrated and enjoyed by everyone during the night, even into the early hours of Sunday morning.
The Sunday festivities kicked off with soccer matches being played at the club by representative teams of all the former colonies of the Portuguese empire. The main match of the evening was the game between two old rival teams of East Timor, which were Sporting and Benfica. They are great teams. The beautiful aspect of the day was not just the soccer matches, but to see the presence of so many different ethnic groups, comprising the extended Portuguese nations, such as Africans, Chinese, Timorese, Europeans and Australians, all together enjoying the day and everyone’s company, and united by one common factor; that is, that they belong to the Portuguese speaking world.
The festivities concluded on Monday 9 June with an early morning mass celebration. This was then followed by the official ceremony: the raising of the national flags of Portugal, Australia and the Northern Territory, followed by speeches by our invited ministers. The president of the Portuguese-Timorese Social Club, Mr Joao Silva; the representative of the Portuguese consulate in the Northern Territory, Mrs Mena Castro; the Lord Mayor of Darwin, Mr Peter Adamson; but especially, the Minister for Ethnic Affairs, the Hon Kon Vatskalis, the member for Casuarina.
One thing that really struck me was the beautiful costumes, particularly of the ladies. Mr Sam De Souza is well known to many people and his wife, Darla De Souza, had a beautiful Portuguese national dress on, as did Ana Bentes. She is a very beautiful young lady who has written this speech for me, and is a very special person, but I will come back to Ana and her family at the end of this speech.
Also in attendance was Mr Joao Severino, a Portuguese journalist from Macau, who read a lot of very emotional poems, some of them written by Luis de Camoes about his expedition in the vessel Vasco de Gama, but also other poems by other Portuguese poets. There was just such as depth of feeling there, it transcended everything, and everyone was transfixed on this Portuguese speaking poet. As the member for Casuarina said, we did not really understand what was being said but the emotion, the feeling, the passion, said it all. I can see why Camoes is such an important part of Portuguese life, thinking, and literature. Each poem that Mr Severino recited represented every country of discovery by the Portuguese, and they expressed Camoes’ feeling of excitement in what he was learning and discovering. It also expressed profoundly his anguish in being so far away from home and his longing to be back in his home of Portugal.
Overall, those three days of celebration by the Portuguese community would not have been possible or such a success if it were not for the dedication and hard work of the women of the Portuguese and Timorese community, who gave so much of themselves and their time - days and nights - to oversee that everything ran smoothly and that everyone was happy and enjoying themselves. Ana is just one of those people; she is relatively young and is studying at the Northern Territory University. However, she works so hard for the Portuguese community and the family has a business, the Darwin Gourmet Deli, that I often like to go to for breakfast. The whole family is a beautiful family. Ana’s mother makes beautiful coffee, and is a beautiful cook. Their father works so hard in the shop, and also her brother and little nephew are often there as well. It is great to be there. Ana was telling me, the last time I was in there that they are about to start a new venture. I believe it is in the new Mitchell Centre, and they are going to have a Portuguese restaurant or Portuguese caf, with tapas, and beautiful charcoal chicken. I told her that I would like to be there on opening day and I would certainly like to sample some of that beautiful Portuguese food. They are a great family and I wish them well in their new endeavour. I am sure they will do well because they are hard workers, honest people, and they are great cooks.
Tonight I would also like to speak about the trip that I recently undertook to Maningrida last week. The trip had a number of purposes. I was glad to be there with the member for Arafura and be conducted around by her. There were probably two main reasons I went there. The main reason, as minister for power and water, was to recognise the tremendous contribution of Mr Vern Pech. He has been out at Maningrida for 20 years, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker. I know that you know Vern Pech from the time that you were living in Maningrida. Vern Pech is the essential services man in Maningrida and he has been there for 20 years. He has kept the power and the water going and, as Vern would say, he has kept the other stuff moving along the pipes as well.
Basically, there was a celebration for his 20 years at Maningrida – and, by the way, Vern had actually spent another five years before that out on the Tiwi Islands doing a similar job, and I believe he also worked in Central Australia.
I cannot emphasise too much that the work that Vern does as Essential Services Officer - and all the other remote Essential Services Officers like Vern - is a public health job. Without power, water or functional sewerage, remote communities or a place like Darwin is in trouble healthwise. Therefore, Vern has made a tremendous contribution. Everything runs as smooth as clockwork – ‘smicko’ in Vern’s language. That is what he like to say: ‘Everything is el smicko’.
One of the ladies at the afternoon tea, at which we made presentations to Vern, said the power rarely goes off in the middle of the night. When it does, she wakes and counts to 20, and by the time she gets to 20 the power is back on, Vern is that quick. He has done a tremendous job. He has battled flying foxes, which are sizzled on the wires and cause all sorts of trouble for Vern, but he is out there working hard.
The other thing I went out to see was the new generator being installed at Maningrida. Minister Ah Kit was there, too, and he has carriage of remote essential services. We both have an interest there. We saw this great new motor that is going to give more power to Maningrida, which is really expanding since the time I lived there some 23-odd years ago.
It was a great celebration for Vern. Mr Kim Woods, CEO of PowerWater, and a number of other senior PowerWater people were out there to help us celebrate with Vern, so we had an afternoon tea. A lot of the community people came and helped Vern to celebrate. Then we had a barbecue that night where Vern bought along a bit of his special - I cannot say the word here in parliament, but Vern makes special barbecue sauce, and everyone enjoyed it. Vern cooked and we just had a great night. So to Vern Pech: well done, congratulations on great service to PowerWater over a long time.
The other reason I went to Maningrida at the invitation of the member for Arafura was on fishing issues. We had a meeting the next day, which was very well attended. There were probably 50 to 60 people there. Local people are concerned about fishing vessels that come in to the rivers and put boats over the side and go up and plunder the river. That is a matter of concern to me. There is an issue of fisheries management in the region so, with the agreement of the member for Arafura, who is a great advocate for people in her electorate, the local people, the fisheries division and I are going to work through those issues. They are very important to the people there.
It was great to see some old friends: my old friend Roly Madjara - I call him a brother; Martin Gibson who would have to be one of the funniest men in the world - my heart lights up when I see Martin; Reggie Wuridjal is an old friend of mine; it was great to see Bill Young and the shop of the Maningrida Progress Association. I have not always seen eye to eye with Bill over the years, but the shop is a showpiece - the best I have ever seen it, with plenty of stock, a beautiful shop. Bill has been steadfast there for a long time - 20-odd years, maybe a little longer. He has contributed a lot. He has been through thick and thin with the shop. It was great to see him. The progress association is doing more building out there.
All in all, it was great to get out there to see people, and to be there with the member for Arafura. It is definitely one of the joys of being of a minister.
Motion agreed to; the Assembly adjourned.
Last updated: 04 Aug 2016