Business Franchise Licences (Tobacco) Amendment Bill
Stock Diseases (Amendment) Bill (No.2)
Totalizator (Amendment) Bill
Totalizator (Off-course Betting) Amendment Bill
TELEVISING OF PROCEEDINGS
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I advise honourable members that today's proceedings will be filmed from 2.15 p.m. to 2.30 p.m. by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on behalf of all television stations.
PETITIONS
School Education Executive Positions
Petitions praying that the Government reverse its decision to eliminate the positions of executive officer of the New South Wales Combined High Schools Sports Association and the New South Wales Primary Schools Sports Association, received from Mr Hunter, Mr Smith and Mr Whelan.
Casinos
Petitions praying that the Government will take no steps that will legalise casinos and further expand gambling and organised crime in New South Wales, and that the Government will close existing illegal casinos, received from Mr Causley, Mr Graham, Mr Moore, Mr W. T. J. Murray and Mr Windsor.
St Joseph's Hospital
Petition praying that the Minister for Health Services Management intervene to save St Joseph's Hospital from closure and that the necessary funding and support staff be provided to allow it to continue to operate as a public hospital, received from Mr Shedden.
Page 2051Hunter Region Health Services
Petitions praying that the House take action to ensure that there will be no cuts to the delivery of health care services in the Hunter region that would result in the closure of public hospitals and or health services, received from Mr Bowman, Mr Face, Mr Gaudry, Mr Martin, Mr Mills and Mr Price.
Family Relief Bill
Petitions praying that the House give financial relief to families in New South Wales during the present difficult economic conditions and pass the Family Relief Bill to ensure that household charges do not increase each year by more than the latest increase in the consumer price index, received from Mr Bowman, Mr Mills and Mr J. H. Murray.
Warrawong Police Foot Patrols
Petition praying that police foot patrols be provided for the Warrawong and surrounding areas, received from Mr Sullivan.
Unanderra Police Station
Petition praying that the Government and Minister for Police and Emergency Services reappraise the staffing formula for Unanderra police station and upgrade the staffing-manning level to at least six officers, received from Mr Rumble.
Rooty Hill Traffic
Petition praying that the House take the necessary action to provide a roundabout at the intersection of Sherbrooke Street, Francis Street and Railway Street, Rooty Hill, to ensure the safety of citizens and a reduction in the number of accidents at that location, received from Mr Amery.
State School Education Resources
Petition praying that the House reconsider the proposed cuts in services available from the Services Directorate at Ryde, that the collection of valuable films and videos be kept in one place and lent to State schools, and that the resource services needed to provide information and materials for schools be maintained, received from Mr Turner.
Intellectually Disabled and Disadvantaged Youth
Petition praying that the House take steps to restore the support staff needed to maintain the jobs of more than 30 young people with intellectual disabilities and that the standards of service needed by disabled and disadvantage youth in the north western suburbs of Sydney be upheld, received from Mr Zammit.
Page 2052Reef Beach
Petition praying that the nudist classification for Reef Beach be revoked and that the beach be returned to general public usage, received from Dr Macdonald.
Chaelundi State Forest
Petition praying that the proposed logging of the Chaelundi State Forest not be proceeded with and that the area be declared an extension of the Guy Fawkes River National Park, received from Dr Macdonald.
Department of Community Services Hunter Office
Petition praying that the decision to close the Hunter regional office of the Department of Community Services be revoked, that the administrative facilities of the department within the Hunter region be maintained, and that no further cuts in staff and services of the department take place in the Hunter region, received from Mr Price.
Coffs Harbour and District Hospital
Petition praying that the House ensure that urgent priority is given to a major redevelopment of the Coffs Harbour and District Hospital to secure the immediate and future health requirements of the Coffs Harbour region, received from Mr Fraser.
Royal Agricultural Society Showground
Petition praying that the House will prevent the sale by the Government of foreshore and public parklands, including the Royal Agricultural Society Showground, the E. S. Marks Athletic Field and part of Moore Park, and that residents be included on their administrative bodies, received from Ms Moore.
Woolloomooloo Finger Wharf
Petition praying that public money not be wasted demolishing the structurally sound finger wharf and establishing a walkway on the western side of Woolloomooloo Bay but instead that basic renovations be carried out on the wharf and an integrated multimedia arts centre be established, received from Ms Moore.
Sydney Harbour Foreshores
Petition praying that the House stop the sale of publicly owned land on the foreshores of Port Jackson and its waterways, including that currently leased from the Maritime Services Board, and retain such land in public ownership; acquire for the public foreshore land whenever the opportunity arises; and optimise public access to the foreshore, received from Ms Moore.
Page 2053Walker Estates
Petition praying that the Government preserve the Walker estates, including Yaralla, for public use, received from Ms Moore.
Cooks River Pollution
Petition praying that the House take steps to restore the Cooks River to its original condition, received from Ms Moore.
Woollahra Traffic
Petition praying that the House take all necessary steps to reduce the traffic volume in Ocean Street, Woollahra, and that Ocean Street be returned to a safe and pleasant street consistent with residential neighbourhood values, received from Ms Moore.
Royal Hospital for Women
Petition praying that the House provide funding to the Royal Hospital for Women to ensure that it maintains its leadership role in women's health care, received from Ms Moore.
Paddington Traffic
Petition praying that the House remove clearway conditions from Oxford Street, Paddington, received from Ms Moore.
Canterbury Hospital
Petition praying that the House take action to ensure that the Canterbury Hospital is upgraded to allow it to satisfy the present and future health needs of the Canterbury area, received from Mr Moss.
Fassifern Railway Station
Petition praying that disabled car parking spaces be provided on the western side of the Fassifern railway station and that access ramps to the existing overhead walkway bridge be constructed, received from Mr Hunter.
Health Services
Petition praying that funding cuts to health services and hospitals cease and that funding be provided to ensure that waiting lists for hospitals and operations are eliminated, received from Mr Gaudry.
Page 2054Public Health System
Petition praying that the House remove the onerous demand of productivity savings from the public health system and cease to close hospitals and downgrade services without full and proper consultation with the relevant unions, professional organisations and those affected in the community, received from Mr Windsor.
Newcastle Public Service Facilities
Petition praying that the Government reconsider its decision to close public service facilities provided by the Wallsend District Hospital, the Newcastle office of the Department of Community Services and the State Rail Authority, received from Mr Hunter.
Firearms Legislation
Petition praying that the gun laws be changed immediately to ban guns from households, received from Dr Macdonald.
REGISTER OF DISCLOSURES BY MEMBERS
Mr Speaker laid upon the table a copy of the Register of Disclosures by members of the Legislative Assembly containing primary returns as at 2nd July and ordinary returns as at 30th June, 1991.
Ordered to be printed.
UNPROCLAIMED LEGISLATION
Mr Speaker, pursuant to sessional order, laid upon the table a list detailing all legislation unproclaimed as at 14th October, 1991.
JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE UPON GUN LAW REFORM
Report
Mr LONGLEY (Pittwater) [2.22]: I desire to lay upon the table of the House the report and minutes of proceedings of the Joint Select Committee upon Gun Law Reform.
Ordered to be printed.
Mr LONGLEY, by leave: The Joint Select Committee upon Gun Law Reform was established at a time when people and governments across Australia were devastated by tragic events at Strathfield, where seven people lost their lives at the hands of a gunman who had access to a military style semi-automatic rifle. The incident was the latest in a series of massacres that had occurred in Victoria and New South Wales in
Page 2055
recent years and galvanised governments across Australia into accelerating their examination of firearm laws and related violence issues, which initially had been the subject of a report by the National Committee on Violence. The establishment and operation of the joint select committee was somewhat unique also in that it proceeded to deliberate on the issues on a totally non-partisan basis. It is a credit to the members of the committee that they were able to reach consensus decisions in respect of some of the most difficult and divisive issues ever faced by a parliamentary committee. Because of the urgent need to develop recommendations for the Government to present at national forums, the committee was given a bare four weeks in which to complete its report. During that four-week period the committee was inundated with submissions and information, and discussion ranged across a wide spectrum of issues.
The committee has attempted to provide a comprehensive set of recommendations aimed at achieving tangible results in reducing fear in the community from the misuse of firearms, which was the committee's principal and overriding aim. At the same time, the committee recognised that a reduction in the level of gun ownership in the community and a corresponding reduction in the incidence of violence - particularly domestic violence - involving firearms are and must be long-term goals. Accordingly, the committee's recommendations are aimed also at achieving cultural changes toward the possession and use of firearms. The committee is firmly of the view that meaningful reform in this most important area will be achieved only through the adoption by governments across Australia of uniform firearms laws. The committee is of the view also that the implementation of effective firearm laws will take time and that an ordered and comprehensive approach is needed. The committee considers that in framing national legislation in this area governments should regard the safety of the public in general as of paramount importance. The committee believes very strongly in the need to reduce the fear in the community of death and violence involving firearms, and considers that this can be achieved on a long-term basis only through measures aimed at reducing the availability and misuse of firearms in the community.
Though the committee considers general public safety of paramount importance, it considers that any measures taken to achieve this must include also appropriate strategies aimed at reducing the general level of violence in the community and, in particular, violence in the domestic context. Thus the committee considers that governments across Australia should work towards ensuring that only those persons with a legitimate need should be able to possess and use a firearm and should be required to use and store that firearm once obtained, in as safe a manner as possible. Though the committee was given terms of reference which basically provided it with an unfettered discretion in so far as the issues it might address, the committee has been mindful of the time frame within which it had to work and the need, as indicated earlier, to achieve national uniformity in the area. As a result, the committee has concentrated its efforts on assessing those issues which it believes are common to all jurisdictions, though certain recommendations are made in respect of matters which may apply to New South Wales only. The committee believes that New South Wales should now take the lead in addressing the important issues in this area, both by legislative and administrative change in this State and by promoting national change.
Page 2056
I refer briefly to the recommendations of the committee. As outlined earlier, the committee stressed the question of domestic violence. The committee endorses the recommendations of the National Committee on Violence as they relate to the issue of domestic violence and also the New South Wales Government's Statement of Principles regarding domestic violence. In particular the committee made the following recommendations: that where police are called to a domestic violence dispute they should immediately ask whether there are any firearms at the premises; that it should be mandatory for police to confiscate all firearms found at the premises; and that it should be mandatory for police to suspend the firearm and or shooter's licence or permit of any person who is alleged to have threatened to commit or has committed an offence involving domestic violence. There are similar strengthening provisions where an apprehended violence order has been made. The Commissioner of Police should issue police instructions to patrol commanders to report on a quarterly basis as to the number of domestic violence call-outs applicable to that patrol, the number of domestic violence call-outs involving firearms, and information as to action taken in respect to each call-out. Also, police instructions and training need to be strengthened. The Commissioner of Police is to give special priority to the introduction within the Police Service of the proposed police computerised operational policing system.
With regard to mental illness and firearms misuse the committee recommended that there be voluntary reporting to police by any person - and, in particular, health professionals and community workers - of those people who would be likely to be dangerous to themselves and or to others if they have access to or continue to have access to firearms. Formal police follow-up and investigation is needed of these matters. A scheme for early intervention and support to affected persons by mental health crisis teams and by community workers in both urban and rural areas is required also. On the question of licensing, the committee endorses the proposal by the Commissioner of Police to reduce the number of pistol licences and recommends that a shooter's licence be issued only to a person who can establish a good reason to possess or use the relevant categories of firearms. The following firearms owners shall be deemed to have good reason: primary production, business or employment, collecting, members of approved shooting clubs, vermin control, hunting and family heirlooms. Significantly, personal protection shall not be regarded as a good reason. In considering applications for the various categories of firearms and or shooters' licences or permits, the Commissioner of Police shall satisfy himself that the good reason declared by an applicant for a particular category of licence or permit is directly relevant to the firepower necessary to meet that good reason. The commissioner shall apply more stringent approval criteria to those categories of licences covering more powerful firearms. The Prohibited Weapons Act needs to be amended to provide that the Commissioner of Police shall be empowered to issue permits in respect of prohibited weapons and articles. The specifics of the licence category system is, of course, in the report in full.
Licences are to be renewable every five years and shall incorporate a current photograph of the licensee. Licence fees are to be calculated on a user-pays basis. Applicants are to provide information verifying their application on a basis similar to the 100 check point system. Drivers' licences are also to be listed where applicable and urgent priority needs to be given to the establishment of a national criminal names index.
Page 2057
In regard to firearms safety and security, it is essential that firearms located on residential premises be separated from the bolt and firing mechanism where possible. Ammunition is to be stored separately and a standard is to be approved by the commissioner. Penalties likewise need to be fixed for non-compliance. An investigation of non-residential storage facilities should be carried out. Firearms prohibitions are those endorsed by the Federal Government and they are recommended to be extended. There should be a permanent amnesty and compensation, and a firearms sale and purchase system that will achieve many significant benefits. Also there should be a much greater increase in penalties, and most significantly better crime statistics in this most critical area. On behalf of the Committee I wish to thank all of the supporters and advisers to the Committee, particularly Mr Lindsay Le Compte, Mr Neil Bridge and of course Mr Les Gonye.
PUBLIC SECTOR LEGISLATION (SENIOR EXECUTIVES) AMENDMENT BILL
Suspension of Standing Orders
Mr CARR (Maroubra), Leader of the Opposition [2.33]: I move:
That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would preclude consideration forthwith of notice of motion No. 5 of general business with the resumption of the debate having precedence of all other business as an order of the day on three sitting days hence and further that such order of the day have precedence on subsequent sitting days until the matter is finally disposed of.
Suspension of standing orders should be granted to allow the Parliament to debate the Opposition's bill slashing the size of the senior executive service from 1,500 positions to 800 positions. Our bill will save taxpayers up to $30 million a year - money that can be spent on vital health services so brutally cut by this Government. Suspension should be granted for a number of reasons.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Myall Lakes to order. I call the Minister for Health Services Management to order.
Mr CARR: One of the reasons is that the honourable member for Davidson, formerly a Minister in this Government, has now confirmed Opposition criticisms of the scale and workings of the senior executive service. On Wednesday 2nd October he told the truth about this overblown and most wasteful senior echelon of any public sector in Australia. The member for Davidson said the senior executive service had "really been a disaster", thus confirming what the Opposition had been saying for a year. These are his words: "I do not agree with Bob Carr on all things". That is admirable candour, but he was absolutely right when he said that it has been a monumental failure "and we are paying SES at least 54 per cent more for doing the same job". The member for Davidson summed up the whole unhappy history of the senior executive service when he said "It has failed to recruit top talent from the private sector and all this really
Page 2058
confirmed a number of mediocre people on higher salaries". He confirmed the failure to recruit new talent and the excessive salary packages.
Then on Friday 4th October, just two days later, the member for Davidson once again insisted the SES simply was not working. He said it had been "an expensive failure". Indeed, one of the reasons given for his decision to leave the Liberal Party was that the SES was "unresponsive" and a "failure". That night on the "7.30 Report" the member for Davidson said the way the SES was implemented had been a blow to the morale of the public service in New South Wales. So here it is from one who was formerly a Minister in this Government, who saw how an appropriate idea was implemented in an inappropriate fashion. This man saw at first hand the waste, the extravagance, the injustice of this version of a top heavy bureaucracy. Suspension of standing orders should be granted because the taxpayers of New South Wales simply cannot afford a senior executive service on this scale and run in this fashion. We are in recession. The Budget is in its worst ever deficit. But the Premier is still asking us to carry the burden of this top heavy bureaucratic bungle. It is costing taxpayers at least $150 million a year. In the Public Works Department the number of SES officers has increased from 15 to 71; in TAFE from 12 to 59. Suspension of standing orders should be granted because the Government's own report, its own assessment of the SES commissioned last year by the Office of Public Management, has slammed the operation of the senior executive service. This secret report found there was no evidence that the SES had improved the effectiveness -
Mr Merton: On a point of order.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat while the point of order is taken.
Mr Merton: The Leader of the Opposition is debating the substance of the motion. He is not seeking to establish reasons for suspending standing orders but is going into the merits of the motion as opposed to putting forward reasons for suspending standing orders.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have heard enough on the point of order. I understand the tenor of it. The point of order is one that is commonly taken in this Chamber. I am not prepared to rule in favour of it. The Leader of the Opposition may continue.
Mr CARR: Suspension of standing orders should be granted because the Government's own report commissioned last year by the Office of Public Management has slammed the operation of the SES. This secret report found there was no evidence that the SES had improved the effectiveness and efficiency of the public sector. The report found that overpaid senior public servants were still in their jobs because it cost too much to sack them.
Page 2059
[Interruption]
Mr CARR: The Minister for Transport should be the last to interject on this point. Suspension should be granted because Ministers, other than the member for Davidson, secretly agreed with the report and were quoted in press articles at the time endorsing the criticism made the report. They were quoted in the report as saying that the bureaucratic old boy network was absolutely in place. On 20th December last year the Sydney Morning Herald quoted one senior Minister - and I think it is the Minister for Transport - I hope it is that Minister.
Mr Baird: On a point of order. The Leader of the Opposition, apart from being totally untruthful, as he normally is - the liar that he normally is - is debating the substantive motion and should be directed to return to establishing why suspension should be granted instead of canvassing the motion. He knows he is wrong.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! This point of order and the one raised earlier by the member for Baulkham Hills differ slightly from points of order taken on the usual motion for suspension of standing orders. This motion foreshadows the bringing on for debate of a bill. As the substantive debate which would follow the carriage of this motion is in fact the debate on that bill, a wider range of material may be used in arguing for suspension of standing orders to bring on a bill than would be the case where the suspension of standing orders is to bring on a substantive motion. The Leader of the Opposition is in order at the moment.
Mr CARR: The suspension should be granted because the size of the senior executive service has blown out from 1,200 to 1,500 positions. On 4th October, 1989, the Sydney Morning Herald, after discussion with the head of the Premier's Department reported that there would be 1,200 positions in the SES, but on 23rd April of this year on radio station 2UE Mr Humphry confirmed that the number of positions in the SES had blown out to 1,500; this being the public sector for which this Parliament is responsible. Suspension is justified because in the 50th Parliament of New South Wales we ought to assert our responsibility over how the Executive is run and how the money is expended. Suspension should be granted so that we can examine the appalling record of wastage of taxpayers' money on failed SES members, all of whom have gone on big payouts. We should never again have what happened with Dr Grimwood. He sat in a lonely North Shore office under the direction of the Minister for Transport, counting paper clips. For this he was receiving a huge salary. Suspension should be granted to allow the Parliament to decide whether the State can afford 1,500 highly paid senior executives receiving salary packages of $220,000 while 16,000 rank and file public servants are sacked by this Government.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition has exhausted his time for speaking.
Page 2060
Mr GREINER (Ku-ring-gai), Premier, Treasurer and Minister for Ethnic Affairs [2.43]: The Government opposes the motion both on procedural grounds and on the ground of substance. On procedural grounds it is quite clear, and the Government has indicated this, that we will allow an opportunity for private members' motions, whether they be Government or Independent, to come forward in an orderly and proper way. In fact, the Government has proposed to allow the second reading of this to go on today. But it is obviously totally unacceptable, and flies in the face of absolutely everything that has been discussed in terms of the good running of this or any other Parliament, for the Opposition to have the temerity to suggest that this motion - a motion as yet unseen and a motion which I shall demonstrate is unfounded as to its basic assumptions - and its bill, ought to take precedence over government business, over the Budget, and that it should have more priority than the Budget debate next week or any other legislation. That is obviously unacceptable both as to the complexity of the matters that are dealt with and simply in terms of logic, fairness and timing. The Government would have no problem with a suspension of standing orders to allow a second reading speech to be made. The Government proposes to allow, in an organised manner - and this is a matter which I understand is for discussion by the Standing Orders and Procedures Committee on Thursday - regular opportunities for private members' bills to be debated.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Ashfield to order.
Mr GREINER: But it would be absolutely ridiculous for the House to accept the second part of the Leader of the Opposition's motion which starts with "resumption of debate having precedence over all other business" and so on through to the end of the motion. To do that would simply fly in the face of any serious attempt at rational debate or rational ordering of the business of the House. The Government would not be party to that. Nor would we expect the Independents, who I believe are fair dinkum about their approach to reasoned debate, we would not expect them -
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is too much audible conversation in the Chamber.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Myall Lakes to order for the second time. There is far too much interjection. I put it to all members that due recognition should be given to the present circumstances applying to this Chamber. It is in the interests of all concerned - Government, Opposition, and Independents - that there be proper and orderly conduct of proceedings.
Mr GREINER: As I was saying -
Page 2061
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Drummoyne to order.
Mr GREINER: I would have thought it appropriate for the Leader of the Opposition to seek leave to amend his motion to enable resumption of debate on his proposed bill to be listed for consideration and precedence of other business at the conclusion of consideration of committee reports on Thursday, 24th October, for the remainder of that sitting Thursday and all subsequent sitting Thursdays until the matter is disposed of finally. That is fair, reasonable, and a proper set of balances between the various parties forming the Parliament. To do otherwise has no rational basis, no fairness about it, and no logic. It would set a totally impossible precedent in the running of the business of the House. I urge the House not to accept the motion as it is. If the Leader of the Opposition wishes to seek leave to amend it, that would be fine by me.
Mr Whelan: On a point of order. Do I understand that the Premier is desirous that the Leader of the Opposition should amend his motion because the Government feels there is some problem of technicality? If that is so, I ask the Premier to make available the amendment or to indicate whether the Premier is intending to move such amendment.
Mr Greiner: On the point of order. I have not the right to move such an amendment.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! It is not within the scope of the Premier to move an amendment to the motion as it stands in the context of the suspension of standing orders. It is in order for the Premier, in the slightly unorthodox way in which the member for Ashfield has put his proposal, to answer by indicating some action the Government might take in regard to the manner in which the motion, general business notice of motion No. 5, can be brought before the Parliament.
Mr GREINER: I commend to the House the amendment that I proposed to the Leader of the Opposition which provides a logical process and reasoned way of bringing the matter on. In the meantime -
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I interrupt the Premier to indicate that the advice I gave a moment ago was incorrect. Normally there would not be provision to amend a motion for suspension of standing orders. However, as this is a motion for suspension of standing orders to bring forward a notice of motion on the business paper it is possible for the Premier, if he wishes, to amend the motion in regard to the manner in which the matter can be brought before the Parliament.
Mr Hatton: On a point of order. Normally members of the House other than the Leader of the Opposition and the Minister replying to the motion would not be able to speak to a motion for suspension of standing orders. If there is to be an amendment
Page 2062
of this motion, does that mean that other members would have the right to speak to that amendment?
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The standing orders and sessional orders prescribe only that the person moving the motion for the suspension of the standing orders, and in this instance the Premier in reply, may speak to that motion. There is no way by which that particular sessional order can be set aside. The answer is, no.
Mr GREINER: I shall deal first with the two basic assumptions, bearing in mind that the Government obviously has not seen the bill. The two basic assumptions underlying the criticism made by the Leader of the Opposition, who incidentally fulsomely supported the legislation when it was introduced in the House and said it was in fact totally desirable -
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr GREINER: He made two basic assumptions. First, that the New South Wales senior executive service is too large and that it is larger than those in other States. I simply say that is not true. As a proportion of the public sector, New South Wales has the smallest senior executive service anywhere in Australia.
Mr Whelan: On a point of order. Am I to understand that the Premier is intending to move an amendment? If so, can we be supplied with a copy?
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Premier is entitled to move an amendment, if he so wishes, at any time between now and the time that he concludes speaking.
Mr GREINER: The first part of the assumption, that the SES is too large, and larger than in any other State, is simply not accurate. On a case by case basis - the Commonwealth, Queensland, Tasmania, Western Australia, Victoria - New South Wales is smallest of all in terms of the relationship between the SES and the public sector as a whole. Second, as to the level of remuneration, again the basic assumptions are simply untrue. At every level, from SES level 1 compared with the Commonwealth SES level 1, right up to SES level 8 - and the comparison with the compensation to the former secretary of the Premier's Department under the former Government - in every case the SES compensation levels in New South Wales, taken as a package, are commensurate and comparable with those everywhere else. The Government does not accept the criticism at all. It does not accept the criticism of the honourable member for Davidson who, when he was a Minister, implemented some 49 of these positions and did so in a very active manner. I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all words after the word "precedence" with a view to inserting the following in lieu thereof:
on all sitting Thursdays from 24 October after the consideration of committee reports on such days until the matter is finally disposed of.
Page 2063
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Ermington to order.
Motion for suspension of standing and sessional orders as amended agreed to.
Bill introduced and read a first time.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Racing and Minister Assisting the Premier to order. I remind all honourable members that for obvious reasons procedures will vary and at times members may be caught by surprise by some events. I ask for the co-operation of all members. It will be in the interests of all members to co-operate and to remain orderly so that the business of the House is able to be conducted. The Leader of the Opposition has the call and I do not expect any member to interrupt him.
Second Reading
Mr CARR (Maroubra), Leader of the Opposition [2.57]: I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Suspension of standing orders should be granted to allow the Parliament to debate the Opposition's bill slashing the size of the senior executive service from 1,500 to 800. The objects of the bill are to -
Mr Greiner: On a point of order. The Leader of the Opposition is reading the wrong speech -
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I draw the attention of the Leader of the Opposition to the fact that he appeared to start his speech on a different tack and I ask him to return to the scope of the bill.
Mr CARR: The objects of the bill are to reduce the size of the State's senior executive service to not more than 800 members; to enable the Industrial Commission, instead of the Statutory and Other Offices Remuneration Tribunal, to determine salaries and packages for members of the chief executive service and the senior executive service; and to limit employment benefits relating to motor vehicles, superannuation, certain leave provisions and other benefits authorised by the regulations. During 1991 the Opposition, through its Wastewatch Committee, demonstrated that the Greiner Government had wasted more than a billion dollars of taxpayers' funds on imprudent payments, poor management and wrong priorities. The Labor Party showed that there was a direct relationship between the Greiner Government's excessive waste and the increased taxes and charges imposed on average families. During the May 1991 election
Page 2064
campaign Labor put forward its positive proposals to cut waste. These included saving $30 million from fat cat public servants' lurks and perks, and cutting the Government's annual consultancy bill by $80 million from Mr Greiner's peak of $150 million per year.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is too much audible conversation in the Chamber.
Mr CARR: It included cutting government advertising by $15 million per annum; reducing payments to members of government boards; extending the powers of the Auditor-General, and so on. This bill makes good Labor's election campaign pledge to overhaul the Greiner Government's senior executive service under which the top 1,500 New South Wales public servants receive salary packages of between $82,000 and $220,000 per annum.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Baulkham Hills to order.
Mr CARR: The number of officers under this scheme will be reduced to 800. It will be a phased reduction. The size of the SES will be cut as follows: to 1,250 by 1st July 1993; to 1,000 by 1st July, 1994; and to 800 by 1st July, 1995. Salary packages will be determined by the New South Wales Industrial Commission and the Government will argue before the commission that these packages should be reduced to bring them into line with those received by the Commonwealth's senior public servants. In February this year the Opposition condemned the Premier for allowing wastage of taxpayers' money, especially with respect to the salary packages for members of the SES, rather than directing resources to wider community needs. The Opposition revealed that the Greiner Government had granted the State's 1,500 top public servants salary packages in some cases double the salaries they were paid when the Premier was elected in 1988. We showed that a favoured few New South Wales public servants earned a third more than their Commonwealth counterparts.
To maintain these salary packages the State's 2.5 million taxpayers were paying $70 each per year. Ordinary workers struggling with car registration fees and electricity and water bills were paying a premium for elite bureaucrats. When the Labor Party supported legislation in 1989 to improve the efficiency and standard of public sector management, we did so believing that the Commonwealth senior executive service would be used as a model. At that time I said that the legislation would "help to achieve the objective . . . of greater effectiveness, efficiency and accountability in the public sector". I went on to say that the Opposition supported the legislation "as an introduction of greater efficiency into the public sector". At the same time I expressed reservations on behalf of the Opposition. I said, "I had felt that what was being suggested . . . represented a broader, more widespread application of the principle than we had witnessed in Victoria or proportionately in the Commonwealth". I also raised concerns
Page 2065
about the availability of cars for members of the service. I said that in my speech when the legislation was introduced. Sadly, what were then concerns have now become reality.
We also supported moves to attract management expertise from the private sector to the public sector. However, on both scores the Greiner Government has been spectacularly unsuccessful, first in emulating the Commonwealth model and, second, in attracting talented outsiders to management positions in the public service. A confidential report commissioned by the Premier in 1990 showed that, despite all the expense and all the rhetoric - all the management jargon - the Greiner Government has failed to entice into the public sector top executives from the private sector. The report, prepared by consultants Coopers and Lybrand, and commissioned through the Office of Public Management, interviewed senior Ministers and 20 top public servants. It found that many senior public servants recruited from outside were "unsuitable". It found that many non-performing SES members could not be sacked or replaced because of the cost. The report quoted Ministers as saying that most private sector recruits were poor quality - were disappointments - and half the Ministers contributing to the report believed that "mateship" and the "old boy network" had remained untouched. The report found that there was no evidence that the SES had improved public sector efficiency. These findings were supported, it seems, by senior Ministers. Indeed, the Sydney Morning Herald of 20th December, 1990, quoted one senior Minister as saying:
Under the present arrangements, all Senior Executives get a pay rise if this is approved by an independent remuneration committee.
The Minister went on to say:
Even those Executives who are not performing as well as they should get more money. In effect there is no punishment, no flexibility.
But the system was introduced with the objective of providing that sort of flexibility in the public sector. As at February 1991 the top Federal public service salary was $127,000 a year, with other benefits providing a total package of about $160,000. By contrast, the top New South Wales salary package is $220,000 and tax lurks bring it up to a quarter of a million dollars. This means that the heads of the Premier's Department or the Cabinet Office - do not forget the Cabinet Office - under the Greiner Government could earn up to a quarter of a million dollars each year, while a distinguished career civil servant, like Gerry Gleeson, received a package of only $150,000 per annum. Examples of this nature abound. In 1991 the head of the New South Wales Treasury could earn up to $220,000 per year, while in 1988 - the last year of Labor administration - he received only $99,000. His top-ranking salary is almost double that paid to the head of the Commonwealth Treasury, who has the responsibility of the national economy and a budget worth $93 billion annually.
In 1990 New South Wales taxpayers paid at least $150 million for the lurks and perks of a bulging senior executive service. In addition to its size and the generosity of salary packages the Greiner Government has also assisted these top public servants to avoid and minimise tax. I do not want to embarrass anyone. Instead of top public
Page 2066
servants paying for their annual holidays, houses and cars out of their after-tax salaries, the Government pays them out of the public servants' gross salary packages. Under current provisions these elite New South Wales public servants can save a total of $20,000 in fringe benefits tax discounts which, in most cases, is more than most people earn in a year. The aggregate of these lurks, fringe benefits tax relief and enormous annual salaries is too great a burden for New South Wales taxpayers to carry, especially in a recession, and with an underlying budget deficit of about $2 billion.
This is a clear example - a classic example - of the Greiner Government's wrong priorities, its waste and its mismanagement. The Labor Party is determined to curb abuses connected with the SES. This bill is all about not wiping out the SES but curbing its excesses - bringing it under control. In the end this Parliament and this bill should be all about asserting the control of the Legislature over the Executive, especially in matters of public expenditures. We ought to ensure that reasonable salary packages for our top public servants are determined through the New South Wales Industrial Commission. We ought to ensure an end to costly and tax evasive benefits for senior public servants. A lean and efficient public sector is essential to this State's economic growth and development. The State's senior public servants must be adequately rewarded for their effective management of public utilities and offices. About that there is no debate. The Labor Party's legislation recognises this and enshrines it in law, but it curbs the abuses. For those reasons I commend this bill to the House.
Debate adjourned on motion by Mr Souris.
QUESTION WITHOUT NOTICE
______
HEALTH WORKERS STRIKE
Mr MERTON: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Health Services Management. Have striking health workers claimed that today's stoppage was caused by cuts to the health budget -
Mr Whelan: On a point of order. I draw attention to the fact that only half a dozen Government Ministers are in the Chamber. Government Ministers should be in the Chamber at question time.
Mr Moore: On the point of order. Mr Speaker, you have given the call to the honourable member for Baulkham Hills. He has addressed his question to a Minister who is present in the Chamber. I am sure that other Ministers will arrive in due course.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I uphold the general observation made by the honourable member for Ashfield that Ministers should be in the Chamber during question time, but I also take the point made by the Minister for the Environment that the question was addressed to a Minister who is in the Chamber. I therefore ask the questioner to proceed.
Page 2067
Mr MERTON: Have striking health workers claimed that today's stoppage was caused by cuts to the health budget and because nurses are concerned about losing their jobs? How many of the nurses affected by hospital restructuring have been found positions or have accepted voluntary redundancy? Have there been cuts to the health budget in New South Wales?
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Blacktown to order.
Mr PHILLIPS: Mr Speaker -
Mr Langton: On a point of order. The final part of the question clearly relates to the budget debate now before the House. It was clear that the question related specifically to the Budget and whether there had been a cut in the Budget. Obviously, that would anticipate debate which is to take place in this House later today and on future sitting days. I ask you to rule the question out of order.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! If the honourable member for Kogarah had been listening the other day when I addressed a point of order on this very subject, he would know that I said:
A question seeking factual information has never been held to be subject to the rule of anticipation of debate. If it were so, it would not be possible for honourable members on either side of the House to obtain information to assist them in their discussions of the Budget and the Estimates. Accordingly, I rule that the rule on anticipation does not apply, and that the question is in order.
That follows the precedent of many Speakers in this House. The question is in order.
Mr PHILLIPS: I thank the honourable member for Baulkham Hills for his interest in this important issue in the community today. One of the main reasons given by the Nurses Association for today's strike is its concern about the loss of jobs caused by the restructuring that I announced recently. Already in this House and publicly to the Nurses Association I have given repeated assurances that no nurse will be retrenched or forced to take redundancy. I am able to provide figures now that show clearly that my objectives are being achieved. The future of the majority of nurses affected have been addressed already, and the three relevant health areas are confident that every member of their staffs will be looked after. For example, in the central Sydney area, 79 nurses were affected by the closure of Marrickville hospital. Of those, 45 have been redeployed in the area, 24 have been redeployed in other health areas, three are on long-term leave, six have accepted voluntary redundancy, and one will be offered voluntary redundancy on return from leave. There have been no retrenchments or forced redundancies; all staff have been considered.
[Interruption]
Page 2068
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Londonderry to order. I call the honourable member for Mount Druitt to order.
Mr PHILLIPS: In the eastern Sydney area the Royal South Sydney Hospital has had a change of role and is now part of the Prince Henry Hospital-Prince of Wales Hospital-Prince of Wales Children's Hospital group. The change affected 10 operating theatre nurses, all of whom are expected to be placed in other hospitals in the group or in non-operating theatre positions at Royal South Sydney Hospital. At Sydney Hospital arrangements have been made for 24 nurses to be redeployed within the area, and 53 nurses have indicated a preference to take voluntary redundancy. That will be finalised in the next 10 days. Again, no nursing staff at either Royal South Sydney Hospital or Sydney Hospital have been retrenched or forced to take redundancy. In the western Sydney area, where Parramatta Hospital was closed and St Joseph's Hospital has had a role change, 242 nurse have been affected.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Drummoyne to order for the second time.
Mr PHILLIPS: At this stage, 62 of those nurses have been redeployed within the area, two are to be redeployed outside the area, 42 have applied for voluntary redundancy, nine have resigned, and five are on long-term or special leave. All the nurses at Parramatta Hospital have been absorbed into Westmead hospital. I am advised that the majority of the nursing staff at St Joseph's Hospital will remain there, and that others will be able to go to Auburn District Hospital, in respect of which interviews are being conducted this week. I have asked the area administrators to ensure that all staff are accommodated, and the administrators are confident that this will occur.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Auburn to order.
Mr PHILLIPS: In short, one of the main reasons given for holding the strike has not had, and never has had, any basis. Other reasons given by Ms Patricia Staunton, the Secretary of the Nurses Association, is that the New South Wales Government apparently is cutting the health budget. Yesterday's Daily Telegraph Mirror reported:
"We have to cut our services to hospitals to make it clear to the Government that their cuts to public health since 1988 are unacceptable", Nurses Association Secretary, Patricia Staunton, said yesterday.
Every member of this House, including those on the Opposition benches, has a copy of the Budget Papers and knows exactly what this year's budget for the health system is, and knows exactly what this Government has budgeted for health in recent years. Each member has a copy of the Budget Papers in summary form - though I doubt whether
Page 2069
some members have read that information. I am willing to discuss or be questioned on any figures in the budget summary sheet if further detail is sought.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Londonderry to order for the second time.
Mr PHILLIPS: In answer to the question and to the nurses' claim that supposedly the Government is cutting the budget, I again make the strong point that this year the health budget has been increased by 4.7 per cent, which is above the anticipated inflation rate in New South Wales. That is better than other Labor States throughout Australia have achieved. Since the coalition was elected, the health budget has been increased, when allowance is made for inflation, by 37 per cent. The nurses have said also that apparently there has not been a redistribution of resources.
Mr J. J. Aquilina: On a point of order. In recognition of your earlier ruling I point out that the Minister is now quoting and displaying the Budget Papers. In effect he is debating matter to which the Opposition cannot reply. It is for the House to debate the Appropriation Bill, not for the Minister to do so by way of an answer to a question without notice.
Mr Phillips: On the point of order. One of the most important issues in the community today is the nurses' strike. The health budget is one of the main reasons constantly given for the strike, and it is important that the budget aspect be clarified.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have said, and Speakers over many years have ruled, that factual information may be obtained by asking a question without notice. The House will have ample time to debate both the information given by the Minister for Health Services Management in reply and any other matter raised during the budget debate. The point of order has no substance and I rule the Minister to be in order.
Mr PHILLIPS: Finally on the budget, since the coalition was elected it has increased the health budget by 37 per cent; that is, by in excess of $1.15 billion during the past three years. I am sure that honourable members want to know what impact the strike is having on the health system today. It is difficult to collect exact figures at short notice during the day, and the detail will be clarified at a later time. However, by way of indication of what is happening, in the Hunter Area Health Service about 24 per cent to 30 per cent of staff have reported for duty. Given the trauma they have faced in adjusting to the health system there, that is understandable. In the central Sydney area, at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital 61 per cent of nurses have turned up for work. In the southern Sydney area, which includes my hospital at Sutherland and the St George Hospital, more than 50 per cent have turned up for work.
Mr Rogan: On a point of order. The Minister has been speaking for about 14 minutes. I suggest that by length of time and content he is making a ministerial statement.
Page 2070
Mr SPEAKER: Order! No point of order is involved.
Mr PHILLIPS: At Hawkesbury Hospital, in which I am sure, Mr Speaker, you have a great interest, 95 per cent of nurses have turned up for work.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Londonderry to order for the third time.
Mr PHILLIPS: The honourable member for Liverpool would be interested to know that 60 per cent of staff have turned up for work at Liverpool Hospital.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Gosford to order.
Mr PHILLIPS: On the North Coast 75 per cent of staff have turned up for work. In the central west more than 50 per cent of staff have turned up. I do not know the exact figure for the Central Coast, but only a minority of staff have taken any action. In summary, the department advises me that all hospitals are coping well by using a very small volunteer force, and there are no major problems in the system today.
______
JOINT ESTIMATES COMMITTEES
Mr MOORE (Gordon), Minister for the Environment [3.20]: In light of the need to transmit messages to the Legislative Council for the orderly conduct of the estimates committees this evening, I seek leave of the House to interrupt the business of the House to move two motions at this time.
Leave granted.
Mr MOORE (Gordon), Minister for the Environment [3.20]: I move:
That schedule 2 of the resolution passed by this House on 26 September 1991 relating to estimates committees be amended, as follows:
TUESDAY - 15 OCTOBER 1991
Committee No. 1 (Human Services)
7.30 p.m. Sport, Recreation and Racing
8.30 p.m. Consumer Affairs
9.30 - 10.30 p.m. Housing
Page 2071
WEDNESDAY - 30 OCTOBER 1991
Committee No. 1 (Human Services)
7.30 p.m. Aboriginal Affairs, Ethnic Affairs
8.30-10.30 p.m. Health and Community Services,
Hospital Management
The reason for moving this motion is to accommodate the fact that there is a major Olympic function this evening which requires the presence of the Premier and to enable the business to be dealt with in an orderly fashion.
Mr WHELAN (Ashfield) [3.21]: The Opposition agrees to the motion.
Motion agreed to.
Mr MOORE (Gordon), Minister for the Environment [3.21], by leave: I move that:
(1) Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in the standing or sessional orders, Ministers may indicate to estimates committees established pursuant to the sessional orders of the Parliament that information supplementary to a response given to the estimates committee in reply to a question asked by a member of that committee may be lodged with the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly and such information shall be regarded as part of the proceedings of the Parliament and published as an addendum to the Question Paper of the Legislative Assembly; and
(2) A message be sent to the Legislative Council informing the Council of the terms of this resolution and requesting that the Council establish such an arrangement for the publication in the Question and Answer Paper of the Legislative Council of such supplementary information to estimates committees.
The purpose of this legislation is to enable a Minister to indicate to an estimates committee that information sought by the committee is not immediately available to be given and that it can be provided later in writing. This provides a mechanism for that information to be published and protected by the privileges of this House when it is made available to members. I commend the motion to the House and thank the Opposition for its co-operation.
Mr WHELAN (Ashfield) [3.22]: We view this measure, as we do the general thrust of the estimates committee, as an opportunity to examine the estimates in detail. It will be a matter of trial and error. I understand that Ministers may not be able to give answers directly in most instances but, in view of the fact that while estimates are under consideration departmental advisers will be present, I assume Ministers will be able to give proper answers. On prior occasions I congratulated the Leader of the House on his initiative, so there is no need to do that again. However, there is no time limit within which a Minister has to reply. It would undoubtedly be a matter of public comment if a Minister does not reply within a certain time; the public odium would be on him. The Government might consider some limit within which the answer has to be recorded.
Page 2072
But, otherwise, these provisions relating to attracting the privileges of Parliament and providing the answers in the written form are desirable.
Mr MOORE (Gordon), Minister for the Environment [3.24], in reply: It is the general intention of the Government to informally apply the same rule as now applies for questions on the notice paper of 15 sitting days. Simply, if the matter is of great detail, there will be a need to assemble the information and make it available.
Motion agreed to.
Message sent to the Legislative Council informing it of the resolutions.
HOSPITAL SERVICE CUTBACKS Adjournment (S.O. 49)
Mr SPEAKER: I have received a notice of motion under Standing Order 49 by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that he desires to move the adjournment of the House to discuss a specific matter of recent occurrence of sufficient public importance to warrant urgent consideration, namely, this House calls on the Government to note the concerns of nurses and health care workers who have taken industrial action today, and that the Government reverse its policies which have led to this action, including abandoning productivity cuts in growth areas of Sydney's south and west and the State's central and north coasts.
Dr REFSHAUGE (Marrickville), Deputy Leader of the Opposition [3.26]: I move:
That this House do now adjourn.
The motion being supported by five other members.
Dr REFSHAUGE: The strike today of health workers is one of the first ever involving nurses in this State. For the Minister for Health and Services Management to say they have got their facts wrong and do not know what is going on is a tragedy in itself. His comment is a slur on the competence and dedication of nurses. The honourable member for Burrinjuck walks from the Chamber, turning his back on nurses. There is no doubt that nurses in his area are very concerned about the attacks on the hospital system throughout rural New South Wales.
Mr W. T. J. Murray: What, close more hospitals?
Dr REFSHAUGE: I should like it put on record that the Deputy Premier in particular wants to close more hospitals. This House, and the Government in particular, must note that 80,000 health workers in New South Wales voted to go on strike because this Government is not looking after the health care system and patients. This matter is of vital importance because until now our health care system has been recognised as
Page 2073
one of the leaders in the world. By these draconian productivity cuts every hospital is being told by this Minister and this temporary Government that the work of health workers is not highly valued; and by the productivity cuts the Minister implies that hospital staff are not working hard enough. No doubt efficiencies can be made in the public hospital system. However, this Government is destroying the public hospital system without improving the efficiency and providing the redistribution that obviously is required. If the Government were serious about redistribution of health resources, it would abandon immediately productivity cuts in the growth areas of New South Wales. There is no point in saying to the people of Nepean: "Wait your turn. We will close a few hospitals in the inner city and eventually you will get your resources" when on the same day the Government is saying: "You are too slack. We want you to work with less money doing the same job". That is what the productivity cuts are all about.
Hospital beds could be opened if the Minister decided to stop these productivity cuts in the west and southwest of Sydney. Operating theatres could be working if those productivity cuts were abandoned and health workers in those hospitals could get on with looking after people in Sydney's greater west. This year Westmead hospital alone is having $7 million cut from its budget. That major teaching hospital in western Sydney is being told that $7 million comes off its budget at the same time as the hospital is closing its casualty doors to ambulances almost three weeks out of every four weeks. That is because this hospital is overworked, cannot cope with existing resources and is being told to do more with less. Of course, that comes back in enhancements but the point is that the system at the moment cannot cope with its existing resources. The Government must stop this madness of productivity cuts on hospitals that cannot cope.
The demonstration outside the Parliament today supported the maintenance of present services until a more appropriate re-evaluation of those services can be carried out to show how they can be best used. Until a reappraisal is done, there should be a moratorium on closures. The closure and downgrading of five Sydney hospitals will only aggravate the situation. Last week the accident and emergency service at St Joseph's Hospital at Auburn was closed. The majority of patients who would have gone to that hospital will now have to go to Westmead hospital, which is closing its casualty services to ambulances, except for the most desperate of emergencies, sometimes on three out of each four weeks in a month. Westmead hospital will not be able to cope with that added burden. The Government's resource allocation formula has been shown to be a joke, but unfortunately it is now a very cruel joke. The resource allocation formula had enormous credit. The Opposition praised it regularly. Though it needed some minor tinkering, in a general sense the formula was a good thing. However, it had to live up to the promise that Treasury made that there would be a 2 per cent increase annually in the Budget for health, in addition to the inflation increase. That promise was not made dependent on the gross domestic product, or who was in Government federally, or who was the Minister at the time - the increase was to be 2 per cent every year, and within about 10 years the resource allocation formula was to deliver a much improved equalisation of resources so that everyone got a fair share.
That was a policy with which the Opposition agreed. But as happens so often with this Government, it cannot even implement a good policy. This year the hospitals
Page 2074
budget has not been increased, and certainly has not increased by the promised 2 per cent to bring the resource allocation formula on line. When one looks at the predictions made at the time the resource allocation formula was developed, one gets a true picture of what is happening. The Budget share for west and southwest Sydney should have been 11.34 per cent. On the resource allocation formula supported by the Opposition, which included a transfer of resources to the growth areas, western Sydney should have received 11.34 per cent of the Budget. This year that region has been allocated 11.28 per cent. That might not sound like a great deal of difference, but it is a big variation when one realises it is $2 million. At the same time Westmead hospital's budget will be cut by $7 million, of which about half will come from the nursing budget. That shows that the resource allocation formula is not being adhered to by the Government. The Opposition had no quibble of a major nature with that formula, but believed some minor changes should be made to it. The Opposition has given bipartisan support to the formula but the Government has dudded the people of western and southwestern Sydney. This year western Sydney has received $2 million less. As a result of natural accretion that will increase to $4 million next year and $8 million the year after, even if the Government maintains a mediocre increase in budget expenditure. Within 10 years the western and southern parts of Sydney, the North Coast and Central Coast will not be receiving their fair share.
Mr Hartcher: The Central Coast is doing very well.
Dr REFSHAUGE: I will come to the Central Coast in a moment, and not only will I do that, but we will all come to the Central Coast in a few weeks' time for a great by-election. I should have hoped the honourable member for Gosford would have had his colleagues in the Chamber to listen to this debate. In regard to the resource allocation formula, the Minister says the Government is taking money from the city and giving it to the west. Let me examine the big lie that the Minister is giving to the resource allocation formula for the inner city. According to the formula, this year the inner city should have received 8.6 per cent of the Budget, according to the Minister's own department. But one finds that it received 9.1 per cent of the Budget. What percentage did the inner city receive three years ago when the formula was being developed? At that time it received 9 per cent. The inner city has had an increase in its budget allocation. Either the Minister believes his own Government has done nothing for resource allocation formula equalisation over the past three years or to increase resources for the west and southwest, in the growth areas, or it has not considered the options for reducing expenditure in the inner city without reducing services. That can be done. Unfortunately, the Labor Party health policy, which showed how this could be done and got great editorial acclaim in New South Wales, has been all but ignored by the Government.
The Labor Party has shown the Government the way to ensure that inner city services are maintained, efficiency will be dramatically improved, staff will not be lost, jobs will not go and there will be rapid deployment of resources to the growth areas. The Labor Party has done that and shown how microeconomic reform could occur, rather than have the slash and burn productivity cuts that send a clear message to every nurse in New South Wales that Minister Phillips and Premier Greiner believe they are
Page 2075
not working hard enough. That is the message of the productivity cuts. The Government should have examined real microeconomic reform and ways it can be developed, learned from overseas, read some of the major reviews of health systems throughout Australia and overseas. If it had done that, it could have introduced dramatic changes and given the people of western Sydney a reasonable deal. It failed to do so and simply continued on with the Macquarie Street accountant's view of the health system, the slash and burn productivity cuts. The bottom line and the clear message to the nurses is that the Government does not believe nurses work hard enough. Undoubtedly that is why the nurses took the almost unprecedented stance of going on strike today.
The so-called recent changes, the removal of the clouds over Sydney Hospital, Marrickville hospital, and Parramatta hospital announced so proudly by the Minister, were supposed to bring beds to the west. A total of 60 beds have been lost, including beds in the west, at Parramatta hospital; but what has happened? No beds have gone to the west. A promise has been made that one intensive care bed will be available at Westmead hospital. However, there has been a promise that of the order of 60 private beds will be made available at St Luke's Hospital at Potts Point. This is not a beds to the west policy, but rather a beds to the east policy. It is a tragedy for the people who have been providing services at Sydney Hospital, Parramatta hospital, and Marrickville hospital. Unfortunately, the great opportunity that the Government had, with the support of the Opposition, for resource allocation has been wasted. The Opposition's support was given clearly for the way in which microeconomic reform should occur. The Government's failure to accept that support has denied to the people of New South Wales the significant changes that could have been made and would have brought resources to the growth areas of Sydney.
This Government has also decided that we have too many hospital beds. The honourable member for Gosford has decided that he wants some beds in Gosford but the Minister has said that we have too many hospital beds. Within a decade, 4,000 hospital beds are to go. I must admit that, if we happen to have a dramatic improvement in health services, if the status of health services happens to rise dramatically, if all of a sudden we find ways that people can get better without the use of the health care system, perhaps it would be a great idea to have only two hospital beds. If waiting lists did not exist or the wait was convenient, if patients were not waiting in pain for 18 months to get their hips replaced, it would be quite reasonable to say that we have too many hospital beds, but the way to decrease the number of hospital beds - if that is the aim, and certainly that aim has some credibility - is to bring forward efficiencies in the health care system which make those hospital beds not necessary.
The problem here needs to be highlighted. Unfortunately, the Chief Secretary and Minister for Administrative Services, who represents an electorate in that area, has followed the line of the Minister for Health Services Management. What is happening in the Nepean area is a tragedy. Nepean Hospital has no radiotherapy cancer treatment available to it, apart from having patients go to Westmead or further afield. During the past three years, with the support of the Opposition, the Government had a review of cancer treatment: of where linear accelerators should go, where the new machines should
Page 2076
go. Where did the Government decide that the new units should go? One was to beef up the Westmead complex; we supported that proposal. One was to be set up in St George Hospital; again, that is a very important place for the unit to be set up in. But why should extra services be put in at the Prince of Wales Hospital when Nepean Hospital is crying out for such a unit? Where was the Chief Secretary and Minister for Administrative Services when Nepean missed out - when Nepean could have been set up so that it could provide cancer treatment? Was the Minister complaining to her colleagues then, saying that Nepean needed to be set up to provide cancer treatment? Such occurrences have led Dr Cregan to say that he has had to do inappropriate operations because he cannot get access to that treatment. The Minister's Government, the temporary Greiner Government, refused to provide cancer treatment at Nepean. Is the Minister answerable for that?
Mrs Cohen: At least we are going to put in a teaching hospital. You never even thought of that.
Dr REFSHAUGE: I put forward proposals in the House. I put forward motions on this matter. We gave bipartisan support, and the Government refused to bring treatment to Nepean. The Government will wear that. We will tell its constituents about that when this election is called. The Government refused to give a cancer treatment unit to Nepean Hospital. The Chief Secretary and Minister for Administrative Services, if she had bothered to bring this up, would have been rolled by her ministerial colleagues. She did not fight to get cancer treatment for the people of the Nepean area. The Opposition had costed its proposal to ensure that it could get a dramatic improvement in resources for the west. A lot of the improvements in resources for the west need to be capital driven. Even the interstices of the Department of Health in its resource allocation formula directives showed that a lot of improvements have to be capital driven. Capital is needed to provide beds and facilities so that staff have a place to work. If this Cabinet were committed to making sure that the west got these resources, it would have done what the Opposition has shown is possible - that is, fast tracking the Nepean Hospital and Liverpool Hospital developments. If the Government had any commitment to its electorate, it would be pushing its Ministers to ensure that the provision of services in those hospitals is fast tracked.
Mrs Cohen: How do you think we are getting a teaching hospital?
Dr REFSHAUGE: We have it on record that the Chief Secretary and Minister for Administrative Services does not want the provision of services to Nepean to be fast tracked.
Mrs Cohen: On a point of order. At no stage did I say that I did not want radiotherapy treatment for Nepean Hospital. I said that I pushed for a teaching hospital. They were the words that I used, and I object to this deliberate misleading of the House. I do not like lies being told, particularly in the House. I ask the Leader of the Opposition to retract his statement, which was deliberately misleading and quite false.
Page 2077
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Chair has no power to order a member to retract a statement. For that reason the offended member has a right to make a personal explanation rebutting the incorrect statement. That is as much as can be done on the record.
Dr REFSHAUGE: I would like to hear the personal explanation of the Minister on why, at the time that new cancer treatment was being allocated, two New South Wales -
[Personal Explanation]
Mrs Cohen: I wish to make a personal explanation. The Leader of the Opposition deliberately claimed that I had said I did not push for radiotherapy treatment at Nepean. I said that I pushed for a teaching hospital. I have worked extraordinarily hard in this area -
Mr SPEAKER: Order! If the Minister wishes to speak in the debate later, she has the right to do so then.
Dr REFSHAUGE: If this Government wanted to speed up the process of resource reallocation to ensure that western and southwestern Sydney get their fair share, it would fast track the development of Liverpool and Nepean hospitals. The Opposition showed how it could do that and bring both of those hospital developments into the system one year earlier. This would provide those resources out there faster. Under this resource allocation formula, under this Government's capital work expenditure program, we would be lucky to find any equalisation within 20 years. Already the move of the Children's Hospital has been delayed by more than 12 months. The Minister may not like it, but I ask her to look at the glossy magazines put out by the former Minister for Health which have included in them a completion date. I have plenty of copies. The move of that Childrens' Hospital has been delayed by 12 months. Will the Minister deny that? We will be telling the people of Badgerys Creek at the next election that she delayed it for 12 months - or, in fact, 24, if it turns out to be that period. We have also seen that, of the $183 million for the upgrading of Liverpool Hospital, only $8.8 million has been allocated. That is a significant sum, but if we really wanted to build that hospital fast we would not be allocating $8.8 million but something around $18 million to $20 million this year to ensure that there will be a speeding up of that process.
Mr Speaker, it is with great regret that we see in your own electorate only a token effort in the promise of capital works for the new Hawkesbury hospital. There is no doubt that that would provide for very little more than some token planning. The Cumberland hospital development was delayed for approximately 12 months. The $19 million refurbishment of the Royal Hospital for Women has presumably being cancelled. It certainly has not been done, as was promised. Do honourable members remember the promise relating to Maitland Hospital? That is not on the capital works list. The Wyong hospital development has been delayed by at least six months. We have a hole in the ground at Wollongong. We are waiting for the Minister to visit. The patients of Wollongong will not get their new clinical services building because no money is being
Page 2078
provided for improvements. I am surprised that the honourable member for Albury has not been involved in this debate on health since the Budget was delivered. The program for the Albury hospital has been cancelled after $11 million has already been spent. The setting up of the new Port Macquarie hospital has been delayed for two years. I can do no better than to quote the new Independent, the honourable member for Davidson, on capital funding.
In hospitals the Premier has confirmed privately that capital funding allocations won't come within cooee of construction targets.
The Premier's cynicism knows no bounds. I ask members opposite: consider your constituents. Do not be cajoled by your party. Do not be misled by the theatre of Parliament. Talk to your constituents and listen to what they say because you are representing them in this Parliament. It is your constituents that you are here fighting for and it is they who need health services. The issue is not the fun of trying to be next in the pecking order for appointment to the ministry of this temporary government. The real issue is providing services to the people of New South Wales. The Opposition has had differences with the honourable member for Davidson, but I ask all members to read what he said and to listen to what he says, because he is completely accurate. Mr Speaker, I am sure you know from experience in your electorate that the capital works figures are a sham. The nurses know what is going on. The Minister says his door is open but I do not see him meeting with the people who know what is going on. At the moment I am hopeful that this Government has a chance to learn from the experience of 25th May and will learn from the dedicated health workers. As the Minister has said, many health workers have determined that, despite their almost unanimous commitment for a statewide strike, they will need to look after patients and maintain services.
[Interruption]
Dr REFSHAUGE: There will be major problems at Gosford District Hospital with the waiting list.
Mr Hartcher: Let us hear about it.
Dr REFSHAUGE: If the honourable member wants productivity cuts applied to Gosford District Hospital, he should vote with the Minister because that is what this is about. We will let his constituents know that he does not believe the nurses are working hard enough. I commend the motion to the House. I hope that while the Minister is speaking all members of the Government will have the chance to reflect on their constituencies because it is not inconceivable that they will have to face them in the very near future.
Mr HATTON (South Coast) [3.53]: I take the opportunity, in supporting this motion, to make a plea for the South Coast. So far as I can see, the Government's argument on the movement of money from stagnant areas, and areas reducing in size, to growth areas is not reflected in an area of very heavy growth, such as the South Coast. The Minister stated today there was a 5 per cent increase overall for the health budget in the Illawarra area health region. That is not showing up in the electorate of
Page 2079
South Coast. For some reason health administrators recognise Liverpool, Westmead, Penrith and the North Coast as growth areas, but they overlook the glaring growth factors in places such as Shellharbour and Shoalhaven. I am sure I speak for the honourable member for Kiama in this regard. I have tried to understand the very serious problems experienced by the Illawarra Area Health Service but the stage has been reached at which all local members of Parliament have said enough is enough. We do not understand what is happening. I certainly do not understand what is happening in my area.
Through the area health board the Government has already inflicted productivity cuts of $4.5 million and is asking the area to suffer further cuts of $2.1 million this year. The Minister says Kiama District Hospital and Coledale District Hospital should be closed. The operating costs of Kiama District Hospital are about $2.5 million, being about $600,000 for outpatients and $1.8 million for inpatients; and the health board is contracting public beds at a cost of $1.1 million, with a net saving of about $700,000. However, that net saving of $700,000 is being swallowed up because the cancer care service, which was brought about by public subscription, costs $2.1 million a year to run and its use is growing because of its excellent high-tech service. However, it is being funded only to the extent of $1.5 million. The Government is saying on the one hand to close that hospital and save $700,000; but that $700,000 will be used to make up the shortfall in the running cost of the cancer care unit. However, the Government's answer to that is to close Coledale District Hospital, which will save $1.8 million. If the 38 beds were closed at Coledale District Hospital, 20 medical beds would be transferred to Bulli and 18 rehabilitation beds to Port Kembla. But when beds are transferred, costs are also transferred, and the operating cost savings would be about $600,000 out of the $1.8 million.
The most outrageous thing is that the Illawarra Area Health Service would be expected to borrow money to make redundancy payments. If nursing staff are to be put off and hospitals closed, redundancy payments must be made. The area health service is not being given any additional money for the cancer care unit or for redundancy packages. Where does that fit in with the Government's strategy if it has to borrow money to make redundancy payments and then repay the borrowed money? Any savings effected through the closure of those two hospitals would be spent in other areas. The medical officers at Shellharbour District Hospital, Shoalhaven District Memorial Hospital and Wollongong Hospital work on a casual visiting basis at a cost of $50 an hour, and that alone amounts to $1 million a year. Shoalhaven hospital has been given an additional $220,000 and four cots will be moved to Nowra and the nursing staff will go with them. The Illawarra Area Health Service says that the growth rate in the Shoalhaven area is 3.3 per cent; I say it is approximately 5 per cent. The area cannot sustain any more cuts and cannot get by on its present budget. People are suffering because elective surgery lists are growing. We have the threat of the closure of theatres over the Christmas period and beyond. When the area health board is challenged about wanting to close 15 beds it states it will not close 15 beds yet it still inflicts an effective budget cut on the hospitals because of the growth rate.
Page 2080
When I speak with the doctors and nurses I am told that the bottom line is that either beds will have to be closed or the waiting list for elective surgery will be extended. I remember well when the coalition was in opposition and Mr Collins berated the Labor Government time and again about the increase in waiting lists for elective surgery. The waiting lists are increasing. The budget for the Shoalhaven area does not reflect the growth in the area. The Minister can say to me that if the area health board would only close Coledale District Hospital and Kiama District Hospital they would get their funds. But who am I as the local member to force them to do anything? My fellow members in the Illawarra will fight like mad to preserve services in their areas. My constituents suffer because the Illawarra Area Health Service is not standing up to the Minister and saying that it is a growth area and that the board will not inflict any more cuts. Privately they tell me that enough is enough. They say they have cut to the bone and cannot cut any more. Doctors say they can save no more. Members of Parliament from the Illawarra area have gone as a group to the area health board and said that we cannot take it any more. Either the board has to stand up to the Minister, and he has to sack it, or the board must close hospitals and then be brought under pressure by people who will not allow the hospitals to close. The bottom line is that my constituents live in a growth area and they are suffering. Some areas of my electorate have a staggering 12 per cent growth rate. It will be crazy if beds are closed and elective surgery is transferred to other hospitals, such as Port Kembla District Hospital. It costs about $430 a day to keep people in beds in Shoalhaven. It will cost three days' worth of patient care to transfer them on one ambulance trip to Wollongong at a cost of $1,300.
Standish Medical Centre has many specialists who come from Sydney. A lot of referrals are made to Sydney. Most referrals are necessary; some are not. It costs $2,600 a day to transfer people to Sydney. This amount could be used to keep them in Shoalhaven hospital for six days. These are the sorts of economics that I want the Minister to examine. I am bitterly critical of the Illawarra Area Health Board because of the lies and distortions. I have decided that, from here on, I will not take a conciliatory line. I am demanding answers. I want to know where is the sense in transferring patients from one area to another? We have been told that the Illawarra Area Health Service is going to close seven beds in another growth area - the Milton area. The Illawarra Area Health Service has said, "No, we will not close seven of the 20 beds at that hospital". But it will have to make savings in other ways, which will involve the transfer of patients, a reduction in patient care or the closure of beds.
One of the difficulties facing me and my fellow local members in the Illawarra is that we do not really think the truth is coming through. When I talk to doctors, nurses and the Illawarra Area Health Service off the record I get different views about what is happening. It is difficult for me to sort them out. In some cases people have been waiting months for elective surgery. In this growth area some people have been waiting for well over a year and others have been waiting for several years. That is just not on. I took the advice that was given to me by the Illawarra Area Health Service. I thought the doctors were ripping off the system. I went into the figures carefully - and that took a great deal of research on the part of my research officer, Alan Barry - and found that this is not so. The doctors are being accused of ripping off the system. I
Page 2081
swallowed the line that they are overspending their visiting medical officers budget year after year. What is not being said is that the budget was not increased for about five years, so naturally it will be overspent. Taking the growth factor into account, we realise that the budget could not possibly keep up.
It is bizarre that in the Milton area doctors may be asked to run a private outpatient clinic in a building close to the hospital and owned by the hospital. As I understand the scheme, patients would be treated at that clinic and would claim on Medicare. Doctors in the Milton area are paid at rural rates and the Illawarra Area Health Service would top up the difference. This would save in the order of $200,000 a year. But is that legal? Are patient costs being transferred from the State budget to the Federal budget? If this scheme were found not to be legal, where would that leave the doctors? If this scheme were exposed as a sham by the Health Insurance Commission, the doctors would be put at risk. Would it be a solution to include Milton in the southeastern region? Batemans Bay and Moruya hospitals get special consideration as country hospitals. Yet the types of services, the rural landscape and the whole of the operation at the Milton hospital are really no different from those at the Batemans Bay hospital. Batemans Bay and Moruya have been included in my electorate for many years; I know the areas well. Is it possible to get more money into the Milton area by including it in the southeastern region? Feelings are running so high in the Milton area that many of my constituents are saying: "We ought to break away from the Illawarra Area Health Board. We do not want anything to do with it. All we are getting from it is a lot of pain."
I have got to the stage at which I am saying, "Enough is enough". I know that there are time restrictions on this debate, but there is a lot more that I could say. I ask the Minister to look seriously at the economics of the operations of the Illawarra Area Health Board. It is thrashing around making cuts which should not be made. We have got to the bottom of the barrel and there is no more funding. In thrashing around the Illawarra Area Health Board is going to displace costs to other State hospitals, to the Commonwealth, or the Ambulance Service - costs which all come out of the Illawarra Area Health Service budget. Enough is enough! We are not copping any more. Something has to happen. That is why I supported the nurses today. They genuinely have been screwed right down by this Government. Pressure is being put on them. Everyone would agree that they are doing their best; they are doing an amazing job. Vacancies are not being filled, because of budget constraints, and that puts more pressure on the nurses. I am sure the Minister appreciates the work they do. It is demoralising for the nurses when these vacancies are not filled.
It is important to place on the record that I do not accept the rhetoric of honourable members on both sides of this Chamber. The Minister ought to be given credit for the fact that he is sincerely trying to move resources from areas of lesser growth to areas of greater growth. That will cause a lot of problems and upset. Because of budget constraints, the Minister has had to communicate in a restricted time frame. If that communication had been by negotiation over a period of, say, two years, we may have heard a lot more sense in this debate. I can only reflect what is happening
Page 2082
in my electorate. I ask the Minister on my behalf and that of fellow parliamentarians in the Illawarra to consider seriously the situation faced by that board.
Mr PHILLIPS (Miranda), Minister for Health Services Management [4.3]: I will deal first with the remarks made by the honourable member for South Coast. The dilemma being faced by people in the Illawarra area and by people at the Shoalhaven hospital is the same dilemma I am facing in dealing with the total health system: how do we get more resources to a growth hospital in a growth area - such as Shoalhaven hospital - that is under severe pressure? Shoalhaven is part of a growth area. Not all areas in the Illawarra are growth areas. Resources are caught in pockets of the Illawarra. How do we get in and move them out? From 1988, when this Government came to office, funding to the Illawarra region has increased by $30 million - that is, 7.4 per cent over and above inflation, in spite of the worst recession for 60 years. Although the increase in funding is not as high as that going to western Sydney and southwestern Sydney, funding is going to the Illawarra area.
I hope that the honourable member for South Coast and other honourable members will help me to tackle a twofold problem. The first problem is the amount of funding from Medicare in Canberra - the funding system for health. I am working under restrictions. New South Wales tops up this funding with whatever funds are generated internally. I will go through the figures in a moment to show exactly what is happening. The second problem is that we have growth areas, like the growth area in the electorate of the honourable member for South Coast, in other parts of Sydney, the Central Coast and the North Coast. We cannot lock up resources in the inner city. We have to release those resources and find more efficient ways of spending our dollars. It has been said by the Federal Government and by the Macklin inquiry that New South Wales has too many hospitals and too many acute care beds. This statement is supported by the New South Wales Department of Health. It has been said that the number of beds should be reduced throughout Australia. This sort of thing is happening overseas. They are the dilemmas with which we are faced; they are the restrictions under which I work; they are the two things I have to do.
What has happened with the New South Wales health budget this year? A number of lies have been told. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition and his colleagues are very good at pushing the big lie, and unfortunately the Nurses Association is doing the same. It is saying that the New South Wales health budget is being cut. They are all saying, "Stop the cuts". That just does not stack up with all the public figures, which are quite clear about is happening with health in New South Wales. Since the coalition was elected in 1988 the New South Wales health budget has increased by 37 per cent, that is, by more than $1.1 billion in three years. That is what the coalition has achieved. This year, despite the worst recession in 10 years, the health budget has been increased by 4.7 per cent. At a time when most other New South Wales department budgets have been cut, the Premier said clearly in his financial statement some months before the handing down of the Budget that the health budget will be quarantined. That is exactly what has happened. The health budget has increased by 4.7 per cent, which is about 1.4 per cent above the expected inflation rate.
Page 2083
I have a problem. I have a budget that is increasing at only a little more than the inflation rate. That is because of the lack of Federal funding and the collapse of the economy generally, which result in decreased State revenue. However, the Premier has provided me with a budget that is a little above the level of last year's budget. My problem is that huge growth is occurring in western Sydney, southwestern Sydney, on the South Coast at Shoalhaven - as the honourable member for South Coast knows - on the Central Coast and on the North Coast. Unfortunately, during the past 15 to 20 years governments have failed to grasp the nettle and provide resources to those areas so that people there have adequate access to health care. Recognising in those areas the dramatic need for health care, and access to that care, how do I provide funds to those growth areas when I have a budget that has increased only slightly?
Mr Nagle: By telling the truth.
Mr PHILLIPS: The honourable member for Auburn should read the documents. Obviously I had to achieve efficiencies within the system, and from the areas which traditionally are overresourced I have to redirect money to the growth areas where the health care need is the greatest. That is why I opted for restructuring and that is why I will continue to pursue that course. In New South Wales we cannot continue to tie up money in a large number of small, high cost, run down, inefficient hospitals, which is what we have in what is known as the central and eastern areas of Sydney. We must stop spending money on maintaining buildings and beds. We will never have the money to maintain the old buildings and we must redirect that money toward providing services. My restructuring will provide an additional $30 million. However, obviously the decisions that one takes this year take some time to produce results, and not all of the $30 million will be available this year. I will use that $30 million to treat patients. I will direct money into hospitals in the west and in the southwest. I will open the clinical services block at St George Hospital. I will provide services in the new hospitals being built at Gosford and Wyong. I can do all those things, and they must be the priority in health care.
Future investment in health care must be in high technology methods and high technology medicines in a smaller number of hospitals. There must be an investment in community health services. We have an ageing population and we must attend to many more people in their homes rather than try to maintain them in high-tech, very expensive hospitals. Because we have an ageing population we must spend more money on aged care and palliative care. We must spend more money on public health schemes. The bottom line should not be the number of hospitals or hospital beds. The bottom line should be health outcomes: the number of people treated and a genuine improvement in the health of the community. People must get out of their minds that good health care equates with having a local hospital with a particular number of beds. That is nonsense. What is important is the type and range of services offered throughout the community. That is what health care is about. Health care is not about one local hospital; it is about a network of services and about access to modern health care methods. The Government really has the job before it to convince the community to think that way.
Page 2084
I said to the honourable member for South Coast that I have to live within a budget that has been restricted by the Federal Government's Medicare funding. The State Medicare grant - which is paid by the Federal Government to New South Wales for the treatment of public hospital patients - has been reducing in real terms. I said that the New South Wales health budget is increasing in real terms. In 1985-86 the Medicare grant provided 39 per cent of the New South Wales health expenditure. This year the grant accounts for 31 per cent of that expenditure. That is, today the Federal Government is giving New South Wales 8 per cent less toward this State's health care budget than it gave in 1985-86. The Federal Government's contribution has not kept pace with inflation. In fact, in real terms it has decreased by $67 million. That compares with a real increase of $525 million in State funding during the same period. This Government is putting the money where its mouth is. It is up front. It has allocated $525 million from the State Budget, but the Federal Government, through the Medicare agreement, has reduced our funding by $67 million. That is the crux of what this debate is all about.
Had the Federal Government maintained its 1985-86 contribution of 39.9 per cent during this period, today New South Wales would receive an additional $250 million a year. We are not asking for any more; we just want the same percentage amount that we received in 1985-86. If that were the case I would have an additional $250 million to spend on health care for the people of New South Wales. The Opposition supports the Medicare agreement and a system that is in tatters. Now that Medicare is in tatters the Federal Government's response is to impose a $3.5o levy on people visiting their doctor. That is one of the real funding restrictions that I have. The most dramatic decline has been in the identified health Medicare payment, which during this period has dropped by $139 million in real terms, or by 9.2 per cent. The New South Wales Government has had to find additional funding for public hospitals. It has maintained health funding this year by providing $2.8 billion from State revenue. That is one of the main factors in health care in New South Wales. The Opposition has been conspicuous by its deathly silence about the nurses' strike.
Mr Harrison: I support the strike.
Mr PHILLIPS: You do?
Mr Harrison: Yes.
Mr PHILLIPS: It seems the Opposition does not know what its policies should be. Some in the Opposition say, "Yes, we do need resources out in western and southwestern Sydney". But the honourable member for Kiama says: "We have to keep Kiama hospital. And do not dare touch anything else or find the money anywhere else". I know the sheer hypocrisy of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and why there has been deathly silence. He knows that if he were the Minister he would close Marrickville hospital and do what the Government has done. The honourable member for Penrith, a new member in this Chamber, sits on the Opposition benches and barks about the lack of funding for Nepean Hospital, and I agree. One must visit the Nepean, Liverpool and Hawkesbury hospitals to observe the unacceptable stresses and strains those hospitals are
Page 2085
under. At the same time the honourable member for Penrith votes for a motion in this House which says: "Give us a moratorium. Do not make these changes. Give us another six months". If I do not have money from the changes I have made in Sydney -
Mrs Lo Po': What about productivity cuts?
Mr PHILLIPS: I will come to those productivity gains in a moment and the honourable member might understand. It will be interesting to see how the honourable member for Penrith will vote on this motion because it states, "That the Government reverse its policies which have led to this action" - that is, the strike. If tomorrow I reverse the policy decisions that I have taken and reopen those hospitals, people will die at Nepean Hospital, at Westmead hospital and in other parts of New South Wales. The Opposition must make up its mind. It cannot have an each way bet.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Penrith to order. If she wishes to make a contribution to the debate, she may do so later.
Mr PHILLIPS: I turn now to the Wentworth Area Health Service. The Labor Party is now saying we should fast track Nepean and Liverpool hospitals. Prior to 1988, when Labor was in power, it did not even have Liverpool or Nepean hospitals as teaching hospitals in its policy statements. This Government designated those hospitals as teaching hospitals. We have the policy statement and honourable members opposite know it. This Government is spending $200 million on Liverpool Hospital. This Government is spending $100 million on Nepean Hospital. What has happened with funding in that area? The Nepean Hospital is in the area covered by the Wentworth Area Health Service - one of the major growth areas of Sydney. Since this Government came to power the funding growth has been 20.7 per cent in real terms above inflation. That is despite cuts from the Federal Government out of Medicare and being in the worst recession in 60 years that this country has been in - apparently the recession we were supposed to have. I am doing my bit for the Labor seats of Penrith, Liverpool and Kogarah. I am prepared to take the responsible decisions up front. Labor does not even have a coherent policy.
On the one hand honourable members opposite are saying: "Do not restructure in Sydney" - even though Sydney has seven beds per 1,000 population and western Sydney has less than two beds per 1,000 population - "Leave it all the same and find money out of the air and spend it all on those hospitals to keep them going". I am about restructuring. I will keep on with the good work because we are talking about equal access to health care services in this State. I shall continue to pursue that system. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition spoke about strikes as if there had never been a nurse's strike. There was in 1987. The Opposition conveniently forgets about the worst health strike in this State. It lasted four years, from 1984 to 1988. The brawl between the government of that day and the doctors meant that surgeons -
[Interruption]
Page 2086
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to order.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Auburn to order.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the Chief Secretary to order.
Mr PHILLIPS: Let us not forget the ophthalmologists.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Bulli to order.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to order for the second time.
Mr PHILLIPS: Honourable members opposite do not have any coherent health policies and wish to have an each way bet on everything. They do not want to solve the health problem or attack the Federal Labor Government's cut in health care funding to all States because of the Medicare shambles. However, in conjunction with the nurses union at the same time they want to perpetuate the big lie, that there are budget cuts. Honourable members opposite want to perpetuate that dollars are not going to where they are needed, and that is a big lie. They say that nurses are losing their jobs. I shall not repeat what I said in the House today at question time, but nurses are not losing their jobs. They are either being redeployed or -
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Bulli to order for the second time.
Mr PHILLIPS: - they have a choice. There are no forced retrenchments. Nurses have a choice of being redeployed or taking voluntary redundancy. A number have chosen voluntary redundancy while others have chosen redeployment. If they do not want voluntary redundancy, they put themselves on the redeployment list and are redeployed.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Kiama to order.
Page 2087
Mr PHILLIPS: The aim of the health system is to provide resources and equal access to health care to all people throughout New South Wales. It is not there only to protect buildings, beds and the people who work in those services. It must be flexible enough to meet the needs of the community. That is the bottom line. That is what I am doing and will continue to do because it is right. Over the past week, on behalf of nurses, Patricia Staunton, Secretary of the Nurses Association has raised this question of consultation. Anyone who knows me knows that my natural style is spending a lot of time in consultation with people trying to obtain as much input for the decision-making process. I met Patricia Staunton on a number of occasions before this industrial dispute was called. Also, on two occasions I met with the Labor Council of New South Wales. A number of times I have spoken to Ms Staunton over the telephone. The nurses union suddenly stopped talking, decided on this industrial dispute and perpetuated these lies. That disappoints me greatly. Ms Staunton talks about consultation. By resolution of the House the health advisory council was set up. The general secretary of the Nurses Association, Patricia Staunton, is a member of that council. However, neither she nor a representative of that association has attended the 11 meetings of that statutory body, the health advisory council, since April 1990 and yet she criticises my lack of consultation.
The Health Advisory Council, a statutory body of this Parliament, met last weekend, but no representative of the Nurses Association attended. Those meetings have reviewed many issues upon which Ms Staunton has been expressing concern. Yet she claims to have engaged in consultation. I say to the Nurses Association, Health and Research Employees Association of Australia, Public Medical Officers Association and everyone involved in health care that I am willing to debate with them the direction of health care in New South Wales. What I am doing is in line with what is being done by the Labor Party federally and what the Macklin report suggested should be done. It accords also with what used to be Labor Party policy in New South Wales, but from which the Labor Party is now backing away. It is in line with what is happening in other States and overseas. It is the only way to come to grips with the problems and try to keep ahead of the field in what has been - and I am determined will continue to be - one of the leading health systems in the world. To all of those involved in health care I say that I am more than happy to consult and spend as much time as possible with all the experts from the Health Department. I will make all of that public, which has been my attitude to date and will continue to be my attitude. If they want to tear that apart and put other points of view to me, I will be pleased to go through that exercise. But I will not do that while the threat of strikes hangs over my head, for they will do nothing but impact negatively on health care for the people of New South Wales.
Already today Ms Staunton has said that if the Government does not listen health care workers will be on strike again. They have not only peddled lies but have been unable to suggest alternatives or why my actions have been wrong. If they want to be out of step with the rest of the world, they should suggest a better policy. I shall conclude because I told the Leader of the House I would not take too long, but it is an important issue. I should be pleased to consult with all the people I have mentioned, but not while the threat of strike hangs over the heads of the people of New South Wales. I am available. If they want to ring me, I will speak to them on the telephone; if they
Page 2088
want to meet me, I shall do that because important issues must be tackled in terms of the welfare and health care of the people of New South Wales. The motion calls on the Government to note the concerns of nurses and health workers, who have taken industrial action today. I am more than happy to note their concerns. I extend my appreciation to all of those - and there are a large number of them - who stayed in the system to give first priority to the health and welfare of the people of New South Wales. I give special thanks to them. I know they are doing a great job. I understand the concerns of nurses and other health workers, but they must work with me to determine the best possible ways of implementing the system. I would like to see them strike against the Federal Government too.
Mr McManus: Would the Minister like to see them strike? Is he in favour of strikes?
Mr PHILLIPS: Obviously I do not believe in strikes, but I say that to be consistent. If the nurses are genuine in their concern for the health care system of New South Wales and this is not a political stunt, they should direct their anger not only at me but at the true source of funding. What do they intend to do about Federal Government funding? I do not encourage them to go on strike, but they should make strong representations to the Federal Government to ensure that it does something about funding for this State. The last part of the motion is in the following terms:
That the Government reverse its policies which have led to this action, including abandoning productivity cuts in growth areas of Sydney's south and west and the State's central and north coasts.
I cannot accept that part of the motion because productivity gains apply to every hospital in New South Wales. Every worker in every industry, public service and private enterprise is being required to find ways to do more and to do it better. Health care is no different. Nepean Hospital, to take an example, must find ways to do more and do it better. The productivity gains of 1.5 per cent that apply to all hospitals in New South Wales mean that $50 million will be available for the benefit of hospitals such as Nepean Hospital and hospitals in other growth areas. How can I tell inner city hospitals to become more efficient and bring about productivity savings and at the same time tell the hospitals that will be the beneficiaries of those savings not to worry about finding ways of becoming more efficient? This is a fair system. Everyone has to find ways of doing more and doing it better so that $50 million can be freed up and spent in growth areas such as the Nepean. I reject the motion outright. I assure the people of New South Wales that as the Minister I shall continue to try to find ways to improve the New South Wales health care system during the worst recession in 60 years and in spite of the reduced funding made available by the Federal Government.
Mr NAGLE (Auburn) [4.33]: Following the tirade of untruths told by the Minister for Health Services Management the ghost of Florence Nightingale will haunt him for the rest of his life. I have only 20 minutes in which to make my contribution, but I shall speak tomorrow night in the budget debate and tell the Minister a few home truths about the budget for the hospital system in this State. I am angry at the callous way in which the Minister has dealt with hospitals. Hospitals have major problems and
Page 2089
are of major concern. At present no one believes anything the Government, the Minister and the Premier have to say. The Minister spoke about hospitals. The major hospital to have its services downgraded and acute care unit closed is St Joseph's Hospital. The Minister mentioned the worst recession in 60 years. I should inform him that St Joseph's Hospital has been around for 105 years. It survived the Great Depression, every recession since the turn of the century, two world wars and the poverty of my electorate, but it cannot survive this Minister or the Greiner Government. When the Minister gives consideration to allocating more resources and money for the western areas he should remember the great service that St Joseph's Hospital has given to the people of Auburn electorate, Granville electorate and Bankstown electorate. The Minister has forgotten all about that, though he spoke about being a great Minister for consultation.
The Minister entered my electorate on three separate occasions secretly, without consulting me, in breach of the protocol of this House by failing to tell the local member that he intended to visit the electorate. The reason he went to the electorate was to close St Joseph's Hospital acute care and operating units. When I spoke to him by telephone he said that perhaps he should have told me about it, but he had just gone to the electorate to do what he had to do. If it had been known that it was likely that the acute care section of St Joseph's Hospital was going to close, perhaps consultation could have occurred so that ways and means might have been found to preserve that great old hospital. Not this Minister; he came in and said that the hospital's acute care and operating units had to go because he did not have sufficient funds to keep them going; he said that beds would have to go to the west. Auburn may be an old area, but it is a growth region. The population of Auburn electorate is 70,000. St Joseph's Hospital provided hospital services in the Bankstown region for 50,000 people and in Granville area for 35,000 people. All of those people will have to go to the Auburn District Hospital. The Minister spoke about capital funding and being able to get assistance and consultation with the area health service. He suggested that if discussions were held with the health service it might assist in understanding why St Joseph's Hospital was closed, Auburn District Hospital survived only through the good graces of the Minister, and Lidcombe Hospital will be closed in future.
When I called the Wentworth Area Health Service and wanted to speak to its officers they avoided talking to me about the matter. When I talked to the senior officers of the hospital they did not want to talk to me about it, but the nursing staff, medical staff and health staff wanted to talk to me about it. What they said to me is diametrically opposed to what the Minister has said. He does not have discussions with anyone. He makes his decisions, based upon what he is told by the Cabinet to do. I tell the Minister that I have in my possession 15,000 signatures on petitions which will be presented to this Parliament over the next week or so which are opposed to the Government's policies on Lidcombe Hospital. For St Joseph's Hospital I have petitions, some of which I have already presented and some which I will present in the next few weeks, containing 37,167 signatures. I have also received 775 letters about the closure of St Joseph's Hospital; 1,459 letters sent to the Premier; 363 letters sent to Mr Hannaford; and 364 letters sent to the Minister for Health. About 12,000 letters were sent to various Independents asking that they oppose the closure of St Joseph's Hospital.
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The retention of that hospital is so important because of enormous demand for acute care services in my electorate and in the surrounding areas.
Last year 25,000 people went through the casualty department of Auburn District Hospital and 35,000 people went through the casualty department of St Joseph's Hospital. The Minister has said, "That may be so, but we are going to give $2 million to Auburn District Hospital so that it can administer 20 beds." I tell the Minister that the word is out that Auburn District Hospital is not getting the $2 million. I want the Minister to answer some questions now or at some time in the future. He says that he is good at answering questions. Does the Minister recall telling the Parliament that the Government was going to put $2 million towards the upgrading of Auburn District Hospital so that it could take over St Joseph's Hospital? Has he now changed his mind about the $2 million and told Auburn District Hospital that it will have to cope with what it has and with having 20 less beds? The situation will be the same at Lidcombe Hospital. Even more important, is it true that the Minister is intending to close down the operating theatre of Mount Druitt Hospital, a hospital out in the west, and to keep it closed? Is it also true that the Minister threatened the chief executive officer of that hospital that if that information leaked out he would be sacked? These are questions the Minister can answer. I am sorry that he addressed the House before me because I want him to answer those questions. The allegation is that he threatened the chief executive officer and the nursing staff at St Joseph's Hospital.
Mr Phillips: I told you in the last debate that that was a lie.
Mr NAGLE: I know that the Minister told me that, but these people keep saying that the Minister is telling a lie. They say that he threatened those people, saying that if they leaked the information that he was going to close St Joseph's Hospital he would sack them. If that is true, when is the Minister going to stop acting like a backyard bully and begin acting like a responsible Minister by consulting with people? The Minister is not sincere in what he says. He does not consult with others. I wrote to the Minister on 2nd September and 3rd September asking him to reply to my correspondence about St Joseph's and Lidcombe hospitals. He has not replied. The Minister does not tell the truth. He is not telling the truth about what is happening. The budget debate will be on tomorrow and we will continue the debate on medical services in the west. The Minister should get his act together. He is destroying hospital services in New South Wales.
Mrs COHEN (Badgerys Creek), Chief Secretary and Minister for Administrative Services [4.43]: In this debate I have heard the greatest amount of hypocritical claptrap that I have heard in a long time. Let us look at health services in western Sydney. The honourable member for Auburn has just talked about the closure of St Joseph's Hospital. Unlike the locality of hospitals in western Sydney, St Joseph's Hospital is only one kilometre from Auburn District Hospital. Close by are also Westmead, Lidcombe, Concord, Bankstown and Auburn hospitals. Consider Sydney Hospital. We are asked today to agree to a motion to ask the Government to reverse its policies and its decisions. Let us look at what that means. I sympathise with and understand the way that nurses and medical staff feel. I have watched this situation for years. Let us look
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at what a reversal of this decision means. If we leave Sydney Hospital as it is, in a seven-kilometre radius from Sydney Hospital, what do we find? We find eight major teaching hospitals, namely, Royal North Shore, Sydney, St Vincent's, Royal Prince Alfred, King George V, the Royal Women's, Prince of Wales and Prince Henry hospitals, not to mention St Vincent's Private Hospital and the Mater Misericordiae Private Hospital. If we take a seven-kilometre radius from Nepean Hospital, what do we find? We find one small private hospital struggling to stay alive because the private medical insurance rate has dropped to about 25 per cent of the population. There is nothing else. Of course we can travel to Westmead if we have a car and petrol in the middle of the night. How far away is that? It is 30 kilometres to 40 kilometres, depending on where one is living. Perhaps one could go to Liverpool. But that is at an equally great distance and a hospital equally under pressure.
We cannot reverse our policy. The reallocation formula may take 10 years, but 10 years is better than nothing. Do members of the Opposition remember a document called Health 2000, which was introduced under health Minister Unsworth? He was followed by health Minister Peter Anderson. In that document, no mention was made of upgrading services to Liverpool Hospital, Nepean Hospital or that area - and that was the health policy which was to take us to the year 2000. Peter Anderson, if I remember correctly - and I do remember correctly - was the Minister for Health and the member for Penrith. At no stage did we hear a word about a teaching hospital - not one word, not ever, at least not before the year 2000. So members of the Opposition should not talk to me about resource reallocation formulas. If we had not started that process, it would never have started. It may take 10 years, and if the Federal Government continues to treat Medicare in the way it has done it may take longer, but at least the process has started. I am asked to believe that nothing has changed in Nepean Hospital. It is one hospital that I know. I have listened to the honourable member for Auburn say that I have not fought for Nepean. He should ask the Minister for Health, the Premier, Tom Hamilton and the board about that. I have fought for Nepean from the day I was elected. In fact, that was one of the reasons why I was elected. We do not have cancer treatment there yet, but we will. The Opposition is asking us to do everything that it did not do in 12 years, and it wants it done in three years. We have not got it in three years, be we will get it.
Next consider health services funding. In 1988-89, there was a budget of $75 million. In 1991-92, it was $106.5 million. That is an increase. Let us look at what has actually happened in Nepean Hospital. If there has been no movement of services, as the Opposition claims, I ask the Opposition to explain how the things that have occurred in that time have happened. In the last year we have had six extra anaesthetists, specialists, a neurosurgeon, two ear, nose and throat specialists, and a radiologist. We have new paediatric services, new psychiatric services and new neonatal intensive care. Where did the money come from? It came from this Government. It came from the upgrading of Nepean Hospital. We have an associate professor of obstetrics and gynaecology for the first time in our history. An amount of $750,000 has been put towards the professorial units of Nepean Hospital - and the Opposition is saying that there has been no movement of funds. We have seen the movement of funds; we have seen extra specialists. It is not enough and it is not quick enough, but at least it
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is a hell of a lot better than a few years ago. We need the reallocation formula. We will not give it up. We in western Sydney will not give it up.
[Interruption]
Madam DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition will cease interjecting.
Mrs COHEN: What do we see if we look at the casualty department of Sydney Hospital? How many patients does it treat in a day? Does the Opposition know? It treats 55 patients. How many patients are admitted to Sydney Hospital? About 4.1 per cent of patients are admitted to Sydney Hospital. How many people are treated in casualty at Mount Druitt Hospital? Does the Opposition know? It treats 140 patients a day, and heaven knows how many patients are admitted. How many patients are treated at Westmead? There are 130 a day. And the Opposition is asking us to support Sydney Hospital as it is. There is no way - not ever - that this will happen. We need those services desperately. Honourable members should look at the profile of health in western Sydney. We see that 60 per cent more women suffer from diabetes than in any other area. For every specialty that we look at, we need more services, we need them sooner - we need them now. The occurrence of every illness is above average. The children are sicker; the women are sicker. What has happened to the mammography services that I have been trying to get for years and years? We have a wonderful national program on mammography screening promised by the Federal Government at the last election. What have we got? I believe $1.2 million of the promised $60 million is the latest figure on what has been spent already. What are women meant to do? It is a Federal screening program that has not arrived.
Madam DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! I call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to order for the third time.
Mrs COHEN: It was promised by the Federal Government and it has not arrived. No government in this country is capable of running it. We are running screening services and more are being provided for western Sydney. We need more of them and we need them soon. I have listened to this for years. I listened when members of the Opposition spoke of the first nurses' strike. I remember very well the resignations from the hospitals in this State in 1984, from which we are yet to recover. Much as I have sympathy with the nurses' position - I do understand it and I do feel very strongly that they feel perhaps uneasy about health as people do generally, particularly in a time of change - they must understand that the needs in western Sydney are not just urgent, they are desperate. If honourable members want to hear what a reliable, apolitical person says, they should listen to Professor Leeder. He says that the nurses are occupying all available positions and he believes they feel threatened because there are not the opportunities available that perhaps the nurses had a few years ago. He said there has been developed a way of allocating funds to keep the system running and it relies on a population base. Professor Leeder acknowledges that funds have to be allocated on a population base. He acknowledges that the Government has been doing this systematically. He is one of our experts in health care and he has said:
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Small hospitals with levels of efficiency that are not sustainable cannot be kept. There is pain, therefore, experienced by those who work in these hospitals.
St Joseph's Hospital at Auburn will find a fine role in caring for the aged in that electorate. I believe the aged population in that electorate will increase by 60 per cent in the next few years. Far from being denigrated to nothing, St Joseph's Hospital will have its role secured for many years to come. Professor Leeder says there is strong evidence of a systematic shift of funds to the west. If one considers Liverpool Hospital, Nepean Hospital and western Sydney generally, one will see that shift of funds. There is no way that western Sydney has acquired the new specialties and services that it has without a dramatic shift in funds. Maybe it is not enough so far as the hospitals are concerned. I do not believe it will ever be enough. I do not believe there will ever be enough money for health, the way technology is developing, but perhaps we could appeal to the Federal Government to give New South Wales a better share per head of population so that things could improve. If the farce that is Medicare could be adjusted to be a fair, reliable system, perhaps western Sydney may get the funds faster than it has been getting them. There is no way that any member of Parliament from western Sydney can support the motion before the House to go back to the years of the Health 2000 program where Liverpool Hospital and Nepean Hospital were never mentioned, never thought of and never programmed into the budget.
Mr McMANUS (Bulli) [4.53]: I support the action of the nurses today, and I include all the health staff who joined them. Let us talk about how serious this Government is about consultation. Today tens of thousands of people stood in Macquarie Street, but where was the Minister? Where was the consultation? Where was the Chief Secretary and Minister for Administrative Services? There was the opportunity for the Government to defend itself, rather than hiding behind the walls of this House. This is the only place that the Minister can try to defend the policies of this failing, absolutely dismal Government so far as health is concerned. Let us be serious about what is happening. Do not blame the Federal Government any more. Do not blame the Labor Government of 12 years ago. Blame yourselves because the Liberal Party-National Party coalition came to office only a couple of years ago on two major issues - law and order, and health. It was going to sort out the system. It was going to ensure that we had police in the streets. It was going to ensure that everyone had a bed in a hospital and that adequate health services would be provided for the people of New South Wales.
What did we see in Macquarie Street only a couple of hours ago? We saw another rendition of protest at Government policy such as we saw in relation to education policy. The people of this State are saying that the Government is not doing what it promised. Do not give us the big lie that the Opposition is purported to be putting about. Let us look at the big lie that the Government started when it came to office. Let us look at the lie pushed on the people of New South Wales. Let us look at who is telling the lies. The coalition came to office - and that in itself was a surprise - through lies and false promises that it cannot uphold. Now it tries to defend itself by blaming the Wran Government of 12 years ago and blaming the Federal Government about an irrelevant issue. It was the Greiner Government that promised to deliver the health services to this State. It is responsible to deliver those health services.
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I support the honourable members who represent the electorates of South Coast, Kiama and Wollongong. What has happened in the Illawarra region is exactly what has happened in the Hunter region. Let me speak about voluntary redundancies. This morning the Minister said that voluntary redundancy would be offered to area health service staff, and this has happened in the Illawarra region and in the Hunter. But voluntary redundancy is a form of intimidation. Nurses in the Illawarra region believe that if they do not consider seriously the voluntary redundancy offers, forced retrenchments will be introduced. Whether that is the intent or not, it is the position in which these people are being placed. They fear for their jobs. Many nurses at Coledale District Hospital and at Bulli District Hospital have worked all their lives at those hospitals. Their husbands are coalminers who have just been retrenched and the nurses are worried about their own survival and the welfare of their families. It is all well and good for the Government to tell those members of Parliament representing electorates in the Illawarra region that voluntary redundancy is fine and that there will be no retrenchments, but it has not convinced the people and it has not consulted with them. It has not convinced a soul about the honesty of the proposals.
Bulli District Hospital is an example of the hypocrisy of the Government. When Mr Collins was Minister for Health there was a promise of just over $4 million for a specially built casualty unit at that hospital. It just so happened that at that time a by-election was called in Coffs Harbour. Two days before the last Budget was brought down, I approached the then Minister for Health and asked him specifically if the $4 million would be provided for the redevelopment of Bulli District Hospital. He said to me in a corner, "No worries, mate. It will be there". Two days later the Budget Papers came out and there was not one mention of the $4 million required for that hospital. It just so happened that two weeks later I was door-knocking for the Coffs Harbour by-election and picked up a local newspaper and, lo and behold, what did I find? All of a sudden this Liberal Minister, who was trying desperately to hold himself and his colleagues in office, decided that Coff's Harbour and District Hospital needed exactly the same facility that was needed at Bulli District Hospital. What did the Government do? Although there was no money for Bulli District Hospital, the Minister found $4 million to build exactly the same facility in an area where a by-election was about to be held, where the Government needed to win the vote, and that is where the $4 million went that was supposed to be allocated to Bulli District Hospital.
The Government has the audacity to tell me that its policies are honest and fair to the people of New South Wales. It is a total disgrace and the people in the street are awake to those moves. This Government is in its death throes. The sooner we have an election, the sooner the Government will be put out of its misery. Then we will be able to get down to the business of providing health services. Wollongong Hospital has a hole in the ground that was promised to be filled by this Government when it first came to office. Obviously that hole in the ground is not going to be filled during the foreseeable future of this Government. My colleague the honourable member for Kiama and other members have been devastated by the caper at Kiama hospital. We are not sure, and neither are the nurses at Coledale District Hospital, about what is happening in regard to the sale of that hospital.
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This Government has created a monster which is turning on it. It has put itself in a position where it will lose government because it has not seriously thought about delivering health services where they are needed. The Government has brought this on itself. Only a few years ago Bulli hospital was given a 12-month accreditation by the Australian Council of Health and Care Services. If it had received the resources that were promised, it could have had a three-year accreditation. Accreditation was brought in as a panacea by this Government. This Government did not allow dedicated staff at the Bulli hospital to continue their jobs and provide the services needed in my electorate. Let us talk not only about government funding, let us talk also about the small people who raise funds for Bulli hospital. In the past few years the Corrimal branch of the ladies auxiliary of the Bulli hospital raised $24,000 and $19,000 - much needed funds. This Government has demoralised not just the staff and the nurses at Bulli hospital; it has demoralised all the people of New South Wales. I have a petition with 16,000 names on it which is seeking to protect health services in the Illawarra region. The Government should give serious consideration to reversing its policy.
Mr PRICE (Waratah) [5.1]: It has been interesting to listen to the debate this afternoon and to the impassioned pleas of two Government Ministers. They have told us just how good their present policies are and how equitable the distribution of health services will become over the next 10 years as a result of these policies. Today nurses expressed their concern on a statewide basis. Two months ago the nurses in my electorate, particularly at Wallsend hospital, expressed their concern in fairly plain terms. Where are they now? Their hospital is closed; work has been distributed throughout the State; services are being undertaken by two other major centres within the region and a number of nurses do not know whether they will have a job after Christmas, even after redeployment. There is no guarantee that redeployed staff will have continuity of employment. Perhaps the Government does not think that nurses are so special and that they deserve continuity of employment. I happen to think that they do. Of all the professions in this State the nursing service would be one of the most dedicated. Time and again, through many trials and difficulties, they have always turned up for duty. Today was a manifestation of their concern and the difficulties they face. We are witnessing a travesty of health services in New South Wales. Because of proposed budget cutbacks it cannot possibly be said that the cause of the nurses and the health workers in this State will be advanced. That just will not happen.
I live in the lower Hunter, which is where my electorate is. I have already said that the Wallsend hospital has been closed. The John Hunter Hospital, a new teaching hospital, is the mecca of all hospitals in that part of the world. The university that runs the teaching section of that health institution estimated that the budget requirement for that hospital would be $106 million this year. The revised budget has provided $89 million for that hospital. After the closure of the Wallsend hospital the John Hunter Hospital had to absorb several services. It had to open additional beds. Services at the John Hunter complex and the Rankin Park complex, which is adjacent to it, have been reduced. We hear complaints daily throughout the electorate about incomplete services and problems associated with casualty services. The John Hunter Hospital, a 500-bed hospital, compares favourably with Westmead hospital, but only one permanent medical officer works in the casualty area. Some people are forced to wait up to five hours for
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service. Injuries could involve anything from a cut finger to a compound fracture of the arm or leg. There have been a number of such cases. It is not that staff at the hospital do not try; they just cannot offer services without adequate personnel. The personnel restriction at that hospital has caused great damage in the region. Most people in the region will attend the John Hunter Hospital at some time during their lifetime. That high-tech hospital is less than a year old. When it was opened in February it was a brass band job. Everyone thought it would be wonderful and that it would solve all the problems. It did initially; there is no doubt about that.
The earthquake that occurred in Newcastle in December 1989 badly damaged all our major hospitals. It damaged the John Hunter Hospital, which was not quite ready for service. Builders worked overtime and got in additional staff. They completed the job and made sure that the hospital opened early. The problem of the reduction in the number of beds, which resulted from earthquake damage to other hospitals in the region, was overcome cheaply and quickly. Patients were able to be put into the John Hunter Hospital and sections of three major hospitals were abandoned - the Royal Newcastle Hospital, the Wallsend hospital and the Mater hospital. There was no need for the Government to pay; the new hospital was opened ahead of time. There was no budget allocation for that hospital to open ahead of time. Federal funding for improved technology was made available and was passed over to that hospital but no special allocation was made for the teaching capacity at the John Hunter Hospital. That is a tragedy. This is reflected in all facets of health provision in the region. The Kurri Kurri hospital, another hospital in my electorate which is relatively small, serves a population of about 10,000 people. Its budget has been cut back by one-eighth. We have been told that this will not affect service delivery. How could that not affect service delivery? People who retire are not being replaced - I think the term used is natural attrition - and other people are being encouraged to take voluntary retrenchment and are not being replaced. How could we not have a reduction in service?
The Minister has talked about an overall reduction of only nine beds but he has not said that this high-tech John Hunter Hospital is momentarily being converted to a large district referral hospital. If patients over the age of 70 go into that hospital - and there are many patients in the region who are over that age - they will not be transferred to the Wallsend hospital to recuperate for four or five days after their operation; they will remain at the John Hunter Hospital, a hospital designed for no more than two days' stay. Where will they put these people? Four weeks ago four patients, one of whom was an elderly gentleman, were placed in beds in the maternity section. I am not sure how they felt about this placement and I do not know how the mums in that ward felt. Those are the sorts of problems current budgetary restrictions are causing in the region. They will not go away quickly. The Minister said that we will retain all services. We may retain elements of all services but that is not what urologists are saying. They have been kicked out of Wallsend hospital. They have to relocate and establish themselves at the Royal Newcastle Hospital and there is a threat that they will be moved to the Mater hospital at Waratah. Their patients are not too thrilled about that prospect. It could take the urologists up to two years to re-establish. There is certainly no joy in urology.
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What has happened to the open heart surgery proposal that was heralded? This proposal has been on the agenda for about eight weeks. Provision was made for an open heart surgery section at the John Hunter Hospital. Honourable members would know that the John Hunter Hospital has two operating theatres and a dedicated ward. Training courses for nurses have already been undertaken. Open heart surgery was supposed to start this month. Where is the open heart surgery? All has gone quiet. That promised service will not be provided. Headlines on the front pages of newspapers yesterday stated that the highest incidence of heart disease was to be found in the Hunter region. What sort of a prospect is it for people living within the boundaries of the Hunter Area Health Board - an area with a high incidence of heart disease - if the Government, because of a change of policy, denies this opportunity for localised heart surgery?
They are still saying that they will provide the services and, yes, the signs are on the doors, but how many people can be treated within those specialities? I say that only very few people could be treated, and that is affecting the lifestyle of the entire valley. Bear in mind that that hospital was designed specifically, its staff was trained specifically, and the university commenced a training course for nurses 12 months ago specifically to ensure that a strong, viable, highly skilled staff would be available not only for the entire Hunter region but also for the area from the Central Coast to the Queensland border. This was to be a high-tech referral hospital, but it is now nothing more than a district referral hospital that is teetering on the brink. The staff are hanging on, working voluntary overtime. A canteen is not available to provide food for the staff. Quite often patients complain that they are asked to spread butter on their bread with paddle pop sticks because the plastic knives and forks are not available. That is the sort of service this Government, through its budgetary system, is providing in the most modern high-tech hospital in the Southern Hemisphere. That is a disgrace and the Government should be ashamed. No matter how it tries to defend its position, it has failed.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member has exhausted his time for speaking.
Mr HARRISON (Kiama) [5.11]: I say at the outset, because the matter was raised by the Minister for Health Services Management, that I support the nurses' strike today. I do so without any reservations whatsoever. I was shocked to hear the Minister say that he would support a strike directed against the Federal Government, but would not support a strike against the New South Wales Government, which is responsible for the cuts we are debating. I am quite even-handed about this: I support any strike action that would serve to improve the quality of health care in this State, particularly in the Illawarra region, which I represent. The Minister's remarks about consultation were sheer rhetoric. There is no consultation and has been none. Prior to Christmas last year it was announced that the helicopter rescue service in the Illawarra would close on 1st January this year. Without any consultation at all, on 1st January that service was lost. I heard rumours of the pending closure of the maternity ward, the operating theatre and a number of other beds at Kiama hospital. At that time the chairman of the area health service said that there was absolutely nothing on the drawing board to that effect.
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It did not take very long to get on the drawing board: three weeks later that announcement was made.
Recently I attended a meeting of the Illawarra Area Health Service and heard debate about the future of Kiama hospital. Much is said about consultation, but as a result of my attending that meeting a preposterous letter was written at the direction of the chairman of the Illawarra Area Health Service complaining about my conduct. It alleged that I had intimidated people, pushed my way into the meeting, and so on. The fact is that, as the elected member representing that area, I merely walked into the meeting and listened to the debate. The area health service passed a unanimous resolution that I be allowed to remain. The chairman did not like that and directed his executive officer - an overpaid bureaucrat - to write a preposterous letter requesting the Minister to tell me where to get off. The Minister has not written to me, and I advise him not to bother; it would be a waste of a stamp and stationery. If I become aware that Kiama hospital is to be affected I will attend any meeting of the area health service. If I am breaking the law, the chairman can take whatever action he believes necessary to have me removed. I will not be treated with contempt by overpaid bureaucrats who are discussing my hospital, and then have this Minister shove down my neck that he believes in consultation. He does not believe in consultation and he does not practise consultation.
Some time ago Shellharbour council received a request from a Mr Moran - a globetrotting entrepreneur who makes a handsome income by profiting from people's sickness - to build a small extension to a private hospital at Shellharbour. Because of its concern about the closure of hospital beds in the area, the council sought legal opinion on whether it could refuse the development application. Then, out of the blue, the Minister for Health at that time, the Hon. Peter Collins, launched a stinging attack on me, saying that hospital beds were badly needed in that area; yet here was this terrible Labor council obstructing a development for additional private beds. If additional beds were needed in the area, why has a 63-bed public hospital at Kiama been reduced to 13 public beds? At that hospital 50 beds have been closed, the operating theatre has been closed, and the maternity ward also has been closed. The hospital is teetering on the brink of total closure. I suggest that the only reason the hospital has not been closed totally is that the Government does not own the site or the improvements and buildings on the site. Investigations that I have made through Lawpoint seem to support that. Had that ownership aspect not been revealed, I believe that the hospital might have been closed totally and sold. It is a valuable piece of real estate, but I say it belongs to the people of Kiama.
The honourable member for South Coast, other members from the Illawarra region and I have campaigned for a larger slice of the health cake, but not at the expense of other health regions. The other day I was shocked to hear the honourable member for Bega reported on the local radio station as saying that Kiama hospital should have been closed totally to provide funds for a few small hospitals in his electorate. If I were a selfish person I would adopt the same attitude and say that the hospitals in his electorate should be closed and the money spent on Kiama hospital. I do not operate that way and that has not been the attitude of any of the members, including the
Page 2099
honourable member for South Coast, who represent Illawarra. To the credit of the honourable member for South Coast he has joined forces with members from Illawarra to say that there should be no more cuts, that Illawarra has been cut to the bone already, and that we will not tolerate any further cuts. At present at the Shellharbour hospital 16 beds have been closed surreptitiously, comprising four maternity beds, four medical beds and eight others. That information has been conveyed to me by people who are frightened to speak in case they lose their jobs. For that reason I have to rely on anonymous phone calls and information from people who will not give their names. However, I have checked these facts and found them to be consistent.
In the Illawarra there has been a series of bed closures. I notice the Minister is counting on his fingers. I can see only five fingers and perhaps that is as far as he can count, but at present 50 beds have been closed at Kiama hospital. It now has only 13 beds, each funded by the area health service to the extent of $285 a day. The Minister speaks about the closure of beds in the name of greater efficiency, and closure in certain areas in order that growth areas may receive additional resources. I suggest to the House that at present the Illawarra is expanding. In the Shellharbour municipality the population expansion rate is one of the highest in the State, as is the rate within the City of Shoalhaven. Though the population of Kiama is not large, the population expansion there is more than likely higher per capita than those two areas, and more than likely as high as in any other part of New South Wales.
The area health service has advised that the introduction of tertiary services, such as the cancer care unit and so on, have not attracted additional funding. When a new service is introduced cuts are taken from somewhere else in the region. Money has been raised to accommodate the cancer care unit in Wollongong Hospital by public subscriptions, telethons, cake stalls and other undertakings by the community. However, no additional funding is provided for the new cancer care unit's ongoing operation. That will only be achieved by cutting back elsewhere on traditional services that people have come to expect. The motive behind this surfaced during Mr Collins' attacks on me when he was Health Minister because I had the temerity to suggest that private health beds were not the way to go. A decent public health system in this State was needed. The motive is spelt out in this document entitled "Health Corporatisation: Private Profit Opportunities in New South Wales Hospital System". Seminars are held by fat cat consultants. People like Mr Moran can travel around the world profiting from other people's sickness. That is what it is about: governments opting out of what governments should do, which is providing an adequate level of health services for everyone, and handing it over to the entrepreneurs so they can earn a big quid out of it. That is totally evil and means that people who are being retrenched -
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member has exhausted his time for speaking.
Dr REFSHAUGE (Marrickville), Deputy Leader of the Opposition [5.21], in reply: I thank all honourable members who have contributed to the debate. The Minister still does not appear to be hearing the message. I hope he will take the opportunity to read in Hansard over the next few days the contributions by honourable
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members. The honourable member for South Coast made salient points about the need for restructuring to ensure people receive better resources in the areas definitely underresourced. As I have said time and again, the Opposition supports that. The Minister now tries to blame everyone else for the resource allocation formula, based on a 2 per cent increase in health funding every year, that was promised and agreed to by Treasury. If properly implemented, the formula would have led to an appropriate redistribution of resources. Minor changes to the formula would end much of the dumping that goes on at the moment.
My colleagues from the Illawarra, the honourable member for Kiama and the honourable member for Bulli, have given clear indications of problems facing health services in their electorates as a direct result of the productivity cuts. A number of honourable members wished to make contributions. However, because of general agreement not to hold up business of the House too long, those honourable members have not spoken, although they did interject that productivity cuts in hospitals already overstretched make it impossible for nurses, doctors and others to do their jobs. The Minister still remains silent. Despite seeking and obtaining an extension of time to complete his contribution to the debate, he still did not talk about productivity cuts. Those productivity cuts affect hospitals such as Nepean, Hawkesbury, Liverpool and Campbelltown. Those cuts mean that Mount Druitt Hospital cannot open its operating theatre and that much needed beds are not opened.
I am sure the honourable member for Coffs Harbour has been informed by his hospital staff about the effect of those productivity cuts. The honourable member for Murrumbidgee says his hospital workers did not tell him a damn thing. I am sure in the next couple of days they will be pleased to read about that in the local newspapers. Major changes and dramatic improvement to health services in New South Wales can be achieved if they are carried out in the right manner. Unfortunately, the Minister has fallen rapidly into the "Yes Minister" syndrome. He is not receiving advice from anywhere except his departmental officers, who obviously have an agenda. This Minister has gone all the way with his departmental officers. In fact he is now getting his departmental officers to try to sell the Government's message and policy. This is potentially of great concern.
I have no doubt today the House would vote on this motion if the forms of the House allowed it to express an opinion on the substance of the motion. Unfortunately this motion is framed as an adjournment debate - "That this House do now adjourn". Honourable members on this side of the House do not want to delay the important business of the House or to stop the first estimates committee from sitting tonight. Despite our anger at the way in which the Minister is ripping apart our health system and causing major chaos, no Opposition member wishes to hold up the House and therefore we will not be seeking a division on this motion. If changes were made to the standing orders allowing us to bring in -
Mr Phillips: The Deputy Leader of the Opposition could have suspended standing orders if he had courage.
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Dr REFSHAUGE: The Minister seeks to give the Opposition advice on procedure. Before he next requests an extension of time, he should get advice from his leader lest his leader should object. The Opposition will not be calling for a division, because it does not believe that the House should adjourn. The forms of the House unfortunately prevent testing the strength of feeling of members on this particular motion. I do not wish to speak for the Independent members but earlier discussions with them and their support for the rally today would indicate they would agree with the substance of the motion we have been debating. I make one final plea that the Minister start using his ears and using his brain to listen to the people in the health care system. I am prepared to accept the assessment of the honourable member for South Coast that the Minister actually believes he is doing the right thing. However, I suggest he reconsider his actions, because the havoc in the health care system is not just short-term; it will cause dramatic loss of confidence by health workers in the way the health care system is managed. When Labor is returned to power it will not want first to have to rebuild morale in the health care system. Nurses are working hard for the patients of New South Wales, often under incredibly difficult conditions. The Minister first should say to those nurses, "We believe in the work that you are doing and we will lift those productivity cuts, particularly in the growth areas". If the Minister does that he will restore credibility and stop devastation of morale. If he does not, the Minister will lose the confidence of his own staff and of people working in the health care system, and will destroy the high quality services that New South Wales has built up over generations. I commend the substance of the motion to the House.
Motion negatived.
PRIVATE MEMBERS' STATEMENTS
______
MEDLEY COMMUNITY CENTRE
Mr NEWMAN (Cabramatta) [5.30]: I wish to make a statement to the House about the Medley Community Centre situated at Mount Pritchard in the Cabramatta electorate. The centre provides accommodation for young people ranging in age from 12 years to 18 years. Yesterday representations were made to me by two social welfare workers about the future operation of the centre. The Medley Community Centre has been functioning in the Cabramatta area for about 13 years. It has catered for more than 61 children in the past 15 months. The centre provides a 24-hour service for young people in accommodation crisis. Its catchment area extends to Liverpool, Cabramatta, Fairfield, Bankstown and Campbelltown. The centre has a safe house concept that allows for the teaching of skills ranging from employment to schooling, living and options for future accommodation after having been customised to provide young people with living space to allow them to determine where they will go in the future. The Medley centre has a staff of three full-time workers and one worker on a time-share arrangement. The social workers must perform their duties on a 24-hour basis. That requires one person to sleep on the premises overnight. Earlier this year I made
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representations for an increase in the centre's budget to make allowance for that additional worker.
The centre has been operating well. However, recently a new award came into operation arising from an interim award, the Social and Community Services Employees (State) Award. The award provides for justified increased wages, superannuation, overtime and penalty rates. In its definitions the award refers to a community development worker, a co-ordinator and establishments such as multipurpose neighbourhood centres, residential child care services providing social support, and developmental disability centres. The award includes a wage structure, penalty rates for overtime and superannuation allowances, as well as rostered hours and other matters. The award was a long time in coming and was justified and necessary for those engaged in the industry - a dedicated group of people. The position confronting the Medley Community Centre is similar to that faced by similar centres in New South Wales. All of a sudden the Medley centre will have a shortfall of $42,000, mainly as the result of retrospective wages, new conditions and penalty rates. That has led to a crisis at this particular centre that will be reflected in most other centres when they review their budgets.
I draw this matter to the attention of the Minister for Health and Community Services in the other place. Next week a meeting of the staff of the centre will have to be held and it may be necessary to sell the centre's transport van. Funds will have to be reallocated from other parts of the budget. If it becomes necessary to terminate the services of a staff member, the centre will have to close. A number of other centres are located close by, including Stepping Stone at Campbelltown, Liverpool youth refuge, Parramatta House and Fairfield refuge centre and may suffer the same difficulty. I understand that in the 1990-91 health budget of $64.3 million allocated for supported accommodation actual expenditure was only $60.4 million, leaving $3.9 million surplus. In the light of the new award, which was important for workers in the industry, I ask the Minister to consider making an additional allocation of funds for this centre and others that are in the same predicament.
Mr PHILLIPS (Miranda), Minister for Health Services Management [5.35]: I thank the honourable member for Cabramatta for his representations on behalf of the staff of the Medley Community Centre, which obviously performs an important role in delivering services to the community. This is one of those cases where good decisions end up with negative consequences. That seems to have happened with the new Social and Community Services Employees (State) Award which has delivered benefits but has left that centre in particular with funding problems. I shall be pleased to take the concerns of the honourable member for Cabramatta to the Minister for Health and Community Services in the other place and seek a response.
OYSTER BAY CARPORT DEVELOPMENT
Mr DOWNY (Sutherland) [5.38]: I raise a matter of concern to me and two of my constituents, Mr and Mrs Miller of Oyster Bay. It involves what I regard to be a campaign of victimisation by certain councillors of Sutherland Shire Council in regard
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to an application put to the council earlier this year for the construction of a carport. The matter has been proceeding for some months. It started in December last year when the Millers, after eleven months of negotiations with the Department of Lands, finally secured a lease for the construction of a double carport on what was basically unusable Crown land and part of their own land. The Millers lodged a development application with the council. The council, having inspected the Crown land, had agreed that a carport could be built on the site. As a result the application was put to the council. Without going into detail, the application was supported by most neighbours in the vicinity of the Millers' residence, though some neighbours objected to the carport on two grounds. The first was that it was to be built partly on public ground - an area of only 18 square metres - and second, that the carport would obstruct their views of the Georges River. Some councillors also raised objections, but following much debate and despite a recommendation for approval, the councillors who were opposed to the carport called for three further reports. That was done despite the fact that the staff of the council approved the carport and there had been considerable debate and numerous committee meetings.
Finally, a decision was made and the carport was approved by the previous council before the recent council election. On 25th September Mr Miller went to the council to pick up what he thought would be the approved plans. There he was told that he could not have the plans because a rescission motion had been put in by three councillors. One was a continuing councillor, but the other two had been elected at the council election. Both of these councillors, councillor Rankin and councillor Simson, had no idea what this issue was about. In fact, councillor Rankin had not any of the reports of the council's environmental services department. She did not know where the house was or where the carport was to be built, she did not know the position of the carport and she was not in the council gallery when the matter had been discussed at the previous meeting, but she was advised by a councillor who had been part of the previous discussions. On that basis, I am told that she put in a rescission motion which was supported by members of the council. Last night this rescission motion was carried by the council and the Millers have now been asked to put in a new application for a hard stand area only.
I regard it as an absolute outrage that a democratic approval by the previous council could be changed by a rescission motion. This couple have poured $2,000 into the application without even having turned a sod of dirt towards building the carport, and they are now being told by the new council that they cannot have a carport on their site. I believe that in any review of the Local Government Act it is imperative that the Minister for Local Government should have a good look at the way in which rescission motions are abused by elected representatives on the council. What has happened in this case has been an absolute disgrace. I believe that those councillors who put in the rescission motion stand to be condemned for not giving the Millers a fair go. I finish by quoting from a letter that was written to the newspaper by Mr Miller. He said:
God help us if they can't even stay within the democratic system, which is the basis of our society and government.
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These councillors have never been on the council before, but they have taken it upon themselves to discount the democratic system to which they have just been elected. That is exactly what has happened in this case. What has taken place is absolutely disgraceful.
Madam DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member has exhausted his time for speaking.
Mr PHILLIPS (Miranda), Minister for Health Services Management [5.43]: I have to commend my colleague the honourable member for Sutherland for once again going in to bat for a constituent. The member for Sutherland has an excellent and very credible career in local government, from which he retired recently. During that time, he was a continuous fighter against the sheer idiocy of the delaying bureaucracy and non-decision making councils in many areas of Sydney. Unfortunately, the Sutherland shire council has been the same in that it has refused to make a decision. The community lost a great defender of its rights when Chris Downy retired from council at the recent elections. However, he obviously cannot stand back and continue to see the people of the Sutherland shire who have put forward legitimate cases and recommendations to council and who have gone through all of the processes be suddenly confronted by small-minded people, such as councillor Rankin, who believe that they should review everything that every person does, even down to the colour of the paint, and dictate to them what their lives should be about.
One of the reasons that I support the local Liberal council team's recommendation to the Minister for Local Government for a change to the method of election in the Sutherland shire is to take it away from being a hung council and to make those people more accountable to their local constituency and so that somebody will win. The methodology that has been implemented has resulted in winner takes all. On this occasion, the winners who take all are the Labor councillors. The people of the Sutherland shire now know who is in control of the council. Those councillors have a responsibility to deliver the goods over the next four years; they will be the ones to be judged. If they keep going on the way that previous councillors have in the Sutherland shire - mucking people around with their petty bureaucracy rather than making decisions for the welfare of the community - they will suffer the opprobrium of the community. It is time for the councillors of the Sutherland shire council to get on with the job of coming to grips with the many council problems of Sutherland shire. I want to congratulate the honourable member for Sutherland for the contribution he has made in the past to that council and for standing up for the rights of ratepayers.
Madam DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member has exhausted his time for speaking.
WESTERN SYDNEY HEALTH SERVICES
Mr GIBSON (Londonderry) [5.46]: I want to give the other side of the arguments to the Government's claim that health facilities and funding are being transferred from the inner city out to western Sydney. There are four hospitals in my
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electorate: Mount Druitt Hospital, which is the only one not covered by the Wentworth Area Health Board; and the Nepean Hospital, the Hawkesbury Hospital and the Blue Mountains Hospital, which are covered by that board. I mention this in the first part of my address tonight so that the Government cannot say that the person about whom I am going to speak is in a predicament because there are no facilities there. Mount Druitt Hospital has always had an 80:20 ratio of permanent nurses and enrolled nurses. Now it is being told that, because of cutbacks, that ratio will change to 60:40. It has also been told that one nurse has to be cut from each shift. If the nurses do not make that judgment, the hospital will make it for them. The funding for the Nepean Hospital has been cut. I will come back to that in a moment.
The Hawkesbury example is the best example. Every year since this Government has been in office it has promised $70 million to build a hospital at Hawkesbury. Today we see the old hospital and in the present budget we see a promise to get private money to build the hospital, which means that it will be put on the backburner for at least another two years. The Blue Mountains Hospital site was first on the capital works program. The funding situation there is so dire that support for the asthma support group has had to be cut. That is an absolute disgrace to this Government. Over 42 per cent of the population in the area serviced by the Wentworth Area Health Board has to go outside that area for bread and butter health, and that is not good enough. The chairman of that board is not of my political persuasion, but last week he said this:
Forty two per cent of the Wentworth Area Health population are going outside the area for bread and butter treatment.
He went on to say:
Three years ago when Minister Collins came to power it was promised that we would get some of the money and that money was to come from restructuring health resources. Once again we still haven't, after three years, seen any of that money.
Even in the present budget it was supposed to get $4.5 million but it only got $2 million. Productivity savings, which they were told that they did not have to make, came to $1.5 million. Western Sydney is not getting services. Tonight I speak about a man named Ray Tomlyn from Lethbridge Park. He was an owner-driver of a truck. Four months ago he was unfortunate enough to have hurt his hip. He went to a specialist and was told that he needed a hip replacement. This man waited for four months. The hospital told him as late as last week that he would have to wait between 12 and 18 months for that operation. This man is being crippled. A ramification of the present level of health system in this State is that this person's chance to earn a living is being affected. This fellow has had to sell his truck because he cannot manage the repayments. His capacity to earn a living and to look after his family has been ruined because of decisions by members on the other side of the House.
Western Sydney has not been given proper medical facilities. Mr Tomlyn is quite free to go to a private hospital and to have the operation done, but he needs $11,000. Not many people living in western Sydney today could put their hands on
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$11,000, unlike the squatters sitting on the other side of the House. People in western Sydney do not have the money for that kind of operation. This Government, in its turmoil, has turned the health system in this State into a two-tiered system. On the first tier, if one has a quid in one's pocket, one can have an operation tomorrow. Kerry Packer could have a heart bypass operation tomorrow. On the second tier, if one is unfortunate enough not to have the money, one is placed on the waiting list and must wait 18 months for a hip transplant. Members of the Government cannot tell me that this happened when Labor was in Government; it did not. As I say, the ramifications of the health system in New South Wales are crippling people, not so much from a health point of view but from the point of view of their ability to earn a living. That is something that the Government must look at immediately.
Mr PHILLIPS (Miranda), Minister for Health Services Management [5.51]: I would like to think that the honourable member for Londonderry was genuinely trying to champion a particular problem of one of his constituents. The normal protocol of this House during private members' statements is to advise the Minister's office -
Mr Gibson: I did; I advised your office.
Mr PHILLIPS: I am sorry, it is just luck that I am in the Chamber.
Mr Gibson: I rang your office this afternoon.
Madam DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member for Londonderry has made his comments and he will listen to the reply in silence.
Mr PHILLIPS: The second point is that if the honourable member has a particular problem with a constituent who is having difficulty getting into hospital, a range of procedures can be gone through to find out why there are overdue delays for that particular patient. Very often it is the case that the patient has gone to a particular surgeon who has an enormous waiting list. The fact is that when the Labor Party was in office it had the orthopaedic surgeons who perform these operations out of the system for four years. That is how well it ran the system.
Mr Gibson: They never waited 18 months.
Madam DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Londonderry to order.
Mr PHILLIPS: The honourable member is showing his total ignorance. The fact is that in the last 12 months the average waiting time for surgery in New South Wales hospitals has been reduced by one week to three weeks.
Mr Gibson: You are kidding.
Madam DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Londonderry to order for the second time.
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Mr Gibson: He believes in the Easter bunny if that is the case.
Madam DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Londonderry to order for the third time and remind him that if he wants to stay in the Parliament for the rest of the day, he will cease interjecting.
Mr PHILLIPS: If the honourable member genuinely wants to help his constituents, he will give those details to my office, or to the Department of Health or to the complaints unit and will find out why his constituent has to wait and whether it is possible for that person to be attended to. That is the normal procedure to go through rather than drag the man's name through this Parliament. Let us get the facts right about funding in the honourable member's electorate. He is keen to get funding for Hawkesbury Hospital. We will build it; I have announced it will be built. The former Labor Government could not even promise that it would be built. For the honourable member for Londonderry to posture about hospitals is a nonsense. The fact is that under this Government the Wentworth Area Health Service has had a 20.7 increase in funding in real terms over and above inflation, while the honourable member's Labor colleagues in Canberra -
[Interruption]
Mr PHILLIPS: Exactly right - we need beds, yet the honourable member supported the motion today and the motion about the moratorium relating to Sydney Hospital and stopping restructuring, which I am undertaking in order to allocate funds to hospitals in the honourable member's region. I say to the honourable member: you are a hypocrite; you are inconsistent; you have no consistent policy; you have to make up your mind what you want and how you will cope with changes in the health system.
Madam DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! The Minister's time for speaking has expired.
COFFS HARBOUR NAVAL CADET UNIT
Mr FRASER (Coffs Harbour) [5.54]: I should like to bring to the attention of the House a problem in Coffs Harbour relating to the local naval cadet unit, T.S. Vendetta. In bringing this concern to the House I should like to compliment Lieutenant Frank King and his volunteers who have trained more than 600 of the Coffs Harbour youth in naval procedure and seamanship. They have provided an excellent service to the community in keeping these children off the streets. In 1971 the cadet unit was formed and received its first lease from the Public Works Department in 1975. The unit has been told by the council that the council cannot approve a development application because the Public Works Department is considering setting up a management committee to look at the foreshores of Coffs Harbour - and the cadet unit is located on the foreshores of Coffs Harbour, as it must be because it has much to do with seamanship.
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The cadet unit has been successful in its work and in 1991 it won two prestigious awards for seamanship. The first is the Peter Ballesty Seamanship Award, which is awarded to the most outstanding unit in seamanship in the Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales. It won also the most efficient naval cadet unit award for the whole of the 15 units in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. The unit is being considered for the trophy for the best unit in the Commonwealth. That speaks for itself because in the Commonwealth there are 67 units. This goes to show the amount of work the volunteers perform, in particular Lieutenant King, and the great amount of community support they receive. They wish to extend their unit with a three metre by three metre L-shaped extension valued at $69,000. They will be able to fund this with about $12,000 in cash, and in excess of $50,000 in goods and labour is being donated by the community as a show of support for the great job being done by Lieutenant King and his volunteers.
I have been and am still involved with Apex and I know that when the unit was initially constructed in about 1979 to 1981 the service clubs donated all the material and labour required for that project. I must note that the Public Works Department has been very supportive of the naval unit by providing it with a fairly generous rental and assisting with works around the unit. I ask that the Deputy Premier, Minister for Public Works and Minister for Roads put to rest the rumour that it is the Public Works Department that is stopping the development application. The department has provided tremendous support for the unit. It is worth noting that in the past year nine of the cadets trained at the Coffs Harbour unit have entered naval service. Since 1986, 45 cadets from this unit have entered naval service. That record speaks for itself and shows the amount of support these people get from the community.
I know that the Naval Association, the Vietnam Veterans Association, the two ex-services clubs in my electorate, as well as Apex, Rotary and the Lions Club are fully supportive of the great job that the unit is doing in instructing these children in seamanship and in community responsibility. I go so far as to suggest that the young men and women who will be our community leaders come from cadet units such as this. This year 52 cadets are attending the unit. I believe the development application should be approved so that they will have a greater storage area and be able to use the unit in wet weather. The unit is being used to store all the boats and equipment and the unit space cannot be used unless that equipment is removed. I ask the Minister to ensure that the Public Works Department continues to support the unit by extending the lease so that the cadets can continue to provide a great service to the community.
Mr W. T. J. MURRAY (Barwon), Deputy Premier, Minister for Public Works and Minister for Roads [5.59]: I thank the honourable member for Coffs Harbour for raising this matter in the House. The sea cadets under the leadership of Lieutenant Frank King have done an excellent job for many years. The honourable member made it quite clear that the cadets are a great source of recruitment for the naval defence forces. The training provided at Coffs Harbour allows the cadets to fit in to naval operations. I am able to advise the honourable member for Coffs Harbour that the future of the Coffs Harbour sea cadets and their tenancy of the premises is guaranteed by the Government. There is not and never has been any suggestion that they would be required to quit the site. Their tenancy of the site has been excellent. Their care of the
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site and the job they do has received a great deal of support from the community. I am pleased to be able to advise the honourable member that the Public Works Department, having reviewed the matter in the light of future plans concerning the area, will give full support to the development application of the sea cadets to extend their premises. Coffs Harbour city council will have to decide whether or not that development application is approved. However, we will do anything we can do to assist the sea cadets in their application to the Coffs Harbour city council.
MOTOR VEHICLE INSURANCE
Mr DAVOREN (Lakemba) [6.1]: I draw the attention of members of the House to a problem which I have recently become acquainted with - comprehensive motor vehicle insurance. I was amazed to discover that major insurers charge a higher premium when a motor vehicle is under hire purchase or is bought by obtaining a personal loan from a bank or credit union. This is not the case with motor vehicles that are leased or fully owned. This matter affects people whom we in the Labor Party represent. The majority of people we represent cannot afford to lease motor vehicles or buy them for cash. I wish to refer to figures put out by the GIO for comprehensive motor vehicle insurance. The premium for a 1990 Holden Calais V6 sedan under hire purchase is $2,497. If a vehicle is leased or fully owned the premium is a little over $1,900, which is a difference of about $550, or $10 a week. I questioned the major insurers - the FAI, the AAMI, the NRMA and the GIO - and they all said exactly the same thing - a higher premium was charged. I asked, "What is the rationale for that?" I must confess that I had to explain to one of the people from whom I inquired what rationale meant. The rationale behind it was quite nebulous; it was different in many cases. One reason given was that it involved a higher administrative charge. The name of the hire purchase company or the name of the company from whom the finance was obtained had to be noted on the policy in addition to the name of the owner. I do not think that is worth $550. Another reason given was that, in their experience, the drivers of motor vehicles that were under hire purchase were not as careful; they did not look after the motor vehicles as well and were involved in more accidents. I would like to see statistics which would reinforce that argument.
I was told by a panelbeater friend of mine - he said the insurance company would deny this statement; it would not put it in writing or release information - that there is more danger of a motor vehicle under hire purchase being stolen or torched. Let us say that a motor vehicle costs $9,000. The vendor, if it is a motor vehicle dealer, generally suggests that the premium be added to the cost. It is only a small amount each month but that amount accrues interest and, after a period, the purchaser experiences difficulty in paying. He approaches the finance company or lending authority and inquires what the payout figure would be. That payout figure could be $15,000, but the best price the owner can get for the motor vehicle is $9,500, which leaves a considerable shortfall. As strange as it may seem, the police have said that the temptation is there for purchasers to approach someone versed in this sort of activity and, for a cost of $500, a motor vehicle is torched. If that is so, it is an indictment on insurers. Why should people who cannot afford to buy motor vehicles for cash be penalised? It is inconceivable for insurance companies to suggest that all people who purchase motor vehicles under hire purchase should be penalised because there are prospective villains
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who will rip off the insurance companies. This matter should be looked at by insurance companies. I realise it is a problem for the Government.
Madam DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member has exhausted his time for speaking.
Private members' statements noted.
JOINT ESTIMATES COMMITTEES
Madam Deputy-Speaker reported the receipt of the following message from the Legislative Council:
That notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the Standing or Sessional Orders, Ministers may indicate to Estimates Committees established pursuant to the Sessional Orders of the House, that information supplementary to a response given to the Estimates Committee in reply to a Question asked by a Member of that Committee may be lodged with the Clerk of the House, and such information shall be regarded as part of the proceedings of the Parliament and published as an addendum to the Questions and Answers Paper.
Legislative Council M.F. WILLIS
15 October 1991 President
Madam Deputy-Speaker reported the receipt of the following message from the Legislative Council:
That this House agrees to the resolution contained in the Legislative Assembly's Message of 15 October 1991 and similarly amends Schedule 2 of the Resolution agreed to by this House on 26 September 1991, regarding the times and dates for consideration of the estimates by the Estimates Committees.
Legislative Council M.F. WILLIS
15 October 1991 President
[Madam Deputy-Speaker left the chair at 6.6 p.m. The House resumed at 7.30 p.m.]
APPROPRIATION BILL
BUSINESS FRANCHISE LICENCES (PETROLEUM PRODUCTS) AMENDMENT BILL
MOTOR VEHICLES TAXATION (AMENDMENT) BILL
PUBLIC FINANCE AND AUDIT (NET APPROPRIATIONS) AMENDMENT BILL
ROAD IMPROVEMENT (SPECIAL FUNDING) AMENDMENT BILL
Second Reading
Debate resumed from 24th September.
Page 2111
Mrs CHIKAROVSKI (Lane Cove) [7.30]: I rise tonight on the occasion of my maiden speech to address the House on the budget debate. As is traditional in such a speech, I will take the opportunity to indulge in some high sentiment and to accord some properly deserved and glowing tributes. But before that I intend to address the issue of the Budget generally and, more specifically, how it impacts on my electorate of Lane Cove. As a new member of this House it distresses me greatly that the first occasion on which I speak in the House is a time of crisis for our nation. We are in the grip of the recession we had to have. We are facing severe unemployment. The rural sector is facing appalling drought. Exporters are finding it difficult to compete on world markets. Investment is stagnating and business confidence generally has been rattled by the spectacular crashes of many of our so-called high flyers. Coupled with this we have a Federal Government that is racked by leadership problems and factionalism so rampant that decisions made one day are thrown out the next.
Australia as a nation is crying out for strong leadership and for policies and action that will get us moving again. And yet, when we at State level have a leader, a Premier, who is prepared to take tough decisions he is pilloried and attacked for not caring, for not being warm enough. These are tough times, and tough times need tough decisions. I congratulate the Premier for having the courage to take those decisions and for not taking the soft options, the popular options. There have been some in this Parliament who have called for the easy way out. Surprisingly, however, the official Opposition claims that it would be tougher than this Government has been, that it would cut deeper and harder and be even more economically rational. This might sound good, but its past record and the record of its free-spending counterparts in other Labor States would indicate that it is mere rhetoric, popular grandstanding. No, this is not the time for easy, quick fix solutions.
The State of New South Wales, the most populous and the wealthiest State, will be the State that leads the whole of Australia out of the recession. It is this State which will provide the leadership and the restraint that is required to drive us back to our position of economic strength, but such a position will not be attained by further increasing State borrowings and State debt. State debt must be paid for, and increasing debt can be paid for only by using an everincreasing part of State revenue, and thus reducing still further the funds available for services. Alternatively it can be paid for by ballooning State charges. Neither option is acceptable to this Government. The Government is committed to reducing debt, not just for the sake of it but so that we do not mortgage the future of the next generation and the generations after that. In his Budget Speech the Premier pointed out that on a per capita basis the New South Wales deficit was almost half that of Victoria and the Commonwealth; and, with the exception of Queensland, was well below the level of all other mainland States. In real terms the State deficit is $1,087 million. That compares with the State deficit in 1986-87, the last full year of the previous Government, of $1,434 million in 1991-92 prices. In spite of a massive downturn in State revenue, therefore, this Government has managed to reduce the State deficit.
There have been some suggestions that this is not a sensible strategy, and that in fact the Government would do no harm to the State's financial position if it increased
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the deficit by approximately $40 per family - approximately $78 million. This, of course, is contrary to the Government's consistent and often stated proposition that increasing borrowings only leads to further debt which, in the words of the Premier, leads to "huge price hikes, terrible unemployment and just plain pervasive gloom and lack of confidence". It also raises the question of where do you stop. If $40 is all right, is not $60 better, and then why not make it $100? In fact, if the Government were to adopt this approach we would shortly find ourselves slipping into the same quagmire as have Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia.
The facts are that with the exception of Queensland, New South Wales is doing better than any of the other States. We have the equal lowest unemployment rate and we consistently outperform the other States on the majority of the quarterly economic indicators. We are in a stronger financial position than all the other States, again with the exception of Queensland. This is not the result of luck. Rather, it is the result of deliberate decisions to tackle difficult economic and social problems head on. This is not the time to stop or, as the Premier has said, this is not the time to wimp out. The need for financial reform and structural reform is ongoing, and as there is no end in sight to the federally induced recession, New South Wales must continue with reforms that confront and deal with both the recession and the fall in State revenues.
I said earlier that eventually I would speak of high sentiment - I have not yet reached that point - and that is not something this Government is often accused of. But I say to members of this House that sentiment, caring, warmth - call it what you will - can be expressed in many ways. To my mind it would be much more heartless to push this State to the point of financial collapse, further undermining business confidence, which already is taking a battering with the recession, and crushing hope of any business-led economic recovery and, incidentally, any hope of reducing the unemployment figures. That indeed would be cruel. That indeed would be cold. This Government is not without a heart. Our problem is that too often we only speak from logic rather than inform. We expect everyone to understand the logic of our reforms. We know that our economic strategies are what will save this State, but it has become increasingly obvious that we need to translate those strategies so that people can understand what we are doing. We know that we need our AAA rating to maintain our favoured borrowing position. I doubt whether the people on the housing lists understand that, but if we explain that if we have to pay more for the money we borrow we will have less to spend on new housing, they will understand that. While many constituents might not understand how privatisation will help to balance the State's finances, they do understand that if the Government has to pay out less in debt repayment, the general population of the State will not have to pay so much in to pay for that debt.
Productivity dividends, contracting, user charges, downsizing corporate support and rationalisation of functions and programs are terrific concepts. However, I would rather translate them to mean funds available for the Start to Life programs, the mature workers programs, other TAFE provided labour market programs and recession support programs. That is what the Government is about in this Budget: money for health, for schools, for transport and for training. Yes, we are about sound financial management, but only so that we can provide for the community. The cuts that are being made are
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not so that the Government, or the Parliament for that matter, can have some fancy shindig at the end of the year. They are being made to ensure the economic stability of New South Wales - and that is and should be the message for the people of New South Wales.
It is not my intention tonight to speak to the detail of the Budget. There are many speakers following me who, I am sure, will be more qualified than I to do so, but I would just like to comment on one aspect of the budget strategy, and that is the sale of the GIO. It has been a long held view of this Government that it is not the business of government to be in business. It is a view that is being adopted now around Australia by other State Governments and by the Federal Government as well. The recent part-privatisation of the Commonwealth Bank, which was so overwhelmingly supported by the people of Australia, is an indication of how well this policy has been accepted by the community at large. It is within this context that the Government has announced the privatisation of the GIO. It is to be sold into the hands of the people of New South Wales, not just to the financial sector, not just to big business and not just to another insurer. The people of New South Wales will be given the opportunity to be part of the GIO and I, for one, hope that they take up that opportunity with as much enthusiasm as they did the Commonwealth Bank float, and thus contribute approximately $1.7 billion to the State's coffers - money which this State, through this Government, can well use in other areas, such as my own electorate of Lane Cove.
In tough times electorates such as mine, safe electorates, are often the areas that miss out when governments look to cost cutting. It is often felt that the leafy North Shore is hardly a deprived area of New South Wales, but the people of my electorate have as much right to the services provided by government as any other area. And this Government has recognised that in this Budget. We are entitled to quality medical services, and this is reflected by a budget allocation to the Northern Sydney Area Health Service of $396.2 million, an increase of $15 million over last year. We are entitled to decent transport facilities, a fact recognised by the Minister for Transport, who has allocated over $1.5 million to the Lane Cove electorate to upgrade station facilities at Lindfield and to complete the installation of the Valentia Street wharf at Hunters Hill.
I am particularly grateful to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services for his recognition of the extreme difficulties under which the patrol at Lane Cove police station has been operating. The capital allocation of $300,000 will ensure that there will be proper facilities for the 24-hour station and increased capacity for the new highway patrol officers and beat police who are to be stationed there. Some $30.6 million will be spent on roadworks and maintenance within my electorate. This includes an allocation of $822,000 to the four local council areas within the electorate under the State and regional roads program and the regional roads block grant scheme. The major part of the $30.6 million allocation is, of course, for the Gore Hill Freeway, which is expected to be completed in August 1992.
Schools within the electorate will continue to benefit with further funding for programs such as the computer education grants, including a new allocation this year from that program for the Royal North Shore Hospital school. As with many areas of
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government expenditure there is increasing demand on the education budget and I would like to take this opportunity to assure my constituents that I will do my best to make sure that the schools within my electorate are treated fairly. Balancing all the competing interests in the Budget is not an easy task, and not one that this Government takes lightly. In a time of falling revenues, the only appropriate decision open to the Government is to tighten the belt. I was going to say bite the bullet, but that is probably not an appropriate expression from a member of the Joint Select Committee on Gun Law Reform. The Government must act responsibly in the matter of budget restraint. I believe that the Government's decisions, although difficult in the short term, will in the long term provide the economic strength this State needs.
Now I turn to the matters of high sentiment. It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the large number of family and friends who are here tonight to listen to this, my maiden speech. Many of those here have known me for a long time and are not really surprised that I have ended up in this Chamber. Perhaps we were all surprised at the suddenness with which I found myself here. My good fortune is the direct result of the departure of my good friend the Hon. John Dowd, Q.C. John has known for some years of my intense desire to be the member for Lane Cove and he has always encouraged me in my ambitions. In the past few months I have had the opportunity of meeting many people throughout the electorate who have known John in both a professional and personal capacity. Their consistent comment to me is that I have big shoes to fill. John is well loved by the electorate of Lane Cove, both as an outstanding local member and an outstanding Attorney General. He will be sorely missed.
I would also like to thank the other John, the Hon. John Howard, Federal member for Bennelong. Some years ago I attended my first public political meeting. It was in Lane Cove town hall, which was fairly appropriate, I would think. It was during a Federal election campaign and had been organised by the Women's Electoral Lobby. The mood of the crowd was pretty ugly, and much of the venom was directed at the Liberal Party, and at John as its candidate. Throughout the night John not only maintained his dignity but his principles as well. I would like to say he won over the crowd, but that would probably be stretching the truth. He certainly won me over and convinced me that, in spite of a popularly held Australian belief, it was possible to be a politician of integrity. John has been a friend and mentor since, and I am particularly gratified to have him as my Federal colleague.
I would like also to express my gratitude to the electors of Lane Cove, who found themselves with a Liberal Party candidate who many had never heard of and, worse than that, whose name was almost unpronounceable. In spite of this they supported me in large numbers and I hope I can justify their faith in me. There are a number of other people I need to thank for my presence here tonight, particularly the members of the Lane Cove conference. This is not the place to drag up recent history, but it needs to be said that had the members of the conference not insisted on the true Liberal principle of choice there is some doubt whether I would be here tonight. So, to the people of my conference, thank you.
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To all who worked to get me elected, including all those friends of mine who have never worked in a political campaign before, my heartfelt thanks and a reminder that you are all on the computer for next time. To Bill Tafe, my conference president and campaign manager, and his wife Sandra, thank you for all your support during the campaign and your friendship since. To Janet McDonald and Dick White, who were towers of strength during the campaign and have been models of efficiency since, thank you for all you have done to get me up and running in my new career. I am sure not too many members of the House have ever had to thank their personal hairdresser, but I have to thank my very good friend and neighbour, Carole Tate, for her tireless efforts and early starts during the campaign.
[Extension of time agreed to.]
I must also thank my family. As some members here know, I come from a family which is used to having politicians around, so they had some idea what life would be like once I was preselected, and they still congratulated me. The last five months have been hectic and I could not have done it without my family - and I include my extended family in that, my sister-in-law Vera, her husband Tony and their children, Sandra and Michael, who have quickly learnt to be dab hands at campaigning. To my parents-in-law Melissa and Stephan, do not worry that you were overseas last time, I will get you next time. Also thank you to my father, the new mayor of Willoughby, Greg Bartels, for all the practical help and political advice. Thank you to my mother, Jill, for all the baby sitting, and just make sure you do not go away now until Parliament adjourns for the year. Thank you to the three sisters, Robin, Julianne and Michelle again for all the support, practical and moral.
Finally, I would like to thank my husband, Kris, and my children, Lisa and Mark. This sudden career change has meant a lot of adjusting for all of us, and I could not have done it without the support and co-operation of these three very special people. A decision to enter politics is not one a family person can take in isolation and I would like to publicly express my gratitude to Kris for helping me and encouraging me to pursue what has long been a cherished ambition.
Many years ago as a young person of 11 or 12 I stood on a beach in New York and listened to a man tell a hushed crowd of thousands of his vision for America. As he left the podium and walked through the crowd he shook hands with as many people as he could, and this young Australian girl was one of them. I can tell you that I felt as if I had been touched by God, and I did not wash my hand for a week. That man was Robert Kennedy and his passion in his beliefs and for his country were felt by all on that beach on that hot summer's day. I would like to think that with that handshake some of his passion rubbed off, and I can only hope that in my career in this place I, too, can show some of that vision. I thank the House for its attention and commend the Budget to it.
Mr IRWIN (Fairfield) [7.50]: Before speaking to the 1991-91 Budget I congratulate the honourable member for Lane Cove on the fine effort of her maiden speech. Having served with her as a member of the Joint Select Committee upon Gun
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Law Reform I feel sure she faces a significant career in the New South Wales Parliament. The 1991-92 Budget brings changes in the way in which budgets have been framed. Significantly for the first time the Budget gives a strategy over a period of three years. In considering this year's Budget honourable members for the first time will be examining a budget that goes beyond revenue and expenditure of the Government for the forthcoming year. It is upon that area of reform that I shall concentrate, as well as upon examining the impact of the important points within that strategy and their effects on the people of New South Wales and the Government over that period. For almost a decade there has been a major change not only in the way that New South Wales budgets have been framed but also in the way that the whole of public administration has been conducted in this State. I should dismiss first what has become a popular belief, and that is, that all of that change took place after 19th March, 1988. I pay tribute to the late Labor Treasurer, Ken Booth, who was one of the instigators of real budget reform in this State.
Mr Jeffery: We are still paying for years of Labor's mismanagement.
Mr IRWIN: If the honourable member were to check his history, he would realise that this State should be grateful for the administration of Ken Booth in the years from 1982 onwards and how that has led to the type of administration in this State at present. The significance of the 1982-83 reforms can be seen today in the comments that have been made about the present Budget. That package of reforms led to the establishment of a single Consolidated Fund and flexibility in expenditure so that for the first time departments were given a degree of discretion in the allocation of expenditure. Equally as important, there was improved accountability for the way in which public accounts were managed. Those changes began a process of reform which continues to this day. That package was followed in 1983-84 by a major review of the Public Finance and Audit Act which brought about much wider powers for the Public Accounts Committee, more stringent annual reporting legislation and other improvements which overall greatly enhanced the accountability of government in this State and brought with them a higher degree of responsibility and accountability in the budget process. Again through the reforms made by Ken Booth in 1984-85 program budgeting, internal audit guidelines and other reviews were introduced which brought about significant improvements.
The changes throughout that period reflected a growing level of professionalism within Treasury. That professionalism became more strongly recognised within public administration. All of that laid the foundations for the reforms that continued when the Greiner Government came to office. However, there has been a change of emphasis from the basis of the earlier reforms. In 1988-89 the Greiner Government introduced the user pays concept, an expanded view of commercial activities of government and an important change which has implications for this year's Budget, the establishment of the Expenditure Review Committee. In effect those reforms give members of Parliament debating the Budget greater opportunity to examine precisely the allocations being made and a better idea of how those allocations will impact on the public. In general that is the focus of public accounts information, for the legislators to know exactly where allocations made in the Budget are going, the priorities they are intended to address, and
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how they will impact on the community. Though the process is far from being able to be defined to lead to automatic recognition of that purpose, the system is a vast improvement on that which operated before 1982. I turn now to deal with what I believe has been the Government's approach in the 1991-92 Budget. In his Budget Speech the Premier and Treasurer said:
Many, including some of those in my own Party, believe that we have done enough and that we should now rest on our laurels. But we are not wimping out.
That statement and the projection for the three-year budget strategy enable one to see in plan form the Government's intention to proceed with major expenditure cuts. I quote again from the Premier's Budget Speech:
In 1991-92 ordinary departmental current payments will increase by 3.8 per cent, broadly in line with inflation. In the following year, as our savings strategies take full effect, the increase will be only 0.5 per cent, a real decline of 4.0 per cent. Over the full three year period current departmental payments will decline by 5 per cent in real terms or over $600 million per annum.
Though in this Budget the current payment increases are roughly in line with the inflation rate, the real sting in the tail is not so much contained within the Budget but within the three-year strategy which will bring about significant cuts in current expenditure. The effect of that strategy over that period will bring about a decline in public sector employment of 2.4 per cent, or more than 7,000 public sector jobs that will go. According to the conclusion of the Premier's Budget Speech, the target is that by 1993-94 public sector staff levels will be reduced by at least 5,000 and government trading enterprises staff by 7,500 over the next three years. The actual issues implemented to date produce annual savings of $700 million. The expenditure savings implemented in this Budget amount to a further $230 million in 1991-92, increasing to $930 million by 1993-94. That, according to the Premier and Treasurer, is to be brought about by a combination of productivity dividends, contracting, user charges, downsizing, corporate support and rationalisation of functions and programs.
At face value, these just look like a whole lot of numbers but when we work out what this means across the range of services provided by the New South Wales Government we begin to realise that these are targets and that the achievement of these depends on the conviction of the Government in proceeding down that line. Quite frankly, I would first have to see these savings before I could believe in the ability of the Government to produce them. One thing that needs to be borne in mind is that, over quite a long period of time, there have been reductions in the staff of the public sector in New South Wales. Indeed, in the five years before March 1988, the public sector in New South Wales had been consistently reduced. When the Greiner Government came to office New South Wales had the lowest number of public sector employees by comparison with total population of any State, so we started from a very low point in the first place. Public sector employment had contracted during the five-year prior to 1988 and it has further contracted since. We are now looking at another projected contraction of quite significant size. As the speech of the Treasurer states, the Government is seeking to achieve savings of $930 million by 1993-94.
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As any economist will say - or, for that matter, anyone who has ever tried to improve productivity in any way - the earliest improvements such as getting rid of the pot plants in the office, putting off the tea lady and so on, bring fairly easy savings. From there on, each progressive saving is harder and harder to make. While the Government sets out in this strategy the means by which it intends to go about such reductions, the real razor gang work is what has to be done next. That is ultimately what it comes down to. The Federal Government refers to its own similarly responsible group as the razor gang. Essentially, what we are looking at in New South Wales is to achieve savings of that degree. Honourable members should not think for a minute that by contracting out services substantial savings are immediately made. In some cases substantial savings may be made, but across the range of services that may be contracted out it is not always the case that the degree of savings will be sufficient to achieve the sort of productivity improvements needed to achieve the kinds of savings projected.
I do not believe that members opposite have acknowledged some of the work practice changes that have taken place in the last decade and will continue to take place in the years ahead with the full co-operation of the trade union movement, but I suggest that there is no longer an easy opportunity to achieve savings of the type and size set out in this Budget. If the Government thinks that merely by squeezing harder the workers on the job it will necessarily gain productivity improvements, it should think again. As I said earlier in this speech, we have seen a consistent reduction in public sector staffing levels and the point is being reached where productivity improvements in many areas of government are becoming extremely hard to bring about.
Today about 8,000 health workers demonstrated outside Parliament, complaining because they are the very people who are being squeezed; they are the people in the front line of these cuts; and they are the people who are expected to produce more with less. Any member who has spoken to those nurses and other health workers would realise their problems and would understand that people can be squeezed only so far and that only so much can be gained in productivity in those very vital areas. It is essential for this Government to realise that when it comes to providing services it is not always the person delivering the service who can determine the resources that need to go into it. Quite often the only way of cutting costs is not by improving productivity but by reducing the services provided.
Similarly, productivity dividends become more and more difficult to provide. The more cuts there are, the more difficult it is to achieve the improvements sought. Similarly, downsizing may appear on paper to be one of the most promising areas of productivity improvements, but it poses difficulties later. This Government's idea of downsizing has tended to be to remove those units of administration which do not offer an immediate and obvious benefit to the department but which in the long term provide a service very economically. Recent years have seen changes in the Department of School Education. Many of its head office staff, many of the professional people, have been involved in producing resources, programs, curriculum and so on for our school system. The Government has abolished those positions, saying that we do not need them any more. It does not need them in the short term, but in the long term, when the services that have been provided by those groups are no longer available, the
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Government will have to buy those services from outside at enormously inflated cost. This Government has already spent hundreds of millions of dollars on consultants. Consultants will have to be paid for when many of the professional staff are decimated, staff who have been providing services within departments at an extremely high level of quality and in a timely way, promoting New South Wales systems and making them among the best in the world.
[Extension of time agreed to.]
The major area of change, one which ultimately tests any government, is the rationalisation of functions and programs. It is the only true measure of the way by which governments can reduce their expenditure. It is in that area that the Government has to be honest enough upfront to specify exactly what services it will cut out. It is only when governments do that and actually reduce on a program basis the services being provided that, firstly, we as legislators are able to ascertain exactly what cuts the Government is making and what impact those cuts will have, particularly in those cases where the electorate is able to observe exactly the impact of those cuts and their effect upon the electorate. I turn to a number of matters relating to the Fairfield electorate, which will suffer significantly as a result of this Budget. I am dismayed at the level of public works allocated to the Fairfield electorate in the coming financial year. Many works have been in the pipeline for a number of years. Important roadworks that were scheduled to be completed this year or next year have been put off for a period of five years or more.
The Government makes a big play of promising to complete certain roadworks. It makes a big splash about it in the media, puts it on the program and then simply pushes it back year after year. I refer to some important works, particularly the upgrading of The Horsley Drive and other major roadworks in the Fairfield area which are causing traffic chaos, strangling the central business district of Fairfield, and making road transport through the area very difficult. It is of great disappointment and concern to me that those roadworks have been put off yet again. This Government is totally ignoring that part of Sydney and its very important needs. I have spoken in this House before about The Horsley Drive and have raised the matter on many occasions with the Minister. I am disappointed that on many occasions the Minister has refused to meet with representatives of the Fairfield city council to discuss the traffic problems that are encountered. Moreover I am particularly disappointed that this Government continually pushes back the program for works in the Fairfield area.
There are a number of other urgent areas of need. Though promises were made in respect of some of the works, and indications were given that work would commence in the relatively near future, those matters are not on the program. I include in that the relocation and upgrading of the Fairfield ambulance station. The plan was to relocate it to the Fairfield District Hospital site but no funds are available in this year's Budget. The station is in very poor repair. Everyone knows it is to be pulled down and relocated. What should be an important local facility is being totally ignored. No funds are provided in the Budget for this project or for maintenance. No funds have been allocated to relocate the fire station at Fairfield. No funds are available to provide for
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the urgent upgrading of fire brigade facilities in the Fairfield area. There are similar problems in regard to Cabramatta. The promised new fire stations in the western parts of the city of Fairfield have not eventuated. The level of fire services available in the city of Fairfield is reaching a crisis point. I understand there are plans to downgrade the Fairfield fire brigade. It will no longer be a rescue unit. That would not only be a tragedy for the people of Fairfield but it could well result in a tragedy occurring to people in Fairfield.
I believe the capital works allocations for the Fairfield electorate are deficient in that many important works are being ignored by the Government. The Greiner Government's 1991-92 Budget represents a strategy to cover a three-year period. Though there is some sting in the initial year, the real sting will not begin to hit until next year and the following year. It is then that the people of this State will begin to feel the impact of cuts to services. We have seen no real benefit for the people of New South Wales from the cuts that have been made to education funding and many other core areas of government activity. What we see ahead for the rest of this year, for next year and for the following year is more and more pain and absolutely no gain.
Mr JEFFERY (Oxley) [8.15]: It gives me great pleasure to speak in the budget debate and to highlight the Government's progressive and sound policies of restraint, particularly under a greedy, centralised, Federal Labor Government of Labor misers. Despite the decision of the Hawke Government not to reduce interest rates and to diminish tax sharing to the States, New South Wales has managed to keep unemployment down and to keep the lid on costs. The Opposition's campaign of misinformation - and we have just heard from the honourable member for Fairfield - is another example of its blind support for its Federal Labor mates. It is the big lie. Labor members are so indoctrinated by this socialist dogma that they seem to believe their own rhetoric. They are nothing more than champagne socialists. In the wider world they sip champagne and try to make out they support the workers, but of course they do not. The honourable member for Fairfield appears to have been indoctrinated by the Teachers Federation. The Labor-orchestrated strike outside Parliament House today is another example of a costly and wasteful exercise.
Mr Crittenden: That is absolute nonsense.
Mr JEFFERY: The honourable member opposite knows that well and should realise that 12 years of Labor mismanagement cost this State a lot of money. The taxpayers, the shareholders of this State, suffered under Labor and will not allow that to happen again for the next several decades. How dare he expect workers to give up a day's pay, as they did today, in these difficult times. The strike was Labor-orchestrated. Johnny come lately is trying to interject but he is not doing very well. The Premier's Budget Speech highlighted the fact that we are on track in the key areas of recurrent expenditure restraint and containment of borrowings and debt. The people of this State cannot afford to be plunged into further debt, as some members opposite would prefer. Would members opposite put their children and grandchildren into further debt? The answer is: of course they would not. But that is what happened under the former Labor Government and we are still paying for those years of Labor
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mismanagement. It would have been easier to set the agenda then, but the Labor Government failed dismally and will never get the chance again because the people of New South Wales know -
Mr Crittenden: As Terry said, you have no vision.
Mr JEFFERY: We have vision. The Oxley electorate straddles 125.7 kilometres of the Pacific Highway. This highway provides a vital link not only for my constituents and the people of this State but also for overseas visitors. I am pleased that in recognition of that vital link the Oxley electorate has been allocated a very large slice of the road funding budget. A funding package of $22.2 million for road construction, maintenance, traffic management and road safety is being allocated to my electorate. Despite the recession that has been induced by the Hawke Government the State Government has maintained total funding in dollar terms. It is important to note that $1.7 billion - not million, but billion - will be spent on New South Wales roads this financial year. The $22.2 million to be spent in the Oxley electorate will ensure the completion of several major projects already under way and the maintenance of the existing road network to a high standard.
Mr Harrison: National Party pork-barrelling.
Mr JEFFERY: The National Party is not pork-barrelling.
Mr ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Chappell): Order! Debate will proceed in the usual fashion with honourable members addressing the Chair.
Mr JEFFERY: The Pacific Highway, a major highway in this State, is being addressed by this coalition Government. The $22.2 million to be spent in my electorate will ensure that major construction, which is under way at present, will be completed and the existing road network will be maintained at a high standard.
Mr Schultz: Saving lives.
Mr JEFFERY: As the honourable member for Burrinjuck has said, it will save lives. The National Party and the New South Wales coalition Government have recognised the need for the progressive upgrading of the Pacific Highway between Hexham and the Queensland border. What we hear from Labor is lies, lies and more lies, which is all members opposite seem to be good at these days. They criticise health policies, but there has been record funding for health services, particularly in country areas. The State budget for health shows a real increase to $4.56 billion. The trouble with honourable members opposite is that they cannot even add up. They are the economic illiterates of the twenty-first century. They do not know how to run a State; they never did and never will. It is up to the coalition Government.
The health budget shows a 4.7 per cent increase over last year's budget. Again this highlights the lies and misinformation being peddled by Labor members opposite. The 13 per cent increase in health funding for the North Coast region - a growth area
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on an age-weighted basis - clearly reflects the "no cuts to health" approach by the New South Wales coalition Government. Even Labor members opposite would have to admit that this is a remarkable achievement in the current economic climate. Honourable members opposite are jealous because we have been able to deliver where they have failed. They are jealous of the benefits that we have been able to bring to the people of New South Wales.
[Interruption]
Mr ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Chappell): Order! The honourable member for Wyong will have an opportunity later to participate in this debate.
Mr JEFFERY: Rationalisation will result in further resources being distributed to growth areas, such as my own, where they are most needed. For Labor members opposite to condemn the sound policies and sensible approach of the Greiner-Murray Government just shows them up for what they are - the economic illiterates of the twenty-first century. The ship of State is "steady as she goes". We have a clear direction. We know where we are going and we will continue to govern responsibly for the future of our citizens. Honourable members opposite failed and, as I have said, this worries them. They know we are delivering where they failed.
Mr Rogan: You are delivering a $1 billion deficit.
Mr JEFFERY: We have a Federal induced recession caused by Labor members' mates in Canberra, and they know it. Honourable members opposite are scared to attack their mates - the real culprits of the recession in Australia. Fortunately, the people of Australia realise that New South Wales is leading the way. The people are now starting to realise that New South Wales -
Mr Harrison: The bright light.
Mr JEFFERY: Yes, we are the bright light for the economic future of this country.
Mr Crittenden: Hurricane lamps, you are.
Mr JEFFERY: Hurricane lamps? We will continue to press for reforms and we will steer our ship on a steady course. We have moved to cap the growth of debt servicing but honourable members must realise that past borrowings cannot be ignored. Unfortunately, the recession is not only adding to government costs; it is also cutting revenue. With stamp duties and problems in the real estate market we do not have revenue coming in. This would add to the problems of any State. Of course, New South Wales is no exception. I do not like to harp on this but it is a fact that the legacies of the former Labor Government - and that includes the blowout - must be accounted for now. Let us make no excuses.
Mr Rogan: The legacy was a surplus.
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Mr JEFFERY: The honourable member knows - he is just trying to hide the fact - that there was a blowout under the former Labor Government in superannuation costs, debt servicing and unfunded insurance claim liabilities. We picked up the gauntlet, we have run with it and we have turned New South Wales around. New South Wales is now attractive to industry in the area of workers compensation and every other aspect. The Greiner-Murray Government's rational policies will provide lasting benefits for the entire nation and improve the living standards of the people of this great State of New South Wales. The New South Wales Budget goes further than any Commonwealth Budget ever has - by providing an honest and sensitive analysis of the forecasts. Again that shows that we are economic managers. Labor has no answer. The better cities proposal put forward by the New South Wales Labor Party will effectively kill off country New South Wales. Honourable members opposite want to get rid of every area except Newcastle and Wollongong. They do not believe in country New South Wales; they do not even know where it is. The honourable member for Broken Hill rarely visits his own electorate; I think he has also given away his electorate. Labor has no answer. If Labor had its way, growing cities on the mid North Coast such as Kempsey, Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour, Taree and Grafton would not get a look into any sort of funding. Labor would not allow it. Labor would spend every cent in the city.
Mr Schultz: They have said they will do that with road funding.
Mr JEFFERY: That is right. As the honourable member for Burrinjuck correctly interjected, the Australian Labor Party said that money raised from the 3 x 3 fuel levy would be taken away from rural roads and would be spent on Sydney freeways. Honourable members opposite should be honest. That is what they said. They want to take that money away from country people. Members of the Opposition have double standards. They do not know any bounds. They are an embarrassment to themselves. What did the Labor Government do in 1987? It introduced a stamp duty tax on wet hire users. Small business is the backbone of this country. For too long small business has been suppressed, frustrated, interfered with and intimidated by union standover tactics. Honourable members opposite can laugh, but I speak with experience. I was a member of a union for 16 years. I know the blackmail tactics, the bullying and the standover rorts that unions try to pull. I had experience of this when I was a member of a union. The union background of Labor Party members -
[Interruption]
Mr JEFFERY: I make no bones about it; I was a member of a union.
Mr Crittenden: Which one?
Mr JEFFERY: The Public Service Association. Members of that union really did not want to go on strike today and lose a day's pay, but they are scared because of Labor Party blackmail and standover tactics. Labor members' trade union backgrounds ensure a prejudice against profit -
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[Interruption]
Mr ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Chappell): Order! I will hear the honourable member for Oxley in silence.
Mr JEFFERY: Labor members' trade union backgrounds ensure a prejudice against profit and a belief that strikes and demarcation disputes are more important than getting on with the job and delivering the goods. Honourable members opposite should realise that industrial differences should be pursued with minimum disruption to the public. They are not doing it. They want a general strike on the 25th. It will cost this State billions of dollars. Members opposite want to plunge us down the Argentine trail. People are now saying, "Let us not go down the Argentine trail".
Mr ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Chappell): Order! The honourable member for Oxley will address the Chair.
Mr JEFFERY: In Argentina people are saying, "Let us not go down the Australian path", because of the union tactics used by the Hawke Government and Labor members opposite. They are conducting scare campaigns.
Mr Crittenden: You caused it.
Mr JEFFERY: Honourable members opposite are doing nothing more than conducting scare campaigns and telling lies. Every time the Government tries to break the union stranglehold that is what honourable members opposite do. I am very proud to be a member of the National Party. I believe the National Party has saved the constructing and earth moving industries at least $12 million per year as a result of the Budget announcement to drop the wet hire tax. This decision and the new industrial relations reforms will be welcomed by the contracting industry, and the users of contract and earth moving equipment, who are under enormous pressure because of the Federal Labor Government induced recession.
The response to the present critical situation is not to abandon policy direction, and not to forgo our leadership of public sector reform in Australia. Honourable members opposite must admit that this Government has made significant and historic achievements in reforming the structures, the attitudes and the practices of the outdated former New South Wales Labor administration. This coalition Government has laid the foundation for future benefits that are not based on debt or on waste. I am sure that honourable members opposite will admit that as a result of the economic and financial reforms of the Greiner-Murray Government, New South Wales is weathering the storm better than any other State of Australia.
[Interruption]
Mr JEFFERY: The honourable member for Wyong can laugh, but the common theme of the budgets of the four States controlled by his Labor mates is to leave the next generation, and probably the generation after that, to pay the bills.
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Mr Crittenden: Why has Nick such a low approval rating?
Mr JEFFERY: The honourable member should look at the budgets of Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia.
[Interruption]
Mr ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Chappell): Order! I call the honourable member for Wyong to order. The honourable member for Oxley will address the Chair.
Mr JEFFERY: The Labor Governments of these States chose the politically expedient high debt option. They pursued short-term gain for long-term pain for their constituents. We will not do that in New South Wales. The prospect is downright frightening; it can be fathomed only by people living in those States, who already are paying the price for the Labor governments' financial mismanagement. The message in the budget of each of those States is that the mishandling of the economy must be paid for not only by this generation but also by the next generation. That is a real shame. This New South Wales Government and the former great National Party Government in Queensland saw the signs in the wake of the handing down of those four Labor State budgets. New South Wales will become the favoured location for people wishing to escape the inevitable hardship of those debt-ridden States. Again I am proud to say that the National Party has played a vital role in the prudent financial management of the successful progressive States throughout Australia.
In New South Wales investor confidence is measured by the low unemployment rate. The poor management record of the Labor States of Australia will sour investor confidence for decades, and New South Wales will be streets ahead in attracting investment. That is good for the people of New South Wales - a consequence of their having a good coalition Government. The difference is as between the ordinary and the extraordinary; and we give that little bit extra. The 1991-92 Budget will build on and continue the reform that the coalition set out to achieve by decreasing the State debt, by improving the performance of the State economy and by delivering quality service to the people of this State. I am very pleased to be a member of a Government that has been able to achieve much, not only in my electorate of Oxley but throughout the State. New South Wales will be the key State to lead Australia out of the recession and Opposition members should support this Budget. Instead of telling lies and allowing their noses to grow longer, the Opposition should be honest and admit that this Government is on the right track. I support the Budget introduced by the Premier, the Hon. Nick Greiner. It is a great Budget, which will provide the platform for this State and this coalition Government for at least the next two decades.
Mr ROGAN (East Hills) [8.34]: Well, the truth is finally out. The Budget Papers reveal it all: New South Wales does in fact have a deficit, and that deficit is in excess of $1 billion. That confirms what Professor Bob Walker of the University of Sydney said prior to the last election, a statement vehemently denied by the Premier and this Government. All honourable members would recall the Premier saying in answer
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to a question from a member of the Opposition prior to the election that the Budget will be balanced. That is what he said: the Budget will be balanced. But the Budget Papers reveal it all: an awful deficit which puts New South Wales in exactly the same position as all the other States of Australia. The Premier tried to inform the public that that was not the position. He should not be so hypocritical, as he was on the weekend, to accuse the Leader of the Opposition of lying, because he is guilty of telling the great continuous lie.
[Interruption]
Mr ROGAN: Members of the Government may seek to deny it, but the fact is that prior to the State elections the Premier said that the Budget will be balanced. I ask members of the Government whether that is true or not. They do not answer - because it is true. The Budget Papers reveal that the Budget has a deficit in excess of $1 billion. The Premier will have to accept that he did tell the big lie. Let us not hear any nonsense from the government benches about this. The honourable member for Oxley tried to deny it. Obviously Government members will conduct an orchestrated campaign to make out this fallacy that members of the Opposition are guilty of stating mistruths, but in fact it is the Government that is guilty of that. The figures are there in the Budget for all to see. The figures tell all. The Premier has said that the Government will have to sell itself and tell the people that this State has been governed well.
I have been in politics for quite a while. Whenever a government is on the skids the first thing it says is that it is not getting its message across. The Whitlam Government was a great government, but at the end that was the story I continually heard from Canberra: that it was not getting its message across. That is exactly the same line that this Government is now using. In my view and in the view of the public there is no surer sign that this Government is on the skids. There is a very good reason for that: it learned nothing from the last State election result. It continues with the same confrontationist policies, the same arrogance and the same lack of understanding, compassion or empathy with the great mass of working people. That is as evident today as it was prior to the election. The Government has a complete disregard for the pensioners, the underprivileged, the elderly, the young - indeed, all members of the community. Quite clearly this is a failed government and the Budget Papers reveal that for all to see. The Government's height of hypocrisy knows no bounds.
In this Parliament and in radio and television interviews the Premier boasts about the State's AAA credit rating. Has that rating been achieved only recently? No, it was inherited from the previous Labor Government. The AAA credit rating that the State now has is the same AAA rating that Labor bequeathed the coalition. Yet the coalition seems now to claim that rating as something which suddenly it has achieved. The reality is completely different. It has amazed me that some economic commentators in the past have lavished praise on the Premier as a good economic manager and on the Government for its good economic management. That balloon has been pricked and the Budget now establishes beyond any doubt that this Government is incapable of good economic management. This Premier knows nothing about economic management.
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Indeed the Australian Financial Review dated 25th September, under the editorial headline "Greiner joins other prefects in the corner" said this of the other State Premiers and their relationship with the Commonwealth:
Their Budget report cards turned in over the past month or so, including Mr Greiner's somewhat disappointing performance as head prefect, have not enhanced their bargaining positions.
In the past that newspaper was so laudatory of this Government's performance, mistakenly so. I refer to the triple A rating the Opposition passed on to this Government. I shall mention some achievements of the former Labor Government which have never been recognised and are not likely to be so recognised when we are debating this important Budget. When the coalition came to power New South Wales had proportionally the smallest public sector of any State. Between 1981 and 1987 the growth in public sector outlays in New South Wales was significantly below that of any other State. New South Wales had fewer State government employees as a share of population than any State in Australia. Further, the former Labor Government passed on to this Government a government employment growth rate which was much slower than those of all other governments, State and Commonwealth. In the five years prior to Labor losing office, net borrowings in New South Wales had fallen compared with an increase in all other States. New South Wales had the lowest debt of any State in Australia when expressed as a proportion of gross national product. Over those five years the debt had grown more slowly than that of any other State, with the exception of Tasmania. That is what the former Labor Government passed on to this Government. This Government has blown it completely. Let us look at the present position of this State, all due to the poor economic performance of this Government. Let us not have any of that nonsense about continually blaming the Federal Government for all the faults that this Government must accept.
In his Budget Speech the Premier said that New South Wales and Victoria are subsidising the other States to the extent of $2,400 million and that the New South Wales share of this was $1,300 million. That represents a $220 subsidy for each of the other States for every man, woman and child in this State. That is one of the few areas in the Budget in which I agree with the Premier. It is certainly the case but is nothing new because when Labor was in government I said that New South Wales should be getting a better share of the tax grants from the Commonwealth Government. However, at that time, the coalition Opposition said we had to manage our finances better and was not prepared to accept that New South Wales then was subsidising these other States. This must change; it cannot continue. I hope that discussions with this State, other States and the Commonwealth will redress that matter.
I deal now with a few matters contained in the Budget. First, I should like to talk about revenue from government trading enterprises. This Government is about selling off government enterprises. In a mad fire sale of public assets, it wants to flog off everything that makes a dollar. In Budget Paper No. 2 revenue derived in this Budget from these trade enterprises involves bodies such as the Electricity Commission showing a dividend will be paid in this year's Budget of $277 million, an increase of 49.7 per cent. Sydney Electricity is to pay another $132 million, an increase of 120 per
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cent. All up with these government trading enterprises, if one takes into account State-owned corporations, this year the Budget will benefit to the order of $907 million, close to $1 billion. This Government wants to flog off all those revenue-earning assets, and at the lowest possible price. I shall talk about one or two of those shortly.
I mention briefly State-owned coalmines which this Government is now putting out to tender for the third time simply because it could not raise the money originally. Those coalmines are going on the market again so that the Government can obtain the revenue it believes can be achieved. The coal industry is notorious for gossip but the talk around the industry is that the Government expects to receive only $100 million to $150 million from the sale of these Elcom coalmines. However, the State is to absorb the debt of $279 million. What great economic management that is; to sell off the mines for $100 million to $150 million and the State to pick up the debt of $279 million. At the end of the transaction the State is heavily into debt. I cannot be convinced that that is good economic management. Opposition members will continue to oppose the sale of these coalmines. Last year they earned the State $30 million in revenue, yet this Government wants to flog them off for something like $100 million to $150 million - an absolute disgrace. Despite the fact that the Minister for Planning and Minister for Energy has been asked questions, he will not confirm that the Liddell State mine was sold for $6 million while its debts of $109 million were left with the State. We await final disclosures on that. However, it is not open government when one cannot receive answers to those important questions.
I was interested to note in Budget Paper No. 2 that the Government announced that the Joint Coal Board has reached the end of its effective life, that New South Wales will withdraw from 1992-93 its joint participation in the Joint Coal Board. My understanding was that the future of the board was the subject of negotiations and discussions between the State Government and the Federal Government. Yet the announcement is made in the Budget Papers. What are the Government's plans for the Joint Coal Board? Is the announcement a mistake or will the Government continue with the negotiations with the Federal Government on the future of that important board? The Opposition believes that the Joint Coal Board has a useful purpose to serve and that the $2 million contributed by the New South Wales Government to the cost of running the board is money well spent. It is a great investment. I could enumerate the excellent work carried out by the board under the chairmanship of Mr Jack Willcox, but I shall not do so as time does not permit.
The Government should inform the House whether the announcement in the Budget Paper was a mistake. Does the Government not intend to continue negotiating with the Federal Government on the future of the board? Another matter of interest to me in the Budget Papers is related to the Coal Compensation Board. Last year with a great flourish the Government announced that it would increase the amount of compensation paid to owners of coal rights that had been acquired by the Government, and that $250 million would be spent over a period of five years commencing last year. Indeed last year's Budget included $50 million for that purpose. This year the Budget Papers disclose that payments to the Coal Compensation Board for the provision of compensation to those whose coal has been acquired is only $26 million. I will await
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an outcry similar to that which accompanied the action by the Labor Government to acquire coal rights. That former Government paid compensation.
Mr Armstrong: You pinched them.
Mr ROGAN: Where is the $50 million that the present Government promised them? That amount has been halved. I await with interest to hear what the owners of those coal rights have to say. That figure is almost the same as was being paid by Labor when it was in office, and one could hear the howls and cries from one end of New South Wales to the other. Clearly the Government is reneging on its promise; it is another broken promise that has bitten the dust and for which the Government will have to answer.
[Extension of time agreed to.]
I shall now deal with the Department of Mineral Resources. I was pleased to see the Minister return to the House following the operation he underwent. I wish him good health and look forward to meeting him in the House and at functions that we might attend together from time to time. I refer to a decision by the Government to regionalise the Department of Mineral Resources. That decision is causing a great deal of worry to staff of the department. I understand that because of some ideological commitment - no other rational reason - it is planned that the department be regionalised, mainly to Orange, Armidale and Singleton. No cost benefit studies on the move have been undertaken, nor has any money been allocated in the Budget for it. Those in the mining industry are not impressed by the proposal, because 80 per cent of mining and exploration titles are lodged in Sydney. Those in the industry can lodge claims anywhere, but for reasons of their own they lodge most of them in Sydney. The majority of their offices are located in the Sydney region. Grave reservations have been expressed as to the wisdom of the regionalisation. I make it clear that I do not oppose for the sake of opposing the move to regionalisation. If it is logical and makes sense, the move should be supported. That is the general view of the union that represents most of these people, the Public Service Association. Understandably they are concerned because of what happened when the Division of Fisheries moved to Orange. I am pleased that the Minister for Agriculture and Rural Affairs is in the Chamber. Some 50 people were moved to Orange in June. That move was stopped in August and those people have now returned to Sydney. Can the Minister understand the anguish and concern of those families who were dislocated?
Mr Armstrong: On a point of order. It is only fair that the honourable member be asked to correct the record regarding the information he has provided to the House. There were not 50 persons or positions relocated by the Department of Agriculture, Division of Fisheries, to Orange prior to the relocation of the division back to Sydney. I ask that the record be amended accordingly. Fewer than 26 persons were transferred.
Mr Rogan: On the point of order. The Minister has not really taken a point of order, but I say simply that he will have the opportunity to speak in the budget debate
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and can review any of the figures I have given. The Minister has raised a spurious point of order for the sake of making an interjection.
Mr ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Chappell): Order! The Minister will be able to participate in the debate and will have adequate opportunity to correct any incorrect information given by the honourable member for East Hills.
Mr ROGAN: I do not intend to get into the semantics of the number of people who were moved. The fact is that a number of them were moved to Orange, had to sell up their homes, and their children had to dislocate themselves from the schools they were attending. When they arrived at Orange, because the Government did not know where it was headed and in disarray changed its mind, a decision was made then to bring those people back to Sydney. One can understand that the staff of the Department of Mineral Resources might say that this year the Division of Fisheries was moved, next year it might be them and if they make the move, dislocate themselves and move to Orange, Armidale or Singleton and the property market in Sydney suddenly booms, they will not be able to buy back into the Sydney home market. No proper studies have been made as to the rationale of such a move. It does not make sense to move the department, especially when no money is available for it. I ask the Minister and the Government to reconsider its decision. If it makes good sense to have regionalisation, let there be discussion on the proposal and let us see the costing for it. If the move was seen to be permanent, it would be supported by the work force. However they will not give their support when they have regard to the abortive attempt to move the Division of Fisheries from Sydney and then those who had been moved had to return shortly afterwards. I ask the Minister to think again before proceeding to take further action.
I notice in the Budget Papers mention of the dividend payments for the Electricity Commission. In the House today the Premier has given notice of legislation relating to the corporatisation of the Electricity Commission, changing its name to the Pacific Power Corporation. I certainly hope that the Government has done its homework on the legislation better than with the change of name. When the Government changed the name, a company wrote complaining about the fact that the name of the Electricity Commission was to be changed to a name so similar to its own that it would cause absolute confusion. I refer to the company called Pacific Power Generation. Honourable members can see that the names are so similar that there will be great confusion. After all the money that the Government has spent on coming up with this name change - God knows how much the consultants were paid to do all this work and to come up with some new logo - when the logo was unveiled we found that it is practically identical to the logo of the Western Australia electricity authority. Members of the commission could have taken an aeroplane trip to Western Australia to get the logo, or even have not gone that far. They could have asked for one of the authority's letterheads to be sent over and they could have adopted the details. I suppose that the consultants received a very handsome fee for supposedly having come up with this brilliant idea, which was practically an exact copy of the logo used in Western Australia.
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I would also like to draw attention to how much money is actually wasted by the Electricity Commission on legal fees. The lawyers must rub their hands in glee every time there is some dispute between the Electricity Commission and someone who has come up against it. The first thing the commission does when someone comes up against it is to hire a Queen's Counsel and a battery of lawyers - and into court they go. I refer to the case of Mr Kerry McDonald. He was dismissed from the Electricity Commission in 1988. On 4th November, 1988, the case was heard before Commissioner Harrison. It was decided that Mr McDonald was to be reinstated because there was absolutely no case against him, but Elcom was not prepared to accept the decision of the judge and the Industrial Commission. It appealed and that appeal was heard by Mr Justice Cahill.
Mr Armstrong: On a point of order. As much as I do not want to interrupt the member for East Hills who is quite a sincere member, I put it to you that the matter he is raising is far more appropriate as a private member's statement. It has nothing to do with the Budget whatsoever. This is a budget debate and, if a private member presents a problem on behalf of a constituent or wishes to raise a matter of particular concern to an individual, a far more appropriate time is provided within this Parliament for the honourable member to do so. I ask that you, Mr Acting-Speaker, bring the honourable member for East Hills back to the import of the debate tonight, the Budget.
Mr Rogan: On the point of order. Is it any wonder that the finance of the State is in such a deplorable state when the Deputy Leader of the National Party raises a point of order on a matter which addresses specifically the Budget Papers in so far as the expenditure of the Electricity Commission is concerned. I am talking about an absolute waste of money by the Electricity Commission. If anything is pertinent to a debate of this nature, that is.
Mr ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Chappell): Order! The member was beginning to stray fairly widely from the import of the Budget Papers. However, if he is making a single reference to highlight a particular point in the Budget, he should finish that point fairly quickly and move on to the substance of the debate.
Mr ROGAN: I could continue on that point and raise a dozen other points to highlight the fact that the Electricity Commission is blatantly wasting taxpayers' money by pursuing and victimising people, particularly people in the Oberon area. One farmer there has found it necessary to consider selling his property to pay the legal fees that the Electricity Commission has forced upon him, using public money to do so. It is a most disgraceful position. Indeed, the very people that the commission is victimising there were previously supporters of this very Government.
Mr ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Chappell): Order! The honourable member has exhausted his time for speaking.
Mr ARMSTRONG (Lachlan), Minister for Agriculture and Rural Affairs [9.4]: It gives me great pleasure to support the fourth Budget of the Greiner-Murray Government in the New South Wales Parliament. It goes without saying - and this
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opinion has certainly been vented right across New South Wales and in many other parts of Australia - that the Premier of New South Wales has again achieved a correct balance between fiscal prudence and the need to manage and direct resources to the crucial sectors of government. Indeed, in-depth editorials, financial papers and daily tabloids indicated that Premier Greiner, in leading the Government, had adopted a strategy that was appropriate for the 1990-91 fiscal year. The superior financial strategies of the Government in these extreme and tough times have resulted in a budget which holds the line in most areas and improves on last year's Budget in the important areas of government activity.
Unfortunately, New South Wales has been blighted by the effect of the recession we had to have, as it was described by the former Treasurer of Australia, the Hon. Paul Keating. It was inflicted upon us by a Federal Labor Government and supported by Labor across the country. That is what must make it so difficult for the Opposition in this Parliament, during the budget debate for 1991, to have any credibility or confidence at all in what it is saying, well knowing that the policies and philosophy of its own party, the party to which it swears allegiance in order to be endorsed to come into this place, has brought this country to its lowest ebb, possibly in the history of the last 200 years. This is a most unfortunate indictment of a political party that certainly has a large number of adherents in this country but which has effectively destroyed the economic, social and business infrastructure within Australia today. The insane desire of the former Federal Treasurer, Mr Keating, to screw down demand by an artificially tight money regime has resulted in the worst depression possibly since the 1890s. Despite this tremendous handicap, the Premier and Treasurer of New South Wales has produced a responsible and caring budget. This position contrasts with the economic cretinism of the Leader of the Opposition in his reply to the Budget a couple of weeks ago. The notion of caring of the Leader of the Opposition is to tighten the screws even further on the New South Wales economy. He is obviously a disciple of the Keating school of economics.
It was singularly notable that the Leader of the Opposition in his response failed to generate a reasonable opposing philosophy of economic management. He failed to generate in any way an alternative strategy to the good economic management of New South Wales that may effect some economic recovery within this State and which might be a lead for the rest of Australia. Unlike the Premier, he failed to recognise, to address and to come up with answers that will take New South Wales through the 1990s into the year 2000 with some sort of economic stability. As far as my own portfolio of agriculture is concerned, it was quite embarrassing that the so-called shadow spokesman for agriculture, the honourable member for Port Stephens, has not been able to offer even one credible line. Indeed, some senior members of the agricultural press commented to me on the weekend that it was unfortunate that there is not a reasonable alternative economic line being taken on agriculture economics in New South Wales at this time.
We have the almost unique position, certainly in modern times, where a government - the New South Wales Government - is taking a responsible line on agriculture, truly standing up and representing rural New South Wales. We have an
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Opposition that is totally devoid of initiative, of understanding, of feeling and of management ability. It is totally devoid of the ability to put forward even the most simplistic of alternative attitudes on the economic foundations for rural New South Wales. Mark my words: if Labor were in office in New South Wales, we would witness a duplication of the economic mismanagement that has emanated from Canberra, Melbourne, Perth, Hobart and Adelaide. The potential impact on the rural sector would be mind-boggling, given Labor's record for abandoning the bush. What a horrid prospect if ever that were to take place. Fortunately, as the majority of the public realise in New South Wales, the likelihood of Labor being in office is extremely remote. I intend to address three areas in my reply to the Budget, namely the Budget as it affects my portfolio of agriculture and rural affairs; the Budget as it affects the rural sector in toto, and the Budget as it affects my electorate of Lachlan.
Mr Beckroge: You would not know where it was.
Mr ARMSTRONG: It joins Broken Hill, if you have ever been there. My portfolio of agriculture and rural affairs has again received a substantial level of funding under the National Party-Liberal Party Government. The budget estimate for the New South Wales Department of Agriculture for this financial year is $147 million provided from Consolidated Fund for recurrent expenditure. Just some of the many highlights of the budget for agriculture are $54 million for plant industry programs, including research into crop diseases, pest research, nitrogen deprivation in soils, and safety and quality centres for fertilisers and cereals; some $43 million for animal industry programs including modified cattle tick control programs and tuberculosis and brucellosis eradication programs; some $40 million for agricultural support services, including grants to promote the advancement of agricultural education, and marketing services to improve efficiency by advice on commodity prospects.
As has been stated frequently, I am delighted there will be no staff redundancies or retrenchments for the financial year. Funding will be provided to complete the relocation of the head office of the Department of Agriculture from its present home of the McKell Building near Central Railway to Orange in the Central West in January 1992. Might I dwell for a moment on that extremely successful program. I note that the honourable member for East Hills tried to get some political mileage out of this relocation. How flat did he fall, as Labor has on this one. I remind the Opposition that it has not stated its position on that relocation. When it was announced the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. Bob Carr, indicated his support for it. On the same day the then spokesman on agriculture, a former member of the upper House, the Hon. J. R. Hallam, said that he did not support it. Then Mr Carr did a complete turn around a few weeks later and said he was unsure. In other words he was still debating the politics in his own mind. He was listening to the last person to talk to him. He did not have an opinion. He did not have a policy. He did not have a philosophy because he could not comprehend how in such a short time this Government could bring about the largest relocation or decentralisation of any government department in this country's history. This Government was able to achieve the commencement of that program within 18 months of coming to office. The program is right on target. We will take
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delivery of the building from the Abbey Group on a leaseback basis approximately one month ahead of schedule.
Already more than 200 people have been relocated to Orange. As was seen on the Channel 9's "Today" program this morning, there has been 100 per cent success with the relocation. It is worth while recording that some officers of the department were not particularly enamoured of the idea of being relocated. The spokesman on television this morning said it was a great thing and how happy were he and his wife and the staff who had gone to that wonderful central western town called Orange. They realise that apart from achieving improved productivity for the Department of Agriculture, the move will result in real cash savings to the taxpayers of New South Wales. It will save approximately $2 million in rentals and will result in cash savings of more than $80 million over the next decade for the taxpayers of New South Wales. The move will inject funds into the central western economy of about $18 million a year. Some real decentralisation stimulus will be provided to the Central West.
Quite clearly, apart from giving job opportunities to Department of Agriculture staff located throughout country areas of New South Wales, the move has significant and almost dramatic economic ramifications for lowering costs to taxpayers, improving productivity and putting some rural money into rural areas of New South Wales. The problem with this relocation so far as the Opposition is concerned is that in 12 years in office it did not even think about undertaking such a decentralisation. It does not understand the fundamental ramifications or the fundamental mechanics of how to approach such a program. Thank goodness we were able to demonstrate how it could be done. It is significant that the Labor Party in Victoria has not only come to New South Wales to consult with our department and the Orange city council, but is now following our example and moving a department from Melbourne to Bendigo. Surely it is the ultimate accolade regarding business management when a State of a different political persuasion consults with New South Wales and congratulates it for paving the way.
Other highlights of the Budget for New South Wales agriculture include capital works funding of $600,000 to complete the Elizabeth Macarthur Cultural Institute at Camden, a world-class facility; commercialisation of intellectual property rights ranging from plant types and animal vaccines to computer software and agricultural machinery; an increased emphasis and commitment to senior and middle management training; and an increase in funding for rural councillors of $426,000. I remind the House that New South Wales now provides 50 per cent - the same as the Commonwealth - in the first year of establishment for rural councillors in this State. That is necessary in the current climate, and I am sure it is supported by all members of this House. The Government has further recognised the very serious plight of farmers affected by the drought. As a result an additional allocation of $10 million for drought subsidies has been made. It is very likely that this figure will be increased by an additional $5 million. If one compares this with the miserly $5 million offered by the Commonwealth, one begins to understand how committed our Government is to the farming sector.
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It took the Commonwealth five months to respond to the basic needs of drought and recession in New South Wales. It took five months, despite the fact it made the commitment 18 months ago that it would be prepared to participate in drought if necessary. The deadly combination of the Federal Labor inspired recession and severe drought in New South Wales has resulted in significant additional funding for the Rural Assistance Authority. This financial year funding for the authority will be a total of $27.637 million from the Consolidated Fund. The major portion of this will be devoted to the rural adjustment scheme, funding for which is as follows: $22.777 million for part A assistance to maintain farmers for potential for long-term viability; $4.22 million for part B assistance on the basis of dollar-for-dollar Commonwealth-State funding to assist farmers with extreme short-term financial difficulties but who still exhibit long-term viability; and an estimated $9.72 million for part C assistance for funding the exiting of farmers from the industry.
It is rather sad that this year we are providing about $9.72 million to farmers who have a terminal financial problem. It indicates the depth of the Labor-inspired depression that is besetting the farm sector. In addition, approximately $18.8 million for concessional loans has been allocated under the following schemes: $9 million for conservation schemes; $2 million for oyster growers; and $7.8 million for natural disaster relief. The Sydney Market Authority has been allocated $3.272 million for capital works projects for 1991, by way of repayable loans. I might indicate that the Sydney Market Authority still runs the largest people business in Australia today. The Sydney Market Authority is Paddy's Markets. Market activities at Flemington have by far the largest passage of people of any business in Australia. The markets are so significant that they have been identified regularly as being one of the leading tourist attractions, if not the leading tourist attraction, for New Zealanders visiting these shores.
[Interruption]
Mr ARMSTRONG: Honourable members opposite do not appear to want them. They may well laugh. I am sure New Zealanders would be delighted to know that honourable members opposite laugh about them visiting these shores. That just goes to show the intellectual drought of honourable members opposite. They sit there and laugh at the suggestion that New Zealanders might come to this country. What an insulting lot they are! The loans will enable the authority to carry out its planned capital works projects, such as the completion of the child care centre, the purchase of additional plant and the purchase of land to enable site work to commence at Flemington Markets. The Meat Industry Authority, the New South Wales Dairy Corporation and the Homebush Abattoir Corporation are not funded from budget outlays. By way of comparison, Labor in Victoria has slashed 220 jobs from its Department of Agriculture. Total consolidated funding has dropped by 4.6 per cent in non-inflation adjusted terms. The Victorian Farmers Federation has labelled the Victorian Labor Budget as a sham, a hoax and a disgrace. Other Labor States are not much better; they have had to hack and slash their budgets through a combination of the federally induced recession and incompetent economic management.
[Extension of time agreed to.]
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I thank the House for its indulgence. Clearly, honourable members wish to hear more of the truth. Despite the Federal Labor induced recession this Government remains committed to country people in New South Wales. As a result, there remains a consistency of service by the Government in all areas of the Budget. Examples of the Government's commitment are: funding of non-commercial rural rail services of $229 million; a new contract system for bus services which will ensure a higher quality of service for commuters in rural New South Wales; an allocation of over $3 million to rural community transport services under the home and community care program; $695.4 million to be spent on rural roads, representing over half of the capital works program in New South Wales; assistance to rural communities through the continued implementation of the main street program and the heritage assistance program; and the completion of a draft North Coast regional water management strategy by the Department of Water Resources.
Other examples include: $4.8 million allocated for the maintenance and construction of port facilities for the fishing industry in Newcastle, Tweed Heads, Ballina, Brunswick Heads, Bermagui and Eden; a 50 per cent subsidy scheme to enable councils to undertake asset management practices for water assets; $845 million to be directed to people living in country centres as part of the Government's total housing program; improvements, extensions and the construction of court house facilities in Ballina, Bellingen, Lismore, Coffs Harbour and Wagga; 11 major corrective services projects for the rural sector; the establishment of over 200 new child care places to be created in multipurpose child care centres in rural areas; and $820 million to fund rural health services.
My electorate of Lachlan has received considerable funding from the New South Wales State Budget - in the order of $16 million. The majority of this funding - in excess of $12 million - will be spent on roads, including the upgrading and reconstruction of major portions of the Newell Highway, the Midwestern Highway and the Olympic Way. Clearly, this recognises the damage and trauma that was inflicted on my electorate last year by extensive floods. Considerable damage was done particularly to the Newell Highway, the main arterial road between Victoria and Queensland on the inland route. Clearly, business suffered large losses when that road was cut last year. However, I am pleased to be able to report that, with the provision of funding from the New South Wales Government, that road has been restored. It will be upgraded as a result of funding that has been made available in this year's Budget. An amount of $983,000 has been allocated for State Rail projects in the area, including Goobang Junction and the Parkes inland port project. Honourable members on both sides of the House would realise that Goobang Junction is one of the most exciting - it is certainly the most adventurous - port projects under construction in Australia today. It has imagination and flare. It has the stimulus that is so necessary to give New South Wales an edge in its trading of primary products.
The Budget will provide $357,000 for housing projects, including new units in Condobolin and Forbes; $1.9 million for existing public works projects, including the Cowra water supply project, stage two of the Forbes sewerage project - a program which will cost over $4 million - and the rural water supply project in West Ungarie and Betric
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Rannock; $490,000 for additional teacher housing in Condobolin, Trundle and Tullibigeal; and additional funds for charitable organisations in Cowra, Condobolin, Forbes, Parkes and West Wyalong under the special recession supplement package. It is fair to say that the taxpayers of New South Wales can be thankful that they have a government that is prepared to manage the State's resources and not allow finances to drift, as did the previous Labor Government. At the same time, taxpayers should question closely why Australia's finances are in such a state. Of course, they need look no further than the Federal Labor Government, which has deliberately and blithely engineered a recession of staggering proportions. I maintain that State Labor would be no better - all its members are cast from the same mould. Agriculture will maintain its importance in our Budget. For that I commend both the Premier and the Deputy Premier. The message is simple: this Government cares for the country. The Government recognises the contribution that country industries and country people make to the New South Wales economy. The Government acknowledges that agriculture is still the single largest employer in this country. It is still the single biggest utiliser of materials.
[Quorum formed.]
In deference to you, Madam Deputy-Speaker, and to the House I shall conclude my contribution to this debate. I am aware of the acute embarrassment that the honourable member for Auburn must have brought upon his side of the House. Despite the fact of the agreement that was clearly understood by members on both sides of the House, despite the fact that the Labor Party indicated that it would support, and indeed wanted to participate in, the estimates committees, and despite the fact that the Opposition indicated there would be none of this stupidity, the honourable member for Auburn has brought embarrassment upon yourself, Madam Deputy-Speaker, and upon this House. I sympathise with the Leader of the Opposition and with the shadow leader of the House for having to put up with such amateur tactics.
[Interruption]
Madam DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Auburn to order.
Mr ARMSTRONG: The honourable member for Auburn has brought disrepute upon the good management of this House. In deference to the good management of the Parliament I conclude my speech.
Mr BECKROGE (Broken Hill) [9.31]: It is a great honour to follow the Minister for Agriculture and Rural Affairs. He is always a star turn. It is a shame that soon he will be sitting on this side of the House, but that is the way it is. He is one of the great fakes and shams in this House; he is just hopeless. In speaking to the Appropriation Bill I shall endeavour to enlighten a few of the members on the Government side of the House and give them a few lessons in politics. Today we on this side of the House saw the Government dead in the water; and it was so beautiful. The honourable member for Bathurst said to me: "You know what? It reminds me of
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the Wran days. They are back". The honourable member has just returned from India, so he should know. I can tell the Government that it is dead in the water.
[Interruption from gallery]
Madam DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! I call to order members of the public in the gallery. It is most disorderly for people in the gallery to interject and applaud, and I ask them to refrain from such behaviour. If people in the public gallery continue to interject they will be removed by the attendants.
Mr BECKROGE: Today the honourable member for Bathurst provided us with this great insight. He said to me, "It reminds me of the Wran days". That is very true. As I sat in the House today I looked across to the Government benches and the only member I could see smiling was the honourable member for North Shore, the man with the name Smiles. I can only say that I thought to myself, "There is a dead Government". I taunted the honourable member for Tamworth and said: "No worries, mate, your hospital is safe. I am sending all the nurses they are sacking and all the Health and Research Employees Association staff they are sacking to Tamworth, because there is no way in the world they will close your hospital". On a more serious note, because this is a serious debate, I have a message for the Government. I can tell you that the people of New South Wales have decided that you are finished. There could be no greater feeling than that on this side of the House today. It is not to do with the opinion polls or the media; it is to do with the mood in the electorate. My constituents are saying the most incredible things. Most of my constituents are National Party voters; they are not Liberal Party voters. On 1st January there will not be too many debits made to the accounts of National Party farmers.
Mr Kerr: Debits?
Mr BECKROGE: The honourable member may not know what a debit is, but the National Party members know. On 1st January every year the National Party debits the accounts of its members and the money comes out. The farmers and the graziers of this State have said they have had enough; that the National Party does not represent them any more. They are looking for representation.
[Interruption]
Madam DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Monaro to order.
Mr BECKROGE: You might not believe it but the National Party voters have defected. They are not nasty people; they just want to get on with the job. They are woolgrowers and people who are producing for Australia. Do you know what will happen? They will vote for the Labor Party, just like Labor Party supporters voted for the National Party in my electorate in the 1988 election; because they thought they would get a better deal. I have big news for you people: the National Party supporters will vote Labor at the next election. That is the interesting part about the whole thing:
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unless National Party members have a safe seat they are finished. I would look up the coast if I were you. The Government is doing everything in my electorate. Broken Hill is seeing a rearguard action by this Government to take everything to the Central West. The only skerrick or speck of decency left is with the National Party members of the Central West. Up the coast they have shown exactly what they are about: they are into fast tracking and into deals done by the Queensland National Party. The truth is out; that is what is happening. My electorate is losing everything to the Central West, to Parkes and Dubbo.
There is no reasonable or rational explanation why my electorate should lose effective organisations like the Roads and Traffic Authority, which conducts most effective operations and in the market-place sells the result of its laboratory research. Can the Government tell me why the Roads and Traffic Authority laboratory should be moved from Broken Hill to Parkes? Can the Government tell me that the laboratory at Broken Hill is not doing the right thing, that it is not cost effective? The laboratory is cost effective but the decision has been made to shore up Parkes and Dubbo. The electoral geography of New South Wales is such that, as the Minister for Agriculture and Rural Affairs said, I am his neighbour. Of course I am his neighbour. He spoke about Condobolin. Fancy him referring to Condobolin. I subscribe to the Lachlander. Mrs Ryder-Wood has that right. She has produced that newspaper for many years, having taken over from her husband when he died. She is not anti anybody; she is just pro-Condobolin. She has the measure of the representative of Lachlan, the Minister for Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
I wonder why all these services are being moved from my electorate to the Central West. I suggest to the House that the reason is that the Government wants to shore itself up. I want to say something positive, something nice. Recently in Brewarrina I saw something that is really good. I refer to an accelerated loading facility - known as ALF. I have a pamphlet about it. This machine was not only devised by Australians for Australians but is being sold by Australians to the world. I pay tribute to those who created it. I refer to members of the Roads and Traffic Authority - or the Department of Main Roads as it was called when Labor was in Government, when it would have done much of the work. To be fair, the people who worked for the Department of Main Roads would now work for the Roads and Traffic Authority. Regardless of the politicians, the engineers of the Department of Main Roads and the engineers of the Roads and Traffic Authority have created a magnificent technological achievement. This facility produces on a road surface the equivalent of a four tonne weight at the rate of 1,000 times a day. In other words, it tests the road surface. One of the most important things to my constituents is an all-weather road. At one time it was thought that the best all-weather road was a good gravel road. However, we see in the cities considerable money spent on beautiful roads. I admit that that occurred not only under this Government but also under the former Labor Government.
This is a great way to provide a cheap tar seal. This geotextile fabric is being tested in the black soil country around Brewarrina and in the red soil country in the Broken Hill area. I say this for the benefit of National Party members present. Last
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weekend I contacted the Branch President of the National Party, Mr Peter Bevan. He is a good Australian worker and a person who has supported Broken Hill. He was devastated because the Silver City Highway, which runs from Broken Hill to Tibooburra and past his property, has been prepared for a geotextile seal, but the Deputy Premier, Minister for Public Works and Minister for Roads, a person I admire and respect, has seen fit to stop that program. I do not think the Deputy Premier wanted to do that but he has been persuaded to do so by the Liberals who, at the moment, call the shots. People in the bush know that the National Party has no standing. The Liberal Party runs the show and that is the sad part about being in coalition. Some might be of the view that the Labor Party is not really flash, but they would never vote National because voting National would be voting for the tail of the dog. Wal Murray probably wanted the sealing of that highway to go ahead but Nick Greiner and all his economic rationalists have told him it is not on. That means my electorate does not receive the geotextile seal. Last year the Silver City Highway had its surface prepared for the geotextile seal and now that will not occur. One day it was on, and the next it was not. Those funds went back to the larder, if you like. This is sad because those dangerous areas on the highway from Broken Hill to Tibooburra were to be sealed. Those dangerous patches on country and gravel roads need fixing.
This decision was made by someone in Sydney and that is sad. It does not matter who is in government in New South Wales, it is how one gets to the bureaucrats. On a philosophical note, the system we live under needs a lot of attention because we are all kidding ourselves. Honourable members on the Treasury benches may think they are running the show but they are not. That is the bad news because the bureaucrats come and go. I remember the head of the Department of Main Roads telling his Minister that "Ministers come and go but we stay here forever". That is an arrogant and terrible comment. I hope that our parliamentary democracy can be better organised. Whoever is in government owes it to the people of New South Wales to govern. Bureaucrats should not be running the show. They have tenure of office, perks of office, and a set job to do but do not have to explain themselves to the people. Ministers should be more prepared to involve themselves in their own jobs. They should take up the cudgels and say: "This is not good enough and not what I am elected for. I am not going out, facing the people and telling them that rot". Honourable members opposite should perform and then they will not have the derision we all suffer from in terms of "Yes Minister". That was the program that gave it up for everyone. Honourable members will not admit it, but people say: "Yes, I know what happens in Parliament. I have watched `Yes Minister', and Sir Humphrey and that is what happens". Honourable members' names may appear in the newspapers but actually Sir Humphrey runs the show. The disappointing thing about democracy is that it is true. Most people can identify with that. Whoever is in government at the beginning of next year - and I suppose it will be this Government -
[Interruption]
Mr BECKROGE: My colleagues would not get up but then again they are not as sanguine as I am. Whatever party is in government should take this advice: it does not matter whom one employs, it is whom one must face, and that is the people of New
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South Wales. Those who work for government are there to facilitate it. If they do not, they are not wanted. One reason I do not believe in the senior executive service is that a person should not be paid $200,000 to do the job that that person had been doing for $80,000. We must understand the meaning of democracy. People elect members and expect them to perform. I will never take the rap for some dumb public servant who has given me the wrong advice. I want it put on notice, whether I am a Minister or not, that honourable members on the Treasury and Opposition benches should understand that our democracy is more important than someone who is not accountable. They should not be running the show.
This Government has a lot to answer for with public service cutbacks. It is paying people at the top too much money. In Broken Hill public services are being cut. WorkCover is a classic example. The Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Further Education, Training and Employment has told me that Broken Hill cannot have a WorkCover office. I have a great deal of respect for the Minister and believe he makes his own decisions. A WorkCover office was established in Broken Hill with one man but without a secretary. This man works in the same building as I do and he comes and goes. He does his best without a secretary. The Government says a one-man office is not efficient. However, a secretary would take messages and make the office more efficient. Broken Hill is not so small an industrial city that it does not warrant a WorkCover office with one officer and a secretary. I cannot believe that the Minister is serious about this matter. The Chamber of Commerce, mining companies, councils and involved people have made pleas to the Minister to have this office manned by two people. I cannot believe the Government will run out of money over this important public service.
This week a deputation wished to meet with the Premier. The Premier has delegated the honourable member for Strathfield, a parliamentary secretary, to speak with that delegation. That is fine but I hope the Premier will speak to it in time. I appreciate the honourable member for Strathfield has been made available and that the Minister for Health Services Management will speak to the deputation. I do not wish to tell the Government how to suck eggs, but if it is fair dinkum it will talk and listen to the people. Not everyone has the one point of view. My constituents do not all vote Labor but they want something from the Government. The Government should listen and understand that people have points of view. I have made my points from the heart. I have done this because I am thrilled about what happened today. I think there will be change of government and the people of New South Wales will be given a chance.
[Interruption]
Mr BECKROGE: It costs nothing to consult. Someone asked Bob Carr what he would do with a $2 billion underlying deficit. The answer was that it costs nothing to consult; it does not cost a cent.
Mr KERR (Cronulla) [9.50]: The honourable member for Broken Hill made an interesting contribution to the debate. It did not touch a great deal on the Budget or on rural New South Wales or Broken Hill. It almost was an endorsement of the
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National Party, the leader of which he respects and admires. I think he said that National Party people are the salt of the earth, hard working people who produce for Australia. That was a wonderful endorsement of them.
Mr Amery: They would make good Opposition members.
Mr KERR: No, I think what was said by the honourable member for Broken Hill came from the heart and was truly representative of his views about the membership and leadership of the National Party. I would not quibble with that.
Mr Amery: Do you think he would intend to join?
Mr KERR: I do not know whether he will join it, but I am happy to work in partnership with the National Party for the benefit of this State. One of the things referred to by the honourable member for Broken Hill in his speech was the WorkCover office, which comes under the administration of another Minister who is admired by the honourable member for Broken Hill, the Hon. John Fahey. The honourable member places his admiration and affection well. When the coalition parties first came to office they inherited a system of workers' compensation. Despite all the faults of the former Wran Government, it never touched the benefits that were given to the workers. But when Unsworth became Premier, as I said in the House recently, workers found out on which side of the barricades the Government stood and where the machine guns were pointed. The Labor Government reduced the benefits to workers under the WorkCover legislation in order to keep premiums down. That was probably the greatest sacrifice the industrial wing of the Labor Party, the Labor Council which is now fermenting strikes, ever made for the political wing of the Labor Party. When we came to office we set up a working committee, of which I was part. That committee was established by the Hon. John Fahey and consisted of representatives from the Labor Council, employers and -
Mr Bowman: The lawyers.
Mr KERR: That is quite right, it included the lawyers. I shall tell the honourable member why they were included: because concepts of justice were involved. The Bar Council and the Law Society worked hard to get that legislation in place.
[Interruption]
Mr KERR: If the honourable member asks the Labor Council whether they want that system to be returned and their members denied access to the courts, he will be told. With that degree of consultation and a committee that worked very hard with a great deal of good will, the legislation was changed. That legislation was supported by the Labor Party. In the past three years there has been an increase in the benefits available to workers in this State and a reduction in premiums. If premiums are down, it is possible to give jobs to people. A lot of small businesses were literally going out of business because of oncosts. One of the most serious of those was the premium for workers' compensation. I am delighted to have been able to take up the issues raised
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by the honourable member for Broken Hill. I should make a few brief comments on the contribution to the budget debate made by the Leader of the Opposition. It was extraordinary. I looked in it for an alternative strategy or policy in relation to the economic state of New South Wales. What was the strategy or alternative policy to get people back to work? The Leader of the Opposition was going to bring Neil Pickard back from London and close down the Agent General's office in London.
Mr Bowman: Hear, hear!
Mr KERR: The honourable member for Swansea says: Hear, hear! The Leader of the Opposition was going to close the Tokyo office. He was going to bring about a Neil Pickard led recovery. That was an extraordinary contribution. Even Opposition members see the transparency of it. There is a more serious aspect to it. Europe is becoming one market in 1992, Australia is looking for export opportunities for its commodities and products in Europe and Asia, but the Opposition is taking the xenophobic approach; New South Wales is bunkering down and all its overseas offices will be closed; opportunities overseas will be closed to us. That is the alternative offered by the Leader of the Opposition. It was interesting to hear his remarks about Neil Pickard, the Marxist approach. Unfortunately for the Leader of the Opposition Mr Pickard does not fit into that form of class warfare. He left school at an early age to support his family. He became an apprentice butcher. He is not one of the ruling class. The person that the Opposition is pillorying and seeking to make some sort of casualty in the class war is a person trying to serve the State. That was one of the solutions put forward by the Leader of the Opposition.
The other solution proposed by the Leader of the Opposition was that the Labor Party would take a dry economic rationalist approach to capital works. It would reduce capital works. That was the area in which there was room to reduce the State deficit. Such a proposal is really a proposal to reduce facilities for the people of New South Wales. The electorate of Cronulla knows all about reductions in capital works. A long time ago a bridge should have been built at Waterfall. The money allocated for that bridge was used for the Darling Harbour project. The honourable member for Broken Hill said that even under the Labor Government money was taken and used for the city. It is extraordinary that money that was required for a bridge that could well save lives in wet weather conditions was used for a monument like Darling Harbour. I shall continue to press this Government to build the bridge at Waterfall. I make no apology for that. The people of Bundeena need that bridge.
I do not suppose anyone could accuse the Leader of the Opposition of murdering the truth. He has the perfect alibi: he never gets near it. No one in his right mind in New South Wales would look to the Opposition for salvation. The present economic position in New South Wales is very much the result of Federal Government policy. Australia is in the grip of a very severe recession. For months the former Federal Treasurer denied that Australia was in a recession. Finally, when he was forced by economic statistics to admit the truth, he said it was the recession we had to have. This recession is unlike any that Australia has had, because those in the past were influenced largely by overseas trends. This is a home grown recession deliberately created and
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inflicted on the people of Australia by the Hawke Labor Government. The justification for it is: it is the recession we had to have.
Mr Amery: How does one stop the Russians from buying the wool?
Madam DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Mount Druitt to order.
Mr KERR: The honourable member for Mount Druitt will be patient while I explain how we came to have the recession and why it is different from the economic conditions that we have normally had. Under the Labor Party in its hundredth year, unemployment has risen above 10 per cent. That ballpark statistic disguises three very vital facts. The first is that many people who have experienced the bleak despair of chronic unemployment are no longer registering for jobs. Unemployment in the 15-year-old to 25-year-old age group is at record levels - well over 20 per cent. Part-time employment, including a four-day working week, is increasingly at the expense of full-time work. The party of the Opposition is presiding over that sort of human misery. Bankruptcies are increasing. Large and small companies are collapsing, and that is causing widespread losses not only in employment but also to hundreds of thousands of shareholders who are dependent on adequate dividends for their economic survival. Many of such people are in my electorate. Many have worked all their lives, have made investments and are being robbed of their rewards for those years of saving. Many people are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain home mortgage payments, yet the Prime Minister's big business mates, now notorious for their damage to the nation, are continuing to crowd daily headlines.
Our overseas debt totalled only $38 billion in the last years of the Fraser Government. That debt has been quadrupled - increased more than four times - I explain to the honourable member for Mount Druitt. That quadrupling of our national debt means that a large slice of our national earnings are used in interest repayments. They threaten Australia's credit standing in the world. That is why we are proud of the AAA rating of the State. It is not just economic jargon. The AAA rating means that there has been good stewardship by this Government of the people's money and resources. It also means that we can borrow money on favourable terms and that, unlike the Labor States whose credit ratings do not allow them to borrow with such favourable terms, we save money that we can use for hospitals and schools.
Mr Knowles: Eastern Creek.
Mr KERR: The honourable member for Moorebank mentions Eastern Creek. That is a facility for the people of western Sydney; it is a facility that the people in this city will be able to use. We should compare the cost of Eastern Creek with that of Darling Harbour. There is no hope of Darling Harbour ever becoming a paying proposition. I am glad that the Chief Secretary and Minister for Administrative Services is present. She stood up for the people of western Sydney. What is wrong with a bicycle track? Not everybody goes to the opera and the ballet. Some of us like to use sporting facilities.
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Mr Hartcher: And a few beers at the end of a hard day.
Mr KERR: The honourable member for Gosford is not averse to a few beers. Let us not have the snobbishness that we have on the other side. We are quite proud of what we in this Government do to provide facilities for the people. I want to say something about the effect of the economic climate on workers and what the Labor Party has done to them. Our manufacturing industries, which once employed 28 per cent of the Australian work force, have shrunk year by year under Hawke Labor Government policies. This country is being flooded by imports, increasing the size of our adverse balance of payments. The manufacturing industries now employ only 16.5 per cent of the Australian work force. This is not something to be proud of. Until recently, interest rates were at record levels, and they were deliberately made so through being propped up by the Labor Party and the Labor Federal Government. Inflation for most of the eight years that the Hawke Government has been in office has been at three or four times the world level. Is that something to be proud of? This Government has to face and grapple with the consequences of that.
The Opposition's party policy has been to have a planned and significant reduction in the purchasing power of the community and has involved the engineering of a serious decline in living standards. That has been its ugly way of reducing imports - to deny Australian people the capacity to purchase imports. That is not something to be proud of. It is the driest and most irrational economic policy that this country has ever seen. The central issue is that Australia, under the government of the Labor Party, has become uncompetitive. Why is this so? We are a country that has been blessed with land, a good climate, an abundance of minerals and a capacity to generate cheap electricity. We are almost self-sufficient in oil and gas. Australians are not ill educated when compared with people in the rest of the world. They are prepared to work hard. They are not slackers. We have seen a confrontationalist Labor Party approach, an attempt to set Australians against Australians. This false and ugly concept of class warfare is still ingrained in the politics of those on the other side. Under the Federal Government and the various State governments, we have seen not a bettering of standards but a levelling down. That is why the Opposition opposes industrial reforms in this nation. To pay the best fitter and turner the same margin of skill as the least efficient is a recipe for stagnation. It also denies a good worker the just rewards for his work. Let us look at the real world. I am glad that the honourable member for Campbelltown is here, given his recent trip to Europe.
Mr Knight: I am not glad to be listening to this drivel.
Mr KERR: The honourable member for Campbelltown should not jeopardise his credentials with that sort of interjection. He would appreciate that the employer wants to produce a high quality product at a competitive price and he wants a market that is wide and receptive, but what does the worker want? The worker wants a reasonable wage. He wants a wage that makes him capable of purchasing goods and services of high quality and at a reasonable cost. Honourable members should remember that the market in Australia, and in this State in particular, consists primarily of people who work for wages. As in this recession and under the Federal Government,
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the employer loses his market when the worker's purchasing power declines. Workers lose their jobs when the cost and quality of their output are not competitive. The boss and the worker have a common interest in quality and productivity. We are concerned with increasing that productivity, not in any cold and dehumanised way, but in a way that supports the vital self-interest of all Australians.
I will tell honourable members how this is being done by this Government and its Budget. We are maintaining confidence, improving living standards, providing better and more responsive services, maintaining financial flexibility and constraining debt. If we mortgage the future for the present, none of us will have a future. We are renewing efficiency and infrastructure and we are bringing about taxation reform so that people who work are rewarded. Ultimately, this Government is all about choice, whether it be in the area of education - in giving parents the right to choose their school - whether it be the right of citizens to enjoy service; whether it be in the area of transport; whether it be in the Chief Secretary's Department, where a range of reforms have helped the people of Sydney and of this State; or whether it be the right to work. That is what enterprise bargaining is all about. It is what our industrial relations system is all about. Ultimately, this Budget is not about simple economic strategies or ways by which we can manipulate figures or records. This Budget's documentation is probably the most comprehensive ever. It is designed to be readable by the ordinary citizen. There was a time not so long ago -
Mr Amery: I saw them all on the train this morning browsing through it.
Mr KERR: Even in Mount Druitt people on the trains are reading the budget documents, because they are readable. The Government is proud of that. What is in the budget documents is all about the future of this State and those people reading the documents on the trains are reading about the sorts of things that are happening in public transport. That is why there is such a great interest in Mount Druitt in the budget documents and I am pleased about that interest. It shows the level of concern in this State that people now look to this Government and read the budget documents. I know the documents represent the best guarantee for the future for those people and for their children.
Mr AMERY (Mount Druitt) [10.10]: I preface my remarks in this budget debate by saying that it is interesting to follow the honourable member for Cronulla. He commenced his contribution by saying that the honourable member for Broken Hill did not speak to the Budget, but he then spent 20 minutes talking about Federal politics and everything other than the Budget Papers and the Budget. This probably would be the only Budget in quite a number of years that has been subject to arguments from both sides of the House about the issue of lies. We have all seen the Premier on television and heard him on radio accusing the Labor Party of promoting the campaign of the big lie. The response of the Labor Party is that at least it published a book about the Premier's lies. There have been claims and counterclaims of lies about the state of the New South Wales economy. I suppose the best way to support the Opposition's argument that for some time the Government has been dishonest about the Budget is to start by referring to the editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald on 25th September. It
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is unusual to be quoting from an editorial from the Sydney Morning Herald and hoping to criticise the Greiner Government because as we know, and those who study history would certainly know, in virtually every election campaign this century, one way or another the editorial has found some way of complimenting a conservative government or mitigating the downside of a budget. The editorial states:
Last year, when Mr Greiner was running for re-election, he said he was budgeting for a small surplus; he ended up with what voters were told was a small deficit.
Here is the most damning criticism:
But, of course, Mr Greiner was not quite telling it as it was.
Before honourable members try to work out the significance of that, it is certainly not using the word lies or the term blatant lies. The comment is very well guarded. The best way to draw an analogy with this strong criticism is to use the age old story which supports the strength of a mother's support for her son. We have all heard the argument that a mother will say: "My son is not guilty. He was only walking down the street with his pen knife in his hand, cleaning his fingernails, and he stumbled and fell on to the person in front of him and accidentally stabbed him in the back seven times". The story is that mum could never come to grips with the fact that her darling son had actually stabbed someone.
If I could make the analogy with the press release. The newspaper editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald has consistently supported a conservative government, yet the one I refer to concedes that Mr Greiner was not quite telling it as it was. That is the most guarded way of saying that for the last couple of years Mr Greiner and this Government have been deceitful, untruthful and even lying about the state of the New South Wales economy. When the Premier was delivering his Budget Speech on 24th September I made the remark to one of my colleagues that it was like forcing a student to read out his failed examination report to the class. The Budget Papers show one thing, if they show nothing else, and that is that the 1991-92 Budget is in effect a report card of a failure - a failure of a Premier to manage the economy of this State and the affairs of the public sector in this State. How else could one describe a Budget Speech which achieved a deficit of $1.1 billion only 12 months after the Premier predicted a surplus of $34 million? In the space of one year we have gone from the situation of the Premier saying in this House that there would be a surplus of $34 million, and this year he had to concede that the deficit is $1.1 billion.
Over the past three years New South Wales residents have seen the disposal of money-losing institutions such as the Homebush Abattoir, the Government Printing Office and the State Brickworks. Now they will see the disposal of institutions that do make money, such as the Government Insurance Office and the State Bank. We are told that the sale of these profit-making institutions in New South Wales is for the common good of the people of New South Wales. The Premier has claimed that despite the deficit, despite the need to sell off the farm, New South Wales is doing better than its neighbouring States. That was a central part of the contribution to this debate by the honourable member for Cronulla. However, once again, for the fourth time in the
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Premier's speech the rhetoric does not match the facts. New South Wales Treasury figures reported in the Australian on 25th September show that the rhetoric does not match the facts. It said that the New South Wales deficit represented a 25 per cent larger burden on its residents than the Tasmanian deficit on Tasmanian taxpayers.
The article also stated, based on Treasury figures, that the New South Wales deficit is forecast to grow faster than that of any other State, despite the fact that, with the exception of South Australia, it will grab more in new taxes than any other State. The article carried the heading, "More taxes, bigger deficit than most". The article went on to point out that the cost of the New South Wales deficit per head of population is budgeted to rise 19.6 per cent to $187. The actual deficit figure of $1.1 billion is up 21.1 per cent on the previous year's figure. The article went on to show how favourably other States compared with New South Wales, not the other way around as the Premier and Government members would have us believe. I suppose I should finish by quoting from that article, which states:
The bottom line is that NSW taxpayers will contribute almost twice as much tax a head ($1590) as Queenslanders ($996) and slightly more than Victorians ($1339).
So the claims of the Leader of the Opposition that the New South Wales economy is in as bad - or worse - a position as the Victorian economy has been substantiated by figures from the New South Wales Treasury, as reported in the Australian on 25th September. Those figures alone should spell an end to the comparisons with other States, but despite that Government members continue to talk about the favourable position of this State compared with our neighbours. I am sure none would seriously consider comparing the New South Wales economy with that of Queensland. I turn to some of the portfolio area allocations, in particular that of health, which has been in the news of late. The budget allocation for the Minister for Health and Community Services at page 233 shows that average staffing will drop from 85,637 to 85,007, a drop of 630 employees on average this financial year. For the Department of Water Resources, an area in which I shadow the Minister, the employment cut is from 1,021 to 935, down 86 employment positions. Last year the Department of Water Resources was allocated $44.8 million for capital works. However, it spent only $12.7 million. This year it has been allocated $29.5 million, which means that in effect the department is to continue to spend the money it was allocated last year. In effect it will be running for two years on last year's appropriation.
The State Government has failed to match the top-up funding of the Federal Government under the Federal water resources assistance program. Only recently the Federal Government allocated an extra $970,000 for western Sydney flooding. The Minister for Natural Resources stated that this Government will not match that funding. All honourable members will recall the crocodile tears shed by the Premier, the Deputy Premier and the Minister for Natural Resources. They have criticised the Federal Government for not matching the State Government's funding offer of $5 million for flooding. That argument was used for about two years. However, the State Government's bluff will be called. It will say: "We will not match the $5 million as the Federal Government did not do it. We will allocate $970,000". The State Government will back down on matching that allocation. As a result, nearly $1 million of extra
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funding for western Sydney floodworks will not be spent. Programs in areas such as Parramatta, the Blacktown local government area, Penrith, and Fairfield - programs totalling $35 million - will be short of this amount of money, all because the State Government is refusing to match that allocation.
Before I pass from the water resources budget I should mention that these reductions in funding and in the level of employment will have a dramatic effect on country towns, irrigation areas and many small businesses in country towns. It has been the custom for honourable members speaking in the budget debate to make reference to allocations made to their electorates. Since 25th May my new electorate has been the Mount Druitt electorate. Let me tell the shortest story that has ever been told in any speech in the budget debate. I will talk about capital works allocations to the Mount Druitt electorate. A document issued by the New South Wales Treasury entitled "State Capital Programme 1991-92 - Works Being Undertaken in the Mount Druitt Electorate" clearly shows that there has been little capital expenditure in western Sydney. If Mount Druitt had been used as an example it would show no capital expenditure at all. According to this document capital works in my electorate have been restricted to two or three portfolio areas. The largest item is roadworks. The document states that Horsley Drive will receive $730,000 this year. Horsley Drive is the deviation around the Eastern Creek Raceway. I would always welcome an amount of $730,000 to be spent on any main road in my electorate. The only point is that Horsley Drive is not in my electorate.
This evening I heard the honourable member for Fairfield giving the Government credit for allocating $730,000 for roadworks to be carried out on Horsley Drive. I am sure the Government is padding out its capital works program by allocating the wrong amounts of money to the wrong electorates. In fact, it appears that the honourable member for Fairfield and I share the same allocation. To be fair, the document mentions a $235,000 allocation to Blacktown city council. However, this is shared between Riverstone, Mount Druitt, Londonderry and Blacktown electorates. One item of $4,780,000 is listed for traffic facility construction. However, the document provides no details about that work. How much of that $4,780,000 will be spent on the Phillip Parkway, a project which has been under construction for a couple of years and which is jointly funded by the Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited? This project is part of an agreement for BHP to build a steel mill at Rooty Hill. Will this money be spent on items that have been the subject of petitions submitted to this House over the past few weeks which deal with matters such as the roundabout at the intersection of Francis Street and Sherbrooke Street and the proposed roundabout at the intersection of Duke Street and Woodstock Avenue, Mount Druitt? These matters have been raised in the local media. Petitions have been submitted in this House but, unfortunately, there has been no comment from the Government about whether this money will be allocated.
I made reference earlier to the budget allocation to the Department of Health. Health budget allocations to my electorate relate to one item - a new facility for the confused and disturbed at the Mount Druitt Hospital. This facility is most welcome in my electorate. It is certainly most welcomed by the executive of the Mount Druitt Hospital. The total cost of this facility will be $1.281 million. This year $356,000 has
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already been allocated. Though I appreciate the budget allocation for this facility the capital allocation for my electorate hardly supports the Minister's claim that western Sydney will benefit from recent cutbacks announced by this Government, in particular, the closure of inner city and western Sydney hospitals. My electorate is served by the Mount Druitt and Blacktown hospitals - Blacktown hospital has the major maternity ward in my electorate - and the Westmead and Nepean hospitals.
Today the honourable member for Broken Hill mentioned the nurses' strike. They went on strike because of cutbacks in health services in this State. Only last week a couple of enrolled nurses from the local hospital came to see me. They had bettered themselves, had come to the end of a college course and were ready to graduate as registered nurses on 1st December, 1991. They will graduate with another 2,000 people. The tragedy is - and this is the reason that they demonstrated, perhaps for the first time in years - that only 1,200 graduates will be placed in the public hospital system in the coming year. Nearly 800 newly graduated registered nurses will be unemployed in New South Wales in 1992. They will not be able to find employment, not only in the public hospital system because the positions will not be there, but also in the private hospital system because private hospitals require registered nurses to complete a 12-month post-graduate course in public hospitals.
The so-called benefits for western Sydney will affect my electorate. Enrolled nurses are being employed in large numbers to cut hospital budgets. In many cases these hospitals require registered nurses to work in various wards. In a number of hospitals nurses who go off on sick leave or on leave are not replaced as the hospitals are unable to finance the replacements. As I pointed out earlier, 1,200 registered nurses will graduate in a few weeks' time, but 800 of them will be unemployed. These are the benefits for western Sydney that the Minister for Health Services Management boasts about. I only hope that western Sydney will not suffer from any of these cutbacks. What is noticeable from the capital works allocation for my electorate - this was detailed in the document issued to me by the New South Wales Treasury - is that there is no mention of any allocation for the Department of School Education or the Department of Water Resources. So no flood money will be provided for the Mount Druitt electorate. There is no mention of any allocation to the New South Wales Police Service. As far as the Mount Druitt electorate is concerned, capital works projects are limited to roads, some of which are in my electorate and some of which are in neighbouring electorates. There is mention of an allocation to the Department of Housing for an ongoing project to build both rental homes and homes for purchase under the HomeFund scheme, but there is nothing else. No extra money will be spent on capital works for all the other government departments in my electorate.
I turn briefly to the Department of Consumer Affairs. The Government has continually downgraded consumer affairs, which is an important portfolio for Labor governments, but not for conservative governments. Budget Paper No. 3, at page 151 and following, shows a continuing decline of allocations for this department. In 1990-91 the Government appropriated to the department $35.9 million for recurrent services, of which the department spent only $34.479 million. This year, recurrent expenditure for consumer affairs has been cut by almost $5 million, to $30.255 million. Capital
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expenditure has been increased only modestly from $3.56 million to $3.64 million. As a result, there has been a marginal decrease in employment in the various sections of the department. As my time is almost up, I merely note that it is obvious that the department has received a further substantial cutback in its budget allocation.
Debate adjourned on motion by Mr Cochran.
House adjourned at 10.31 p.m.