Ministerial Accountability

Mr ANDREW STONER: My question is directed to the Premier. Following his decision to sack Port Macquarie-Hastings Council for a cost blow-out, will he now apply the same scrutiny and sack the Deputy Premier for losing more than $100 million on the Tcard contract, the Minister for Water for a $500 million desalination blow-out, the Minister for Planning for being compromised, the Minister for Ports for conflicts of interest, the Minister for Health for mismanagement, including Bathurst hospital, and the Minister for Community Services when a child known to the Department of Community Services dies every nine days?

Mr John Aquilina: Point of order—

The SPEAKER: Order! The House will come to order.

Mr John Aquilina: The Leader of The Nationals has been here long enough to know that question time is a time for members to seek facts.

The SPEAKER: Order! I call the member for Murrumbidgee to order. I ask members to cease interjecting.

Mr John Aquilina: Question time is a time for members to seek facts. Clearly, the Leader of The Nationals is being argumentative. He asked an argumentative question that in no way aims to seek facts. If the member wishes to ask a question that seeks facts relevant to the matter that he has raised he should reword his question appropriately.

Mr Adrian Piccoli: To the point of order: The question that was asked contained some facts but the Leader of the Nationals clearly asked the Premier whether he would apply to Ministers in this House the same standards he applied to Port Macquarie-Hastings Council. His question contained some items of fact, but I think most questions have to do so. He asked the Premier a simple question about applying the same standards.

The SPEAKER: Order! There is no doubt that the question is argumentative. However, there is enough substance in the question for me to allow it. Given that it is such a broad-ranging question, I will not entertain points of order in relation to relevance.

Mr MORRIS IEMMA: The question asked by the Leader of The Nationals sums up the Opposition. It is interesting that the Leader of The Nationals started in Port Macquarie.

The SPEAKER: Order! I call the member for Clarence, the member for Port Stephens and the member for Hawkesbury to order for the third time because they are holding up documents.

Mr MORRIS IEMMA: Why does he not apologise to the people of Port Macquarie for privatising their hospital? Why does he not apologise to the people of New South Wales? In the process of privatising that hospital the Auditor-General said, "You gave it away and then made the taxpayer pay for it twice over." In relation to transport, why does the Leader of The Nationals not turn to the Leader of the Opposition and ask him to apologise for the $800 million that was lost as part of the southern rail link? Do Opposition members remember the project that was signed in the dying days of the Fahey Government? The then Premier stood up in Parliament and said, "At no cost to taxpayers we are building a southern rail link." And $800 million later taxpayers have had to foot the bill for the southern rail link transport disaster—the one that we were told would not cost New South Wales taxpayers one cent.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Clarence will cease interjecting.

Mr MORRIS IEMMA: It is one year after the election and the Coalition still does not have a water policy. Before the last election the Leader of the Opposition said that he would rather see New South Wales turned into the Sahara desert before he would build a desalination plant. That was his policy at the last election. We now have a desalination plant that is twice the capacity at less the cost, along with recycling projects such as the Western Sydney recycling initiative. Twelve months later this Opposition still has no policy on water, let alone a policy on anything.

The SPEAKER: Order! I remind the member for Hawkesbury that he is on three calls to order.

Mr Barry O'Farrell: Point of order. My point of order does not relate to relevance; it is a question. Will the Premier put this matter—

The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. The behaviour of the Leader of the Opposition has been most unparliamentary today.

Mr MORRIS IEMMA: That is because he is dressed for the Sahara. This Opposition does not have any plan to secure this State's future energy needs; that is what it is about. Twelve months later the man who was so desperate to become leader and who knifed all those other leaders does not have a policy. That is not surprising because he said, "You have to wait two years before I release anything." No wonder! There is good policy and there is bad policy. We might be going through a tough time, but the Leader of the Opposition should have a look at what is being said about him. They want someone who is not even in his party room, let alone anybody sitting beside him or behind him. As Peter Ruehl said in the Australian Financial Review, the Leader of the Opposition has been given a Maserati and he is unable to drive it.