Malabar Sewage Treatment Plant Incinerators

Mr CARR (Maroubra - Leader of the Opposition) [3.28]: I move:

That this House directs the Premier to comply with resolutions of this House by:

(1) requiring the Minister for Planning to comply with the motion passed by this House on 17 March 1994 to close down "and decommission the Malabar sludge screenings incinerators"; and

(2) tabling and making public without restricted access, pursuant to Standing Order 54, reports relating to privatisation of the Water Board, forthwith in accordance with the motion passed by this House on 14 April 1994.

The Opposition has been forced to move this motion today because the Premier and his Ministers are intent on ignoring the will of the Parliament. The question is: what are they covering up? The Government is not prepared to meet its obligations to protect the health of the community and to tell the truth about the future of the Water Board. It has been eight long months since this House first directed the Minister for Planning, and Minister for Housing to close down the Malabar sludge incinerators. Over that eight months more stories have emerged from the Water Board about incineration at Malabar, such as the reports of Richard, Kathryn and Colin Cass, who have video evidence of the incinerator with white smoke billowing from its smokestack.

According to the Water Board, this event was caused by breakdowns at the plant, resulting in the incomplete combustion of the toxic sludge. Residents are concerned that this event may have allowed the discharge of cancer-causing particles from the incomplete burning of the sewage screenings. Residents should fear these discharges. These screenings contain 42 known pollutants, including chromium, nickel, mercury, lead, and vinyl chloride. Other evidence has come to light which makes it even more urgent for the Government to comply with this Parliament's resolution in March. Internal Water Board reports have confirmed the practice of Water Board staff of tampering with equipment to override the automatic shutdown of incinerators at the Malabar plant. The practice has again led to the incomplete burning of toxic materials at the plant. The 1991 Water Board report, which has become available, states:

A slight variation in the material quality such as moisture contents or an uneven feed rate cause a large pressure surge.

This instrumentation frequently initiates incinerator shutdowns. Most of the instrumentation have been damped or made less sensitive in order to prevent the incinerator from shutting down.

Such a practice is unsound and frequently led to, for example, incomplete combustion of feedstock resulting in breaching of licensing conditions.

If ever there was an indictment of the Water Board's lack of concern for community health, or its superficial concern for the environment, this report is it. Until now I had been prepared to accept that the Minister for Planning and the Premier had not acted on Parliament's directive to close down the incinerators through either incompetence or sheer laziness. But it seems that there is a hidden agenda. According to members of the action group, Campaign to End Sewage Smells, there is deep suspicion that the Water Board is planning to increase the level of incineration at the plant by transferring sludge and other sewage screenings from coastal sewage plants to Malabar. It would all come back to Malabar. Frankly, that would be a disaster for the community. It would mean a measurable increase in air pollution in the region and would lead to an explosion of trucking activity on local roads.

It is all too clear to the residents of Malabar and Maroubra why the incinerators at the sewage treatment plant are still operating three years after the incinerators at North Head were closed. It simply emphasises the need for Parliament to force the
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Premier to have his Ministers comply with the directions of this Parliament. Furthermore, the Premier has defied Parliament by failing to table his plans to privatise the Sydney Water Board. On 14 April this year Parliament used Standing Order 54 to force the Government to produce reports prepared on the privatisation of the Water Board. It is now clear that the Premier is determined to withhold the reports because they confirm that he was pursuing privatisation of the board and that there would be higher water bills if the board were corporatised. If Water Board privatisation reports cost the public $750,000, members of the public deserve to see the contents. The motion was passed more than seven months ago, yet the documents still have not been produced in Parliament.

It is not as though the Government did not have any warning that it would be required to table the documents. The motion to force the Government to table the reports has been on the notice paper for more than one year. This is all part of the Government's strategy to hide from the public its plans to privatise the Sydney Water Board. On 15 January 1993 the planning Minister told the Sydney Morning Herald that the board was "a candidate for privatisation". They are the words of the Minister. Ever since this outburst of honesty the Government has tried to keep secret its privatisation agenda. When the Sydney Morning Herald tried to obtain documents under freedom of information legislation, the documents were reclassified by the Minister's office as Cabinet documents so they could not be released. On 3 February 1993 the Sydney Morning Herald initiated an FOI search for three Water Board reports relating to privatisation.

When the Water Board refused to release the reports and made the transfer to the Premier's Department, the Sydney Morning Herald initiated a search of the Water Board's FOI file notes. On 2 March 1993 the planning Minister told Parliament that the documents would not be publicly released because they were part of the Cabinet process. The file notes obtained by the Sydney Morning Herald under the second FOI search showed that on the same day the Minister's office gave a written direction to the board to stop the release of the documents. The planning Minister's position that they were Cabinet documents contradicts advice to the board from the Government's expert on FOI law, the Deputy Crown Solicitor, Mr John Withington, who, on 15 February, advised the board that the documents could not be classified as Cabinet documents because they were not created for the Cabinet. He argued that there was no reason that the documents should not be released.

On 9 March, the Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council questioned the planning Minister again on Water Board privatisation reports. He asked whether the reports were transferred from the board to the Premier's Department before or after 2 March and whether the transfer was done to evade FOI laws. The Minister replied that the transfer was not done to evade FOI laws and that "the transfer of these reports to the Premier's Department was done well before the Hon. Franca Arena asked her question [on 2 March]". The FOI file notes show that this was not the case. The notes show that the documents were not transferred to the Premier's Department until late on 4 March. The Premier's Department did not know whether it had the authority to accept the documents at 12.45 p.m. on 4 March.

The Managing Director of the Water Board, Mr Wilson, wrote a memorandum on 2 March to the board's FOI coordinator stating that it was regrettable that the Minister's office had intervened in the processing of the FOI application. A note suggesting that the board was prepared to release all the documents was based on Withington's advice. When Parliament now demands to see the reports, the Premier flouts the ruling. The only reasonable response is for the Government to table these reports immediately so that they can be considered in the context of the Government's water corporatisation legislation. The Government has avoided every request. It has flouted FOI laws and now it flouts the will of Parliament. I call on all honourable members to support the motion so that the Government does not treat this Parliament as a joke.

Mr SOURIS (Upper Hunter - Minister for Land and Water Conservation) [3.36]: The matter that the Leader of the Opposition does not understand is that he left the passage of this motion in the hands of the honourable member for Blacktown. As a result - to his embarrassment - he will learn that the motion was technically flawed. He will also learn that we have the information ready to be tabled under Standing Order 54. That motion stated:

That this House, pursuant to Standing Order 54, orders to be laid before the House the following documents:

(1) KPMG Peat Marwick - Review of Tax Implications for Board re: Corporatisation/Privatisation; and

(2) National Economic Research Associates (NERA) - Model for Corporatisation/Privatisation of the Water Board.

Debate ensued on the motion, the question was put, the House divided and the motion was agreed to. Crucially, the member for Blacktown messed up the motion by failing to give a time and/or date requirement and failing to mention the question of unrestricted access. That means that the motion now being put by the Leader of the Opposition - a motion that includes reference to "tabling and making public without restricted access" - has a new angle. However, the original motion, though it was agreed to on 14 April, certainly did not refer to any time restriction or time requirement, as have virtually all other Standing Order 54 motions that have been moved by this House in past months.

Ms Allan: You are a joke.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Blacktown to order.

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Mr SOURIS: The member for Blacktown is the joke; she is the embarrassment. She botched the motion. She has placed her leader in an embarrassing position because she failed to specify a time requirement for the tabling of the documentation.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Blacktown to order for the second time.

Mr SOURIS: Having exposed the Opposition for its clumsiness, and to show good faith, I seek the leave of the House to table the documents as required by resolution of 17 March.

Leave granted.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Blacktown to order for the third time.

Mr SOURIS: The member made a mess of the motion, and that is the end of the matter. With regard to the second part of the motion of the Leader of the Opposition, he would have been enlightened had he taken the trouble to read Hansard of the Legislative Council of 16 November. On that date my ministerial colleague the Minister for Planning, and Minister for Housing - the Minister responsible for the Water Board - gave a substantial explanation as to why the Malabar incinerator must remain open. I shall quote only a few paragraphs of the reply given by my colleague on that occasion. He stated:

I have several pages of explanation on why the Malabar incinerator is remaining open and why it should remain open. I am happy to canvass the reasons when I have more time. I do not want to see members kept here unnecessarily, but I feel I should take a few minutes to explain to honourable members - particularly the Hon. R. S. L. Jones, who has been braying at me from the backbenches - exactly what the implications might be if the Government were to close the Malabar incinerator, which on every test, medical and environmental, is perfectly safe and doing an adequate job . . .

What is being burnt in the Malabar incinerator is not sludge. The sludge from Malabar is now being used for a variety of other purposes - agriculture, landfill, et cetera. What is being burnt at Malabar incinerator is what the Water Board euphemistically describes as screenings. I do not want to unnecessarily disturb the sensibilities of honourable members by describing in great detail what screenings are. Screenings are mainly little things that most of us use in our everyday lives. Unfortunately, they find their way into the sewerage system. The alternative, of course, is not to burn these screenings at Malabar but to take them to a landfill site.

I will give honourable members the choices. Ms Genevieve Rankin, to whom I referred earlier, would not be at all happy if the screenings went to Menai. I guarantee that the honourable member for Londonderry, the devoted fan of the Leader of the Opposition in the other place, would not be overjoyed if they went to Londonderry. They are the two choices. I guarantee that a little more of Sutherland ratepayers' money would be used to try to prevent the screenings going to Menai. I am sure one would not be able to print what the honourable member for Londonderry would say if the screenings were sent to Londonderry. I would like the Leader of the Opposition, in whose electorate the Malabar incinerator is situated, to tell me where he would like the screenings to go, and then watch him squirm.

There is adequate reason for not closing the incinerator at Malabar and, as has been said, there are no medical or environmental reasons for closing it. My colleague the Minister for the Environment will speak in a little more detail about that very issue. It is interesting that on a day like today the Leader of the Opposition should seek to bring forward this motion - showing vested, naked self-interest for his electorate - to join with the issue of the third runway, which is really a replacement second runway; he has used this Parliament for what is, without shame, self-interest for his own electorate, coupled with the shameless and disgraceful closure of the east-west runway. The third runway became the replacement east-west runway so that the honourable member for Maroubra could gain some kind of political favour in his electorate at the expense of other electorates held by his colleagues. He is quite prepared to sacrifice the electorate that covers the Menai area and the electorate that covers the Londonderry area. Everyone knows the sort of friendship that exists between those two members of Parliament.

Honourable members know that the Leader of the Opposition is most pleased, for his electorate purposes, to sacrifice the electorate of Drummoyne in particular. The Leader of the Opposition knows that the honourable member for Drummoyne will not be here next time. He is quite happy to be rid of that electorate, as he is quite happy to be rid of Rockdale. He will lose Port Jackson and he will probably lose a couple of other electorates. His only interest is in looking after his own electorate. He is quite happy to move incinerators and close them down; he is quite happy to move runways and close them down; he is quite happy to lose electorates - indeed, he is quite happy to do whatever is necessary to save his skin and to save his crumbling leadership.

The Leader of the Opposition ought to be ashamed of his statewide approval rating of less than 28 per cent. It is no joke; less than 28 per cent of the State support the Leader of the Opposition. He will do anything, including taking this desperate act of trying to close the Malabar incinerator, and causing chaos throughout all of Sydney and all of country New South Wales with the closure of the east-west runway, to save his skin. He does not care which electorates he loses and which members he sacrifices in the process of looking after himself and looking after his dear, little head office mate who is really causing all the trouble - Laurie Brereton.

Laurie Brereton will do anything to stay in close harmony with his little mates, and is only too pleased to sacrifice whatever is necessary to save himself and, coincidently, the overlapping State seat of the honourable member for Maroubra. It is back to business for Laurie Brereton. He virtually lost the last State election for the Labor Party, and he will do the same next time and keep the Labor Party out of office after the next election. The Government could not be more delighted that the Leader of the Opposition and Laurie Brereton are leading the charge. Good luck to them. They will lose. If the Leader of the Opposition ties himself to Laurie Brereton, he will be a goner.

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Dr MACDONALD (Manly) [3.44]: I move:

That the motion be amended by leaving out the words "and decommission the Malabar sludge screenings incinerators" and inserting instead, "the Malabar sludge incinerators and decommission the incinerators at both the North Head and Malabar Sewage Treatment plants".

Mr Souris: I suppose you are looking after your electorate as well? There is nothing like a little bit of self-interest.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I ask that the honourable member for Manly provide the Chair with a written copy of his amendment.

Dr MACDONALD: I hand a copy of the amendment to the Clerk. I resent the comment by the Minister for Land and Water Conservation. I am merely being accurate as to the resolution passed on 17 March. It covered the closing down of the Malabar sludge incinerators and decommissioning incinerators at Malabar and North Head. By all means make a riposte, but he should be accurate in what he says. Not only has the resolution of the House been ignored, but I think there is a cover-up and I want to address it. The motion seeks to implement what the House resolved. I have corresponded with the Minister, who has implied that a form of decommissioning has already taken place, at least at Manly. He talked about sludge incinerators at Manly being mothballed, then used the words, "You are correct to note that in the remote possibility that it is proposed to recommission the incinerator at North Head, a rigorous environmental impact assessment would have to be undertaken".

If the Minister is acknowledging that they are decommissioned, I ask him to officially decommission incinerators from both locations in line with the resolution. He knows, as I know and as the Leader of the Opposition - the honourable member for Maroubra - knows, that it is extremely important to undertake the decommissioning, because it means one thing: if it is to be recommissioned, a proper environmental impact statement and a full health assessment will have to be conducted. The reason the incinerators at Manly were closed and the reason the sludge incinerators at Malabar were closed is that they were constantly malfunctioning.

Mr Hartcher: Rubbish!

Dr MACDONALD: It has been consistently documented in all the reports. Not only that, but the $3.5 million air emission study showed that there was a risk. Of that there is absolutely no doubt. The technical subcommittee which reported on this issue - the working party that looked at the technical aspects - confirmed that there is a significant risk. I quote from the document which said:

Estimated carcinogenic risk at the nearest residence at both locations still exceeded the level of concern (10^-6) . . .

Environmental regulatory agencies generally require risk reduction action for carcinogenic risk at the 10^-4 level. For the range from 10^-6 to 10^-4, potential risk reduction actions are reviewed.

That is what the Environment Protection Authority called upon the Water Board to do. In fact, the EPA issued a press release that talked about the need to reduce risks. The report said:

"The study has concluded that the chance of health impact from the incinerators is one in ten thousand.

"As soon as these results were available we consulted Health Department experts", said Ms Corbyn.

In response, Deputy Chief Health Officer, Dr Gavin Frost, of the NSW Department of Health said the health risk of one in ten thousand showed the incinerator emissions were associated with a minute statistical risk of increased cancer . . .

"This means the incinerators are not a significant health threat, but a review of operating practices is warranted".

The deputy director-general, Lisa Corbyn, served legal notices on the Water Board, asking it to reduce that risk to lower levels, and required a review. My assertion that there has been a cover-up is based on the fact that only six months later the EPA released another press release stating that everything was fine. But it raised more questions than it answered, and I direct these questions to the Minister for Land and Water Conservation: what was the review? What precise testing was done? What was the methodology? Were chromium levels reduced? Chromium represented the risk. Was it all done in six months? What are the negligible levels that the Water Board talked about? Closing of the Malabar incinerator would have a minimal impact. It is only incinerating one tonne a day, which is less than could be carried by a small truck. It will not have a big impact on landfill. Why is it not closed? Because this Government wants to keep open the option to reincinerate - there is no doubt about that. I have constantly asked the Government to decommission the incinerator, but it has refused. That is the secret and hidden agenda.

Mr HARTCHER (Gosford - Minister for the Environment) [3.49]: It is election time alright. The honourable member for Manly has repeated the special plea which he made at the last State election, and the Leader of the Opposition, who represents the electorate of Maroubra, has raised a similar plea in a desperate attempt to hang on to that electorate. The Leader of the Opposition, not content with benefiting from the Maroubra aircraft manoeuvre, needs to make an issue of the Malabar treatment works, just as the honourable member for Manly needs to make an issue of the treatment works at Manly. Both members, in their contributions, misrepresented the facts about the environment. The Environment Protection Authority, of which I - not the honourable member for Manly - have the honour to be ministerial head, has investigated the Malabar incinerator. The authority has authorised public release of information which states, under the heading "Malabar incinerator health risk further reduced", that a review of air emissions from the Water Board's Malabar incinerator, ordered by the New South Wales EPA earlier this year, has shown that health risks from measured pollutants are negligible.

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Dr Macdonald: Table the reports.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Manly to order.

Mr HARTCHER: The information released further states that the director-general said the EPA ordered the review in March - after the honourable member moved his motion - after a major report showed that a hypothetical person living very near the incinerator for their entire life would have minute statistical increased risk, one in 10,000, of contracting cancer. In fact, no-one has experienced anywhere near the level of exposure used in the study. The one in 10,000 increased risk compares with average rates of cancer in the community of one in three for men and one in four for women. In other words, this rate is comparable to that in the ordinary community. The director-general said also that while the original emissions represented extremely low increased risk, the EPA issued a legal notice to the Water Board in March requiring investigations of risk reduction options to further improve operation of the incinerator. The Manly plant is not even operating, yet the honourable member for Manly is anxious to try to make it an issue.

Dr Macdonald: It is a cover-up.

Mr HARTCHER: It is not a cover-up. The honourable member is anxious to make it an issue so that he can scare people. It is the Macdonald scare technique as the election campaign draws near. As a result of the review, which involved more precise testing, the Water Board has now changed its operating practices.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Manly to order for the second time.

Mr HARTCHER: The EPA has now confirmed that the board's actions have been effective in reducing the level of increased risk identified in the previous study. Both incinerators on the site have been subject to the same recent emissions testing. Results for measured pollutants show that risk from the second incinerator is also at negligible levels. I table this document. The honourable member for Maroubra, desperate in his attempts to maintain his seat, wants to send sludge tippings from Malabar to landfill at Castlereagh. He wants to send out to Castlereagh what will not be used at Malabar. The people of Castlereagh will learn that Bob Carr wants them to get Malabar sewage sludge. The Leader of the Opposition, having dumped aircraft noise from his electorate, wants to dump Maroubra sewage screenings.

Ms Allan: On a point of order: the Minister said that he was tabling a document. What is that document? Has it been tabled?

Mr HARTCHER: I have tabled it.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Minister has not tabled the document yet and has not sought leave to table it. I was going to draw attention to that matter when he had concluded his contribution.

Mr HARTCHER: If the honourable member paid attention occasionally, she would know what is happening in the House. The forced attempt to close these incinerators, which pose absolutely no significant risk to health at all, is an attempt to stack up the Leader of the Opposition's own precarious position in Maroubra.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! If the honourable member for Manly and the Minister for Land and Water Conservation wish to converse, they should do so outside the Chamber.

Mr HARTCHER: The studies indicate that a hypothetical person would have to live virtually on top of the stack for 70 years, absorbing the very worst emissions at the highest level of toxicity. Realistically, that could never happen. The EPA investigated the claim in March and reported in September, six months later, that emissions were negligible and that there was no cause for concern. Negligible means just that - no cause for concern. I have tabled the document. The honourable member for Manly can read it at his leisure. The document is perfectly clear in what it says: negligible - no real risk. This is a farce. [Time expired.]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Minister has indicated that he wishes to table the document. Procedure requires the Minister to seek the leave of the House to do so. Does the Minister seek that leave?

Mr HARTCHER: Yes. I seek leave to table this document.

Leave granted.

Mr HARTCHER: I table the document.

Ms ALLAN (Blacktown) [3.55]: The Opposition is interested to examine the document the Minister tabled. The Minister referred during his contribution to a press release by the honourable member for Manly, to a press release by himself, and to an anonymous document he sought to table, which turns out to be an Environment Protection Authority news release. Tabling of an EPA news release dated 13 September 1994 on further reduction of health risks from the Malabar incinerator will not satisfy the Opposition, the honourable member for Manly or, more importantly, residents living near the incinerator. Those residents believe strongly that health risks from the incinerator are significant and that the EPA has fallen down badly on its job of monitoring those risks and ensuring that the incinerator does not continue to be a hazard to the local community.

I was very interested in the comment by the Minister for the Environment that an EPA review earlier this year claims that health risks had been further reduced. The Minister quoted from that review this afternoon. The Minister did not say that the EPA found that no risks exist. He merely alleged that the EPA has said that the health risk has been "further reduced". The Minister has failed to table the review by the EPA of the Malabar incinerator. Until the Government decides to table that sort of documentation, rather than a one-page, seven-paragraph EPA press release on the same issue, the local community will not be reassured. Tabling of that press release does not negate this afternoon's resolution calling on the Government to implement the
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terms of the resolution passed by this Parliament on 17 March 1994, which called for both the Malabar sludge incinerator and the North Head incinerator to be decommissioned.

The Minister for Land and Water Conservation and the Minister for the Environment made passionate contributions but gave little further information about the reason the Government has not acted to close those plants. The Ministers have not taken account of the issues raised by the Leader of the Opposition, the local member for Maroubra, or by the honourable member for Manly in whose electorate the North Head incinerator is located. The Ministers have given no information. They have made slimy little comments across the table, but they have provided no substantial information from the public authorities which they head about the reason the 17 March resolution has been ignored continuously since that time. Members witnessed, in a display earlier this afternoon in this Chamber, final capitulation by the Government on the Water Board privatisation proposal. The Minister for Land and Water Conservation finally tabled these documents today, almost at the end of November, following a resolution of this House in April. He has whinged and prattled on about the fact that I supposedly botched the motion.

Mr Souris: But you did.

Ms ALLAN: When was there an effort by the Government to table this information? What is so different now?

Mr Souris: You should read Hansard.

Ms ALLAN: Another bit of paper gets waved across the Chamber. All that Government members ever do is wave bits of paper around. Unless the Opposition drags reports out of them, they are not prepared to provide them. At the risk of further embarrassment this afternoon the Minister finally capitulated on the privatisation report. He has not capitulated on the more interesting reports so far as the Malabar and North Head incinerators are concerned.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the Minister for Land and Water Conservation to order.

Ms ALLAN: The Minister is providing only lousy little bits of paper. Where is the EPA review that the Minister claims justifies his inaction and failure to close down the incinerator? If he really believed what he said in the Chamber this afternoon, if he really believed there are no further health risks at Malabar from the incinerator, he would be prepared to table the reports on those reviews in the Chamber now. That is what the Malabar community wants; it does not want the pollutants from the screenings churning out into the atmosphere, endangering the health of families and children. The people want evidence that there are no health risks. The Minister has not provided the evidence yet again. He has given us one lousy little bit of paper, an EPA press release, and he has continued by his inaction to flout the will of the Parliament.

Mr CARR (Maroubra - Leader of the Opposition) [4.00], in reply: The issue is simple: the House carried the motion in March; the Government did not implement the resolution. The resolution called for the closing of the Malabar incinerator and the decommissioning of incinerators at Malabar and North Head. Neither on this occasion nor in March was the Government able to justify that in 1992 it trumpeted that it had closed North Head incinerator. It put out a press release congratulating itself and saying it was a gain for the health of people around Manly. When this motion was debated in March I quoted the press release from the then Minister for the Environment trumpeting the Government's success - a great win for the health of the people of Manly! The Government has the same responsibility for the people of Malabar: do not put an incinerator in Manly, because it is a marginal seat and the Government wants to increase its chances of prying that seat from the Independent member; do not make a decision for political advantage without considering the people of Malabar.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the Minister for the Environment to order.

Mr CARR: The Government must deliver for the people of Malabar. If it was good enough to put out a press release saying it was a great gain for the health of the people of Manly, the same decision must be made for the people of Malabar. The resolution of this House on 17 March required that decision and the Government has not made it. That shows the contempt of the Minister for the Parliament. This motion holds the Premier responsible for that decision. The Opposition had to move the second part of the motion. Again the Government has been forced by a motion of the House to table material that was requested to be tabled on 14 April.

Mr Souris: On a point of order: given that I have now tabled the information concerned, whether or not part (b) of the motion of the Leader of the Opposition has any relevance, that would have been deleted.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I shall not place a restriction on the Leader of the Opposition at this stage of the debate.

Mr CARR: It has taken a motion of the House and a debate to force the Minister to produce the material. Why? Because again it raises the prospect of Water Board privatisation. That is what this issue is all about. As far as the Minister is concerned, corporatisation is the first step towards privatisation. It is not an alternative to privatisation, as the Opposition sees it. It is the first step towards the privatisation that the Minister responsible for the Water Board said was on the Government's agenda back in January last year. He said, "the Water Board is a candidate for privatisation" and he clings to the documents confirming that. The Opposition has had to remind the Minister of his obligation, given the passage of the motion in April, to produce the documents for the public.

Amendment agreed to.

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Question - That the motion as amended be agreed to - put.

The House divided.

Ms Allan Mr McManus
Mr Amery Mr Markham
Mr Anderson Mr Martin
Mr A. S. Aquilina Ms Meagher
Mr J. J. Aquilina Mr Mills
Mr Bowman Ms Moore
Mr Carr Mr Moss
Mr Clough Mr J. H. Murray
Mr Crittenden Mr Nagle
Mr Face Mr Neilly
Mr Gaudry Ms Nori
Mr Gibson Mr E. T. Page
Mrs Grusovin Dr Refshauge
Mr Harrison Mr Rogan
Ms Harrison Mr Rumble
Mr Hatton Mr Scully
Mr Hunter Mr Shedden
Mr Iemma Mr Sullivan
Mr Irwin Mr Thompson
Mr Knight Mr Whelan
Mr Knowles Mr Yeadon
Mr Langton
Mrs Lo Po' Tellers,
Mr McBride Mr Beckroge
Dr Macdonald Mr Davoren

Mr Armstrong Mr W. T. J. Murray
Mr Baird Mr O'Doherty
Mr Beck Mr D. L. Page
Mr Blackmore Mr Peacocke
Mr Causley Mr Petch
Mr Chappell Mr Phillips
Mrs Chikarovski Mr Photios
Mr Cochran Mr Richardson
Mrs Cohen Mr Rixon
Mr Collins Mr Schipp
Mr Cruickshank Mr Schultz
Mr Debnam Mrs Skinner
Mr Downy Mr Small
Mr Fraser Mr Smith
Mr Glachan Mr Souris
Mr Griffiths Mr Tink
Mr Hartcher Mr Turner
Mr Humpherson Mr West
Dr Kernohan Mr Windsor
Mr Kinross Mr Zammit
Mr Longley
Ms Machin Tellers,
Mr Merton Mr Jeffery
Mr Morris Mr Kerr

Mr Doyle Mr Fahey
Mr Price Mr Hazzard

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Motion as amended agreed to.