New South Wales Labor Government

Mr BARRY O'FARRELL (Ku-ring-gai—Leader of the Opposition) [5.30 p.m.]: I move:

That this House no longer has confidence in the Government due to:

(1) the trebling of the State's debt from $15 billion to $42 billion—$6,000 for every person in New South Wales—despite repeated Labor Government claims of being "fiscally responsible";

(2) the claimed breakdown in the State's balance sheet and the Labor Government threat to delay or cancel essential infrastructure projects despite repeated pledges to improve services across New South Wales;

(3) the Premier's refusal to detail the State's actual financial position or its causes despite promising the public "honesty, transparency and accountability";

(4) the Premier's decision to hand to Australian Labor Party General Secretary Karl Bitar the right to choose his Ministers, including the promotion of the incompetents Joe Tripodi and Eric Roozendaal to the key Treasury and Finance portfolios despite his promise of merit selection to Cabinet; and

(5) the Labor Government's failure over 13½ years to deliver on its repeated promises to improve the services available to, or the quality of life enjoyed by, families across New South Wales.

This Government is based on a lie. This Labor Government is based on the lie that it is a new Government. Not only is it a lie but also it is the second time it has tried this tactic on the people of New South Wales. We have seen it, we have heard it, and we have lived with it for the past three years. Three years ago it plucked an obscure unknown Minister and put him into the Premiership. Three years ago there were promises of fiscal responsibility and focusing, finally, on services. Three years ago there was the promise that we would finally get an accountable, responsible government in New South Wales.

In reality, we have ended up with the same rotten, corrupt and incompetent Government we have had for the past 13½ years. It is a Government that is focused on itself, not the families of this State. It is a Government that is big on promises but fails time and again to deliver. It is a Government that lacks standards and integrity. It is a Government that lacks any solutions to the problems that the people across this State confront on a daily basis. We need look no further for evidence of that than today in question time when the Premier referred to an article by Ross Gittins in the Sydney Morning Herald. He referred to it in a way that supported his and his Government's position in view of the State's current financial situation. Did he show a lack of standards and integrity? Absolutely. The Premier sought to quote every part of that article except the first paragraph, which reads:

With the state Labor Party now imploding after having done such a poor job over the years on health, public transport and schools, it's not hard to believe these geniuses have also stuffed up the state's economy and taken the Government's finances to the edge of bankruptcy.

Rather than an endorsement of Labor's financial mismanagement over 13½ years, it is a telling criticism. Today in question time what we heard from the Premier, who on day one promised to end the spin, was spin from start to finish. "Spin" in parliamentary language is a polite term for "lies". This is a man who on his first day in the job promised honesty, transparency and accountability. Three weeks into the job he has done everything possible to avoid and deny those things. This is a Government based on the pretence of being a new Government. But it is as old as a bag of prawns left in the sun: It stinks to high heaven. The public can have no trust in it.

That is why we decided that it was important to move this motion of no confidence. That is the only way under our fixed four-year terms that an early election can be called in this State. Our communities are demanding an early election. The public across New South Wales is sick and tired of this Labor Party running the State as though it is a family company. It decides when it will change Premiers and ministries. It decides when it will shove members out of Parliament at taxpayers' expense, instead of allowing those decisions to be made in a democratic way by the people of the State. The support of this motion today will ensure that the people get what they want from this State Government, for a change—that is, an election where the public can decide who will govern this State.

One of the telling reasons why the public will not be fooled about Nathan Rees's attempts to present himself as new is, of course, Mr Rees's own curriculum vitae. Nathan Rees does have some experience to be a Labor Premier, having worked with two former Labor Premiers who got the State into this mess. He knows precisely how, in the terms of Ross Gittins, to stuff up the State. This is a man who advised two former Premiers and sat around a Cabinet table for the past 18 months, but then apparently forgot everything, from warnings about appropriate behaviour to the state of New South Wales finances. As Premier he has surrounded himself with the same team that for 13½ years has delivered New South Wales a very poor outcome and has seen us miss out on a decade of national economic growth. How incompetent is a Government to be in office at a time of record revenues and at the end of it have a State with poorer infrastructure, poorer services and poorer quality of life than when it started? Its answer is: Keep voting Labor. I am confident that if we get the election that this motion will trigger and that the community wants that will not be the result, and the public will have some hope of an honest, accountable and responsible government in New South Wales.

Yesterday the Premier talked about raising standards. He offered bipartisan support to raise standards. I will respond to that offer and I will ask for time limits to be imposed on ministerial answers, as they apply elsewhere. I am concerned about the Premier's phoniness. He is a phoney. He says one thing and does another. He says it is the end of spin, but the spin continues. He says it is the end of the soap opera, but we have since seen the reality television show, the science fiction show, and on it goes. On the very day he promised to raise standards he raised no objection to the member for Wollongong taking on a senior position in the parliamentary Labor Party. He sacked the woman a week ago as Parliamentary Secretary for Health. He would never admit it, but it was because of her inappropriate behaviour in June. Yet he raised no objection last night when the Hon. Eddie Obeid—and I use the word "honourable" very loosely—and the Minister for Finance decided that a Premier who had promised to raise standards would reward the member for Wollongong. It demonstrates again how phoney Nathan Rees is.

Nathan Rees is a phoney because he said that he would pick his Cabinet on integrity, but he promoted the dodgy brothers, Joe Tripodi and Eric Roozendaal, to key economic portfolios. Nathan Rees is a phoney because he said that the dire state of New South Wales finances, despite having sat around the Cabinet table for 18 months, surprised him. Nathan Rees is a phoney because he said he received a message from Reba Meagher that she was going to resign. Of course, it was later revealed that he did not. Nathan Rees is a phoney because he said he is new but he has worked for this Labor Government, including for two former Premiers and, interestingly, a convicted former Minister, since 1997. Nathan Rees is a phoney because he said he would end the spin but he trots out the same lines, the same lies and the same tired rhetoric as his predecessor did.

The motion is framed in five parts. It raises an issue that is critical to not only those who sit in Parliament today or those who have children but also those who will follow us into public life. As I said yesterday, New South Wales residents will be very afraid to hear for the second time the Premier talk about fiscal responsibility and speak in Kevin Rudd-like terms about being a fiscal conservative. The last person to utter those words in this House was the former Premier, a man who has now left the Parliament and has given the people of Lakemba the opportunity on 18 October to have a say. This motion is not about allowing people in one electorate or four electorates to have a say; it is about giving the entire State an opportunity to have a say in 93 electorates to determine the future of the Government.

Three years ago almost to the month Morris Iemma came into the House and promised fiscal responsibility. What did we see? We saw a debt blow-out from $14.7 billion to $42 billion. Is that fiscally responsible? Is that fiscally conservative? This is a mob that says one thing and does another. I have said before that if they were subject to fair trading laws they would be sitting behind bars or would be out of business.

Total State sector net debt has gone from $14.7 billion to $42 billion—that is $6,062.26 that every person has to repay, based on the population of this State. It is a debt that has been accrued despite the Government's own legislation, which sought to put some constraints upon how much debt New South Wales could have. In May 2005 this State Government introduced its Fiscal Responsibility Act. That is not an Act that has been set for the Government by anyone else, and we know that the Labor Party in 13½ years has never imposed any strenuous standards upon itself; it has never set any bars that required jumping over. This is the Labor Party's own debt bar and it has failed.

There are three indices in relation to the Fiscal Responsibility Act. The first is to keep general government net financial liabilities at or below 7.5 per cent of gross State product by June 2010 and below 6 per cent by June 2015. It is now projected that the level of general government debt will rise to 8.1 per cent by June 2010 and 9.1 per cent by June 2012. I repeat: It is the Government's legislation. Its own law says keep general government net financial liabilities at or below 7.5 per cent by June 2010, and the estimate in the budget papers this year indicates it will be 8.1 per cent by June 2010 and 9.1 per cent by June 2012—well above the 7.5 per cent target—and that is despite revenue growing in this State by 5.4 per cent since 2004. This Government cannot live within its means. This Government ratchets up debt on the credit card knowing that it is not going to be the Government, it is not going to be the taxpayer, who ultimately has to pay.

The second measure in the Government's own proposal on fiscal responsibility is to keep general government sector net debt as a share of gross State product at or below the June 2005 level of 0.8 per cent. The New South Wales Government has not kept general government sector debt as a share of gross State product at or below the June 2005 level since June 2007. We have been above that level for more than a year and it is estimated in the forward estimates that it will rise to a level of 1.7 per cent. In other words, the Government set for itself a target of 0.8 per cent, it is about to double that and it does not care. The Government does not care about the other problems that families have to confront across this State on a daily basis. It does not care about the families who are going to have to pay the bill for Labor's debt binge—a debt binge that has come off the back of record economic growth, record revenues and the irresponsible use of those revenues by those opposite.

The third measure in Labor's own Fiscal Responsibility Act is to maintain a four-year average annual growth in the net cost of services and expenses at or below the long-term average revenue growth. Over the four years to 2006-07 expense growth exceeded revenue by one percentage point per year. Forward estimates anticipate that this imbalance, this inequality, will continue with expenses and revenues both expected to grow around 4.5 per cent in the four years to 2011-12. If any small business across the State ran its finances in this way it would not be in business. If any family across the State tried to budget in the same way this Labor Government does it would be in bankruptcy. Yet, for the third time in their 13½-year lifetime, this mob pretends to be fiscally responsible and fiscally conservative. There is no doubt that because of the record of debt over the past three years alone—a record that will continue to haunt families across this State for years to come—this motion should be supported.

What is remarkable in terms of the second part of this motion is Michael Costa's outbreak of honesty on his way out of Parliament—which would have been the first and, I suspect, the last time that a Labor Treasurer during whatever length of period he or she was in office has been honest with the public of New South Wales. Michael Costa blew the whistle, not just on the lies told over energy privatisation but, more importantly, on Labor's financial mismanagement over what he described as the previous 12 years. Before I even get to the comments he made about the State's finances I note that in his farewell speech to the press gallery over an extended period he laid into his predecessors as Treasurers and Ministers in Labor governments for their failure to tackle the fundamentals.

People ask me, people ask my colleagues and no doubt people ask those opposite, "Where has all the money gone?" The reality is Michael Costa gave that answer at his final press conference: it has been wasted. It has been caught up in inefficiencies because those opposite—those in his own party—were unable, incapable or unwilling to tackle the inefficiencies that exist within State government in this State, including the featherbedding that goes on with unions. That featherbedding is not only costing taxpayers; it is getting in the way, in many cases, of delivering better services to them.

The former Treasurer, the former Legislative Council member, also blew the whistle on what he said was the financial crisis facing the State. We know that Michael Costa was regarded as a climate change sceptic. Apparently, the new Minister for Climate Change is not such a sceptic, and presumably that accounts, as the member for Goulburn highlighted well today, the difference between the April submission to the Federal Government on emissions trading and, as the new Minister and Deputy Premier said, the only submission that has been submitted since she has been Minister—which, given she has been in the position for only a week, is not surprising. Michael Costa might have been a climate change sceptic; at this stage I am a sceptic about the state of New South Wales' finances.

As those opposite know, and as those who had the fortune or misfortune to sit in the Cabinet with him know, Mr Costa was always one to make the best possible case for his position. He said at his farewell press conference that he had been advised that the Department of Health was already $300 million in excess of its recurrent budget. He said that State stamp duties were down something like $90 million. What I know about stamp duties is that over the course of a year they go up and down. Notwithstanding this State Government's best efforts to kill Sydney's property market stone dead, we do not know where stamp duties will end up at the end of the year. But what we do know is that over the previous 12 months, when Labor deigned to give us the figures—as it is meant to do on a monthly basis—we saw fluctuations.

Trying to predict the total stamp duty for a full year on the basis of two months is just as fraught, as I suspect the member for North Shore would say, in relation to Health. Those of us who have observed Health over many years know that in the last quarter of a financial year those who run our health system seek to screw down every possible cost in order to try to come in as close as is humanly possible on budget. Most years they fail and they require supplementation. But that cycle that has been going on almost every year that that mob has been in government means that in the first quarter of the new financial year there is an explosion of funding that relates to the necessary expenditures that should have been made the previous quarter but could not be because of some ill-conceived budget discipline—an explosion of expenditure on operations and other things that have been shoved off into the next quarter.

So even in Health I recognise that the claim of a $300 million first two-months overstatement is not yet proof of the sorts of figures that the Premier has been bandying around. The only serious figures I have seen put forward were by the member for Manly, who highlighted investment bank estimates of a $200-million deficit. He said that a day or two after Mr Costa made his comments. The Premier then seized on that and said it might have been $500 million or $1 billion. The Premier has not been honest and open with the public. Just as this Labor Government lied when it came to electricity privatisation, it has now gone around the State and threatened essential infrastructure projects that communities in rural, regional or city New South Wales need and have been waiting for for years.

I was delighted to see on the Channel 10 news this evening—and I thank members opposite for ensuring that I could see it—that the second story related to traffic growth in this city. It featured a fabulous man from Ryde—Victor Dominello—who reflected on what he described as the mess of Lane Cove Road and the traffic congestion that commuters experience each morning. As Victor Dominello said, it is the result of 13 years of Labor government. That is the reality. The congestion is not limited to the famous Epping Road, which runs through the electorates of the member for Lane Cove and my good friend the member for Epping—and I do not encourage him to sing! The congestion is not limited to Victoria Road, with which the member for Drummoyne has some passing relationship. It is affecting Victoria Road, Lane Cove Road, Epping Road and Blaxland Road, and that is only in that part of the world. Roads across this city are failing and are being turned into parking lots.

The Government does not believe there is a commuter parking problem, but that is probably because most of our roads become parking lots during peak hour. This is because time and again this State has deferred, cancelled, delayed or scrapped infrastructure projects that this community deserves. We have had significant population growth in the time that Labor has been in power. The population has increased by almost 500,000 people. However, our infrastructure and services have not kept pace because of the laziness of those opposite. They try to look as though they are governing only in the last year of a four-year term. They have frittered away record revenues instead of investing them in the infrastructure and services that business needs, that investment requires and that the people of this State deserve.

Members opposite have many things for which to be called to account. The failure of this State to perform as it should is perhaps their most lasting legacy. We have an old government and a new Premier—or the new head, dead fish, same smell. This Government—new head, dead fish—has promised honesty, accountability and transparency, and an end to spin. However, the Premier said today, "Isn't it great! Unemployment in New South Wales is 4.9 per cent." Mr Speaker, as you know, that is the worst unemployment rate in the country. The former adviser to Bob Carr and Morris Iemma, the former Minister who sat at the Cabinet table but apparently did not listen, thinks that the worst unemployment rate in the country is something of which to be proud. It demonstrates that he is a phoney. He has not dealt with any of the issues that he has raised.

Members on this side of politics have been watching a range of things for a few months. Over the past three years members opposite have tried the same trick of vaulting someone into the premiership to pretend the Government is new. We have seen the same trick that was attempted with the State's finances and infrastructure now being played out with electricity. We remember the State budget, the State infrastructure strategy and the promises made in this Parliament and outside it that the capital works program, the 10-year forward program, and the budget program were not dependent upon the sale of the State's electricity assets. Yet, when this Government failed to get its own members to support the sale of those assets, what was the first response? Once again, it was to threaten vital capital works, including those planned for disability and health services. Those areas should be above and beyond politics; there should be bipartisan support in this House to deliver the outcomes that the community expects of us. Give this mob opposite an opportunity to spin, dissemble, confuse and confound, they will take it every time. Cheap politics always wins out.

I say this honestly and openly: It is not as though members opposite have not had solutions to the State's problems. We have seen them trotted out at regular intervals. The member for Willoughby can recount the 1998 Action for Public Transport program and others can talk about the program announced in the late 1990s that was designed to secure Sydney's water supplies into the future. We have heard time and again about projects in community services. The Deputy Premier knows about the so-called $1.5 billion improvement program. After that program we had worse outcomes. More babies were dying and that led to a commission of inquiry. Members opposite have outlined proposals that, if implemented or followed through, may well have produced a better outcome. However, because of their preference for politics over public interest on each and every occasion, the public has been sold down the river.

I am very concerned that the claimed breakdown of the State's balance sheet is being used as the latest excuse to put off essential capital works. It is being done for no other reason than to allow this State Government the opportunity to rejig the capital works program. I am talking about some of the projects, which the Labor had finally been forced to commit to but which probably would not have been delivered until after 2011. They are now seeking to free up capital works funding to deliver some quick fixes. They are taking the Scully approach to politics. They are pretending through the announcement and delivery of small projects that things are getting better. It is not the way to fix this State, it is not the way to deal with this State, and it is not the way to treat the public. The third part of my motion relates to Nathan Rees' refusal to detail the State's actual financial position, despite promising on day one of the job that he would deliver honesty, transparency and accountability.

Mr Mike Baird: He does not have the time.

Mr BARRY O'FARRELL: As the member for Manly says, he does not have the time. The former Premier seemed to have all the time in the world to do everything except the job. We now have a Premier who does not seem to have the time to do the critical things that he should be doing on day one, day two and day three. At his first press conference the Premier said, "Today we work on fixing these problems." We do not have to list those problems because everyone knows what they are. He went on to say that the Government was interested in making sure the services are delivered for the working families of New South Wales. Has anyone met a non-working family? This Labor mantra of working families, adopted from the American political sphere, is insulting to families in the bush, in coastal regions and across the rest of the State. Everyone in a family works at keeping that family together and trying to make ends meet. The only people in this State who are not working at what they are supposed to be doing are those opposite.

On day one the Premier said, "I am interested in making sure that the services we deliver for the working families of New South Wales are improved and that our promises on infrastructure are kept." But he added, and we have heard it once or twice before, "Nothing is in, or out, at this stage." He will not rule anything in or out, whether it be the commuter tax that the member for Willoughby raised today, or the proposed levy facing homebuyers in parts of Sydney to pay for rail projects. We have no problem with a government keeping its promises, and we certainly have no problem with a government honouring a commitment delivered three months ago as part of the State budget. However, yesterday this Government cherry picked the promises it will keep.

This is a confused Premier who is not prepared to be honest with the public of New South Wales despite the fact that he promised honesty, despite the fact that he promised transparency, and despite the fact that he promised accountability. He said, "I will do my darndest to make sure we give them that." He has not had much of a red-hot go. If this is a red-hot go, I would hate to see a blue-cold go. There has been no attempt over the past three weeks to reveal to the public the truth about this State's finances and the options being considered. A government committed to honesty, openness and transparency would have ensured, before the Opposition had to ask, that the Treasury estimates hearings were brought forward.

Estimates are planned for late October, but they should have been brought forward to this parliamentary sitting period to enable Treasury officials to front up and explain to members of Parliament from all sides of politics the precise condition of this State's finances. That would overcome the conflict that exists between Treasury officials themselves who, on the day Mr Costa made his statements, said Michael was overbeating the egg, exaggerating to get his way, and who have now fallen into Labor's mantra that the sky is going to fall in and we had better rejig the capital works program. I am not suggesting that Treasury officials are compliant in Labor's electoral wishes, but I am certainly suggesting that Treasury officials are compliant in doing what they always want to do, which is run every other portfolio.

The State Government is not being honest with the public of New South Wales about the state of the budget, the services that might be cut or delayed, or just how much trouble the State is in financially. Griffith University's urban research program, VAMPIRE—which stands for the vulnerability assessment for mortgage, petroleum and inflation risks and expenses—produces an index that in August 2008 identified the relative degree of socioeconomic stress suffered in Sydney. Sydney became markedly more vulnerable, with 41 per cent of districts seeing their oil and mortgage vulnerability worsen. The report also says we need to get new trains and buses into our outer suburbs. We need some honesty, some accountability, out of the State Government. We need to ensure that the State Government levels with the public. But why would we expect that when for the past 13½ years we have not had it?

The public of New South Wales knows that we have had record revenues. The public of New South Wales understands that since this Government has been in office total State revenues have gone from $17 billion to $46 billion. The public knows that over that time we have had $17½ billion—$17,500,000 million—in surplus revenues over and above what was anticipated, including $913 million in additional and surplus tax windfalls last year. The public of New South Wales knows we have nothing to show for it. Imagine a family in Armidale, Albury or Annandale. The family has had some good times and it has seen its income grow and once a year for the past 10 years it has won Lotto and it has picked up $1 million each year. Yet in 2008 the family looks back and it is living in the same house with the same problems, the same rundown car and the kids are still struggling to get onto the Internet.

This State Government has wasted opportunities that should have been better used to deliver to the people of this State a future that was far more secure and living standards that were far higher and set up this State for the next 25 years. Instead, we are still playing catch up because of the incompetence of a Labor Party that over 13½ years was too focused on itself to worry about the public's concerns. It was too focused on its electoral needs to worry about the needs of families across the State. It was too focused on the trappings of office—the white cars, the titles and the superannuation—to worry about the services, the infrastructure and the salaries that people across the State had access to. That is why this motion deserves to be supported.

In one sense, the fourth paragraph of this motion cuts to the heart of the motion. The motion is designed to give people, the community of New South Wales, the opportunity to exercise their democratic right that they exercised 18 months ago. Within six months of the election, they realised they got it wrong. It is a democratic right that they are even more determined to exercise at present because of their anger and frustration about the way this Labor Party has behaved over those past 18 months, and particularly over the past three months. There is no greater act of political corruption than the decision of the new Premier, the man who was elected leader of the Labor Party to succeed Morris Iemma—I will not go into the circumstances that led to that—to hand to the ALP general secretary, Karl Bitar, the right to choose his Ministers.

When Mr Rees became leader of the Labor Party, the Premier of New South Wales, he could have done what Kevin Rudd did when he arrived in Canberra. Having won an election—admittedly, something that we on this side of the House regret—Kevin Rudd used his authority as an incoming Prime Minister to say to the factions, "I will choose my own team and I will choose it on merit." Only time will tell whether the member for Grayndler and others live up to the hope that Kevin Rudd ascribed to them. But this man, having already played the Iemma trick in trying to present himself as a new Premier, then played the Rudd card and said, "I will choose my Cabinet based on merit." He said he wanted to appoint people who are talented, who are hardworking and who are new faces. We know what we got! In the Health portfolio we got someone who had lied to the former Premier on two occasions, someone who had misled Parliament on two occasions. Is he kept out of the Ministry because of those infractions? Once we sacked Ministers in this State for misleading Premiers. Mr Scully did it on one occasion too many and he was sacked. No. This man, who said he wanted to raise standards as one of his first acts, accepts from Karl Bitar the choice of John Della Bosca as health Minister.

Worse than that, if we give the Premier the benefit of the doubt—given that he has not produced the evidence of the State's finances, that New South Wales is facing a financial crisis—one would hope that a Premier who wanted to appoint on the basis of talent, credibility and merit would put in charge of the State's economy people capable of not just doing their job but of providing some confidence to the public that they would do so. That is not what we got. Instead, the Premier meekly sat by while Karl Bitar delivered to him the same bunch of tired faces—whether new or not, they are out of the same mould as we have seen over the past 13½ years. That is probably being generous. Like the Roman Empire, it is clear the gene pool is depleted. That will be most evident when Michael Costa is replaced in the upper House by a horse. That presaged the end of the Roman Empire, and I suspect it will come before the fall of the Labor Government in New South Wales.

If you believe, as members on the Government side do and some on this side do, that there is a major financial crisis facing the State—not the international crisis, not the national crisis, but a State-based crisis—would you give that crisis to the dodgy brothers? Would you entrust the State's finances, the State's exchequer, the State's coffers, the key to the Treasury, to Joe Tripodi and Eric Roozendaal? That is why the community is angry. It is angry at the failure of the Premier to deliver on merit the best people to run the Treasury and Finance portfolios. That is why in this House today the Premier moved his own no confidence motion in Joe Tripodi and Eric Roozendaal. He did it under the guise of appointing Bernie Fraser and Ian Macfarlane as advisers to the State on economic issues.

You would not need former governors of the Reserve Bank if, instead of being in Treasury and Finance, Joe Tripodi and Eric Roozendaal were on the reserve benches. You would not need to bring in the sorts of talent that Ian Macfarlane and Bernie Fraser undoubtedly offer if there was some hope of credibility, some hope of competency among Mr Tripodi and Mr Roozendaal. We know the only experience they have had with numbers over the past 13½ years has been in making and breaking Premiers. If the making and breaking of Premiers, including the last one, led to a tripling of the State's debt, imagine what they are going to do now that they have the keys to the Treasury and Mr Obeid is so close to those finances.

I am appalled that Nathan Rees, instead of living up to what he claimed would be his commitment to the public of New South Wales, instead of delivering on that commitment to have a red-hot go at fixing the State, a red-hot go at restoring public confidence in the State, a red-hot go at ending the spin and a red-hot go at being honest with the people of New South Wales, has within his first three weeks demonstrated without any element of doubt that it is the same tired, rotten, incompetent and corrupt Labor Government that we have had for 13½ years.

The final part of my no confidence motion, of course, relates to Labor's failure over 13½ years to deliver on its repeated promises to improve the services available to, and the quality of life enjoyed by, families across New South Wales. It is too easy at times in this House, listening to members opposite, to believe that governing New South Wales is simply about holding the reins of power. Government is meant to be a sacred trust on behalf of the people who send us here. Government is meant to be about ensuring that they have an environment in which they can fulfil their potential. Government is meant to be about providing the conditions in which people working together in enterprise can deliver this State the living standards and the outlook that it deserves. As we all know, government does not have pockets big enough and enough jobs to ensure living standards in the future; only the private sector can deliver that. The sacred role of government is to provide the conditions in which we can secure that future by ensuring that free enterprise exists.

But, as I said before, the Government only ever has its eyes on the Holy Grail of hanging on to office, on winning the next election. In health, on three occasions now, the Government has proved that it can reduce waiting lists. On three occasions it has proved that when it tries hard, when it gives those hardworking doctors and nurses in our hospitals and clinics the resources they need, it can actually deliver better health care—a reduction in waiting lists and the surgery that so many people across this State need. Of course, those three occasions were in the six months leading up to the last three elections. The Government did it in 1993, in 2003 and in 2007. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition may correct me but I am certain that in the 2003 election the Government reduced the long-term waiting list to zero for the first time. Regrettably, some may have got there the wrong way, but many got there the right way, because finally the Government became focused on patients in the health system rather than the politics of health.

One of the issues that Labor was elected on in 1995 was to deliver better public transport. Labor said it could do better than the former Coalition Government in delivering public transport and road services to this city. Road services, as evidenced by the second story on Channel 10 this evening, are worse than ever. There have been breakdowns and lack of customer focus with the M5 East tunnel. The Government has failed to deliver the public transport services that people need to get around this city to make their livelihood.

It is all very well for Ministers and even Leaders of the Opposition to have available to them a car and driver, which of course takes a lot of the hassle out of getting around this city, but most people do not have that luxury. Many people have been forced off public transport onto the roads—with the costs that involves—but they would prefer to have an adequate public transport system. The member for Willoughby can attest that rail services have been slashed in a timetable change claimed to be about safety, and buses are continually taken off the road. Is it any wonder that traffic congestion in the city is worse than it was 13½ years ago? Our public transport systems are worse than they have been for 13½ years. Communities as diverse as Parramatta and Manly have their ferry services under threat.

Time and again the Government has promised major projects to overcome these things. We all remember the commitment to the Parramatta to Chatswood rail link, and that it was going to be delivered, along with the Tcard, a few years ago. We also remember that this important rail link, in the words of Bob Carr when he announced it, was going to give people in Western Sydney access to the jobs in the dotcom corridor of North Ryde. It will now not be delivered: it will go only from Epping to Chatswood. We were told that the line from Parramatta to Chatswood was important to overcome congestion on the inner suburban lines.

The Epping to Chatswood line will provide all the system benefits equivalent to trains hanging a left at Hornsby! Additional stations are welcome along that line, linking Macquarie Park, the hospital, universities and the like, but it is not delivering that connection to Parramatta and the western suburbs that was originally promised. The public of New South Wales are about to get half the rail project promised for double the original price claimed. It is that sort of inefficiency that has failed to improve the services available to New South Wales and failed to deliver the quality of life that the citizens of this State have a right to expect.

Mr Gerard Martin: Hurry up, Barry. They have nodded off on you.

Mr BARRY O'FARRELL: I understand that at your age that is a problem. There is 50¢. Go and phone all your friends.

The SPEAKER: Order! I urge the Leader of the Opposition to continue his speech. I commend all members for the way in which they have conducted themselves thus far.

Mr BARRY O'FARRELL: And could you bring me back the change?

Mr Alan Ashton: Barry, in 45 minutes that is the first laugh you have got.

Mr BARRY O'FARRELL: People tell me that the member for East Hills is an idiot. I do not believe it.

Mr Gerard Martin: Come on, Fatty, get on with it.

Mr BARRY O'FARRELL: Education, transport or health issues may not be of concern to the member for Bathurst, but I would have thought they would have been because time and again the Government stuffs up projects that have a huge impact upon people's lives. He has in his electorate one of the best examples: What should be good news in any electorate, at any time, under any government—a rebuilt hospital? Hallelujah! That new hospital was going to deliver better health services to the people of the Central West and the people of Bathurst. But what happened? That incompetent former Minister, Reba Meagher, the outgoing member for Cabramatta—and no-one is crying about that—delivered a hospital that failed to meet standards. The Government is so bad that it cannot sign off on plans for a new hospital project that actually meets standards. When the Government is caught out it seeks to blame the public servants. It seeks to blame anyone but itself. The member for Bathurst is now on the phone saying, "Retraction, retraction, retraction."

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

Mr BARRY O'FARRELL: Health, transport and education—all critical services—have a backlog of $82 million. Whether the former Minister for Planning or the current Minister for Planning is finally starting to focus on the needs of schools within the planning process, it would be nice next to have Treasury focus on the needs of schools and provide the $82 million that, according to the Auditor-General, is required to overcome the existing infrastructure and maintenance backlogs. Real libraries, real classrooms and real facilities would improve educational opportunities for our young people across the State.

The Department of Community Services is critical because every community has people who, sometimes because of family circumstances, often because of no fault of their own, fall between the gaps. One would hope that, along with disability services and health, community services would be one of the areas above and beyond politics. The commission of inquiry led by Justice Wood is an indictment of 13½ years of Labor Government, but it is a tribute to Opposition members, including the member for Burrinjuck, who put pressure on the Government when it claimed at the last election that all was well within the Department of Community Services and argued that this was not the case. Children were dying or being abused, despite being notified to the Department of Community Services, and our representations resulted in the Government having to establish the commission of inquiry. One can list any area of service administered by the Government and point to its inadequacies and failure to deliver benefits.

The critical issue raised today—and as Michael Costa has indicated and as the Premier said yesterday and today—is the importance of the property sector to our State's finances. There is no doubt that the lion's share of the windfall revenues this State has enjoyed over the past 13½ years has come from the property sector and from a housing market that, until the vendor tax was introduced by former Treasurer Michael Egan, was leading the nation. That sector is now recording the worst figures ever recorded for new starts in both units and houses. The cause of that, as the member for Warringah pointed out today, was the failure to release sufficient land. That has been a constant theme from the member for Gosford, the member for Warringah, and the other members who have held the planning portfolios over the past few years. There has been a failure to release sufficient land and a failure to recognise that what members opposite describe as developer levies and charges—described thus because they never focus on families or on the clients of government—in reality are passed on to home buyers and have cruelled the property market in this city.

Yet the Government, not recognising the damage that it has done to the State's property sector, that it has killed the housing sector almost stone dead, is now proposing in relation to critical infrastructures, such as a north-west rail link—or presumably, I say to the members for Camden and Wollondilly, a south-west rail link—to have an additional levy imposed upon those housing lots. Yesterday I accused the Premier of being arrogant and loose with the truth. Above all, he is ignorant. What is the point of taxing land release further when we cannot get land released now? There will be no increased net income. If the Government is about to try to finance a rail link on the basis of a tax upon land that is not being released under current taxation regimes, the people of the north-west of the city will be waiting another 10 years before a rail line is delivered.

Time and again the Government has promised much but has delivered little. It repeatedly fails to provide the services people deserve, or the security they deserve about their living standards. After more than a decade of strong national economic growth the Government has simply delivered a tripling of the State's debt. It has shown that it is incompetent economically. It has managed to turn great national economic times into bad times in New South Wales. Given the Premier's performance to date—in refusing to level with the public about the State of finances, in refusing to level with the public about the options that are available and are being considered, in refusing to acknowledge that taxes, rather than assisting the State to get out of its current financial situation, will only worsen it, and his failure to understand that the cancellation or further delays of essential infrastructure projects will only make it harder for families and businesses to do business not just in this city but in the cities and towns across the State—the Government deserves the strongest condemnation, and that is why we have moved the most serious motion we can move.

Since the minority Government of 1992 to 1995, Independents have not supported no-confidence motions. I suppose I can understand the rationale of Independents adhering to that process in the case of minority government. I also acknowledge that the fixed four-year terms that currently apply in New South Wales were the suggestion of the Independents. To be fair to the Independents who proposed that—the former member for South Coast, the former member for Manly, the former member for Tamworth and the current member for Sydney—it was done to protect the public from the cost and inconvenience of elections being called willy-nilly, far too frequently.

I acknowledge that at the time the mechanism was designed to protect the public interest. But none of those four Independents ever envisaged that a party in power, as this Government has been for 13½ years, would manage to corrupt such a simple process. The Government corrupted that process, as I said earlier, by ensuring that instead of working for the full 208 weeks of a four-year term it only put in an effort in the last six months. It corrupted the process by ensuring that instead of tackling the fundamental problems confronting the State it spent all its time papering over the problems, saying, "Just let us get through this next one, then we will get to it."

I say to the Independent members of this House: This is an occasion upon which you should stand up for your communities. As I move around this State and city, whether it be in Labor electorates, Independent electorates or Liberal-Nationals electorates, the anger within the community about what has been going on, the desire in the community about the need for an election, and the wish in the community for a change of government are clear and strong. This motion can deliver an election. I say to the Independents: All this motion would do is ensure that the people of New South Wales have a chance to pass judgement on the rotten mob opposite and choose who will run the State.

If the Independent members in this House want to stand up for public interest in this debate, if the members for Dubbo and Tamworth, in particular, want to do the right thing by their communities—communities that have written to me and argued that they want an early election—I encourage them on this occasion to support the Liberals and Nationals in voting for this no-confidence motion, to try to give to the public of New South Wales what they need and what they deserve: an early election. Mr Speaker, I understand that you sit in the Speaker's position so I absent you from those comments. If you would like to swap with one of the Labor members, I would be happy to welcome you on this side as well. I say to the Independent members, including her honour the Lord Mayor of Sydney: Put the community's interests first. Give them the election they want.

To Labor members opposite I say: The public have been reminded of all that is rotten, all that is bad, all that is arrogant, and all that is out of touch in this State Government by the events of the past few weeks—events triggered by the fact that 20 Labor members were going to cross the floor in relation to electricity privatisation. Those Labor members were saying to the media, either on the record or off the record, that they were doing so to stand up for the public interest. It is time that at least four members of the Labor Party in this Chamber stood up for the public interest again. It is time they allowed the electorate to choose the government of New South Wales. I say to those four Labor members that I think they would be overwhelmingly re-elected in their own seats. I commend this course of action in particular to marginal seat holders.

Even within this rotten caucus there have to be four members who are prepared to stand up for their communities on this issue, four members who are prepared to listen to their communities, who want an early election, four members who are determined to do the right thing and vote for this motion. They know they are sitting in a caucus that is rotten, they know they are sitting in a caucus that is incompetent, they know they are sitting in a caucus that its corrupting the very process of government in this State and failing to deliver to the communities in their electorates and elsewhere the services and the guarantees about living standards that they deserve.

We know that the Labor Party is still dysfunctional. Yesterday the former Treasurer quit the party—not by telling the party but by telling the Governor. Some members who expected to be Ministers are not Ministers. I say to the members for Heathcote and the Blue Mountains, who are sitting there like those grumpy men from the Muppets: Come with us and do the right thing. You know in your heart of hearts that you want to do it. You know that in the electorates of Heathcote and the Blue Mountains your communities are just as frustrated with this Government as are you and the rest of State.

The SPEAKER: Order! The term "Muppet" is unparliamentary.

Mr Phil Koperberg: Point of order: I am not a Muppet!

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Blue Mountains will resume his seat. The Leader of the Opposition will continue.

Mr BARRY O'FARRELL: I apologise to the Muppet Show but having made that point I looked up and I thought the members looked like Statler and Waldorf from the Muppet Show. To those Labor members who thought they would have been made Ministers and were not, and to those members who were Ministers and are no longer—I can only see the member for The Entrance in the Chamber but I know the member for Rockdale is listening closely in his room—I say that there is a once in a four-year term opportunity to do the right thing. Why not do what the public and your communities expect and support the Opposition?

The Government is incompetent, corrupt and rotten and is led by someone who, on the basis of less than three weeks in the job, has shown himself to be at best loose with the truth: someone who is unable, if indeed he wanted to, to put the interest of the public first because he is under the control of Labor's head office and the factional warlords. It is the same old Labor Party. There is nothing new about the members opposite. There is nothing new in their demeanour or their enjoyment of the trappings of office. There is nothing new about the factional deals that got them there or the factional deals that they hope will keep them there. The Government is out of touch, out of ideas, out of talent, and the passage of the motion would ensure that finally it is out of office.

The SPEAKER: Order! Before the Deputy Premier makes her contribution I advise members that the majority of the Leader of the Opposition's contribution was heard in silence. I ask members to extend the same courtesy to the Deputy Premier.

Ms CARMEL TEBBUTT (Marrickville—Deputy Premier, Minister for Climate Change and the Environment, and Minister for Commerce) [6.31 p.m.]: I lead for the Government and oppose the motion of the Leader of the Opposition. Tonight was the chance of the Leader of the Opposition to put forward his vision for New South Wales. Tonight was the opportunity for the Leader of the Opposition to show what he is made of. And I do not think it was just me who did not think he did so well.

The SPEAKER: Order! Members who are leaving the Chamber will do so quickly and quietly.

Ms CARMEL TEBBUTT: If the Leader of the Opposition had looked at the faces of the members behind him he would have seen that his team saw his performance as more of a damp squib than the firecracker promised. The Leader of the Opposition has moved a no-confidence motion and said that he is ready to face the people of New South Wales. The Leader of the Opposition is gearing up because he wants an election. He wants some members from this side of the House to cross the floor so that he can go to the people of New South Wales. If the Leader of the Opposition is ready to go to the people of New South Wales he did a pretty good job tonight of hiding it.

I listened carefully to the speech of the Leader of the Opposition. We did not hear one idea or policy and we did not see one bit of evidence that there is any talent on the front bench on that side of the Chamber. Once again the Leader of the Opposition has resorted to the same old time-wasting tactics. Members know that when a Leader of the Opposition moves a no-confidence motion he is really resorting to desperate tactics as he has nothing else to say or do. The Leader of the Opposition has moved a motion that he knows has no chance of getting up, yet he wastes the time of the House. He does not bother to give the people of New South Wales the respect of outlining his vision for the State as the alternative government. He presents himself as leading the alternative government but he declines to tell anyone what he would do if he were successful in his no-confidence motion, if he were successful in running an election campaign, and if he were successful in presenting himself to the people of New South Wales.

On this side of the House we understand that the right to govern has to be earned, and whether the Opposition likes it or not, the majority of people in New South Wales have supported the Labor Government time and again. The Government understands that we cannot—and we do not—take the support of the people in New South Wales for granted. The Government reflects the aspirations of the people of New South Wales for a better life for themselves and their children. The Government is prepared to work hard to return that faith and to deliver on our commitments to improve services in New South Wales and invest in infrastructure.

There is no doubt that at the moment the Government is facing challenging times. Over the last week we have seen, for instance, what has been described as the most significant international financial crisis in 100 years. The Government knows that it is confronting one of the most fundamental issues of our generation: how we address climate change. The Government knows that closer to home—as a result in part because of the irresponsibility of those opposite—our State is on credit watch. These are big challenges that call for big ideas and intelligent debate. Yet we get from those opposite the same old policy-free zone.

It is no wonder that the core constituency of the Opposition has given up and that the business community has lost faith in the Liberal Party under the leadership of the member for Ku-ring-gai. They see the members opposite for what they are: talentless and directionless rabble. The Opposition is almost on to its fourth leader in four years and the next one is waiting in the wings. The member for Manly is waiting in the wings for one more stumble from the Leader of the Opposition before he takes his chance to pounce. But we all know that the member for Manly will face the same obstacles that other progressive members of the Liberal Party have faced: the spectre of David Clarke. The member for Manly has no chance because the Liberal Party is really run by David Clarke and his extreme right-wing cronies. None of us can forget the lifting of the lid on the machinations of the Liberal Party by Steven Pringle. What were the words he said? I think I remember them:

Hunted down by a pack of rent-a-crowd pre-selectors marauding in caravans from electorate to electorate to take control.

That was in 2006, and it is a bit rich in 2008 for the member for Ku-ring-gai to lecture the Government on factions and party organisation. Since 2006 the Government has observed that the member for Ku-ring-gai, the Leader of the Opposition, has been spectacularly unsuccessful in reining in the extreme right wing control of his party. He has made all sorts of commitments but he has never been able to deliver. If you do not believe me ask David Barnett, because his blog is very instructive. We saw the factional bloodletting that occurred in the preselection for Cook and a Liberal Federal member of Parliament was denied the right to join one of his own local branches. Who could forget that? Yet it continued with the local government preselection this year. Sutherland shire councillor Ken Jones described members of his own party as:

nut cases and they hate me because I will not comply with their extreme right-wing agenda.

When you have friends like those, who needs enemies? In May this year we saw the resignation of the independent president of the Liberal Party in New South Wales. The sin of Geoff Selig was to push reform opposed by the right wing. The Government knows that the people of New South Wales have no time for extremist politics. They have no time for a party that is controlled by people whose ideas are on the very fringe of political debate. The people of New South Wales want to see an Opposition that is committed to robust debate—a healthy contest of ideas. What the people do not want is an Opposition that is obsessed with stunts and has no vision or policies, yet that is what we have got.

The business of State Government is hard, complex and important. We on this side of the House know that the people of New South Wales rely on a State government that is committed to facing significant challenges and finding solutions to policy and service delivery, a State government that is committed to taking the hard decisions that need to be taken in order to improve services. The Rees Labor Government is up to that task. The Government faces significant challenges, and the preparation of the November mini-budget is the first cab off the rank. As the Premier stated yesterday, the Government is developing a mini-budget that will be responsible and robust. The mini-budget will ensure the Government maintains prudent debt levels and invests in infrastructure to drive productivity growth, which is an important part of improving an economy facing inflationary pressures. We have already heard that the Reserve Bank is forecasting higher inflation. The latest forecast indicates that the elevated level of underlying inflation will persist over the next two years and inflation is expected to be above 3 per cent until mid-2010.

Reducing capacity constraints in the economy will relieve some of this inflationary pressure. Together with services, it is a key goal of this Government. As I said, we are committed to improving services and creating a stable economy for businesses to operate in. Our record shows that we have delivered. The Leader of the Opposition spent a long time outlining his view of what is wrong with this State. He did not spend any time telling us what he would do to fix it. I want to spend some time outlining our record and the improvements that we have delivered for the people of New South Wales. The Government has upgraded or rebuilt almost every major hospital and emergency department in New South Wales. Approximately $2.1 billion has been spent on completed capital works for New South Wales Health and 594 major works costing over $250,000 have been completed, including 27 major new hospital facilities and redevelopment projects.

The Labor Government understands the importance of investing in infrastructure. We know the difference that these services and good infrastructure make to people's day-to-day lives and we are committed to delivering that infrastructure. Investment in the State's roads and ports drives productivity, sets the State up to cope with the pressures of population growth and freight movements, and encourages investment in our State. Infrastructure renewal is important to maintain and increase capacity in public transport, electricity transmission and distribution, public housing, water and sewerage, and major roads and bridges. Infrastructure is necessary to keep pace with changing technological developments. It is also true that the New South Wales Government's revenues are vulnerable to the economic slow down. Monthly stamp duty revenues are running $90 million below budget projections. Furthermore, a key risk of the economic slow down is the possibility of rising unemployment and the effect that this could have on New South Wales families. In combination with economic instability in the international economic environment, this makes it appropriate for the Government to review its position and plan for the times ahead with a responsible and robust plan.

That is the difference between the Government and the Opposition. We understand our responsibility to manage the State's budget so that we can deliver the service improvements that the people of New South Wales want and maintain our triple-A credit rating. We are prepared to make the hard decisions. It is extraordinary that the Leader of the Opposition talks about all the problems. In his budget reply speech he moaned about the need for infrastructure investment, but then said that debt levels were too high. Where is he going to get the money to deliver the improvements that he says are so necessary? He has no economic credibility. Even tonight, once again the Leader of the Opposition used figures that were simply wrong.

In 1995 when we came into Government the general government net debt was 7.4 per cent of gross State product. That is the record that we inherited from the Opposition. We repaid the former Coalition Government's debt, which gave this Government the flexibility to be able to invest in infrastructure development and to have a debt program. We are not using the money to fill a budget black hole. That is what the Opposition did. The Government will not do that. But we do understand that going into debt to create economic capacity is good practice. It enhances productivity and puts downward pressure on inflation.

While the Government has a plan to manage the economy in the face of significant international forces, the Opposition has no plan. My fear—and I suspect the growing fear of many electors—is that when people look for Barry O'Farrell's economic and other policies, they will find the equivalent of Al Capone's "secret vault". Members may remember about 10 years ago a sizeable global television audience awaited a live spectacular of the opening of Al Capone's secret vault. Everyone wanted to see what was inside. With much anticipation, the doors were flung open. What was inside? Absolutely nothing. It was the same as the Leader of the Opposition's policy folder—empty. As Michael Duffy lamented in the Sydney Morning Herald on 20 September, "ideas do matter in State politics". People do want to see a contest of ideas and an Opposition that is committed to policy reform and prepared to put forward a vision for the future. We never see that from that bunch occupying the Opposition benches.

Labor is prepared to put its ideas into action. I could talk about the many areas of our policy achievements, but I will refer to education. A record $11.8 billion has been allocated for school education and vocational training in 2008-09. Our education standards are second to none in Australia. It is one of the world's great systems. New South Wales students from kindergarten to year 12 are taught according to a detailed common curriculum. It is recognised as a gold standard curriculum. The New South Wales Higher School Certificate provides students with a world-class credential and offers up-to-date, challenging courses with clear pathways to further education, training and work. New South Wales is the first State or Territory to require new teachers to be accredited through the Institute of Teachers. We have delivered smaller class sizes for kindergarten to year 2 students. At any government primary school across New South Wales, teachers and parents alike talk about what a difference smaller class sizes make.

Mr Andrew Stoner: Thanks to the Coalition's policy.

Ms CARMEL TEBBUTT: Thanks to the Coalition? We have not forgotten the policy the Coalition took to the last election to slash teachers and public servants numbers right across New South Wales.

The SPEAKER: Order! Government members will come to order. The Leader of The Nationals will cease interjecting.

Ms CARMEL TEBBUTT: Our schools would not have smaller class sizes if the Opposition had got its way at the last election. We would not have the results that we have recently seen in the National Assessment Program on Literacy and Numeracy, which shows that New South Wales students scored well above the Australian average in every subject and in every age group tested. In fact, New South Wales students outperformed every other State, coming first in the nation in spelling in years 3, 5 and 7. Our students deserve congratulations. In vocational education, if the Opposition got its way the State would not have the trade schools we established in Colyton High School in Western Sydney, Ballina High School and Glendale TAFE Trade School, and the trade schools we opened in Campbelltown, Queanbeyan, St George, Wyong and Tamworth. I recall a time when the former Howard Government, aided and abetted by the members on the opposite side of the Chamber, sought to create parallel TAFE schools, but the conditions to work in one included surrendering all your rights and signing up to an Australian workplace agreement. Shame! We have moved beyond those days. It was a nasty, politically motivated and wasteful process.

Our strong record in educational reform is matched by our strong record in climate change and the environment. I have already outlined to the House our many achievements in this area. It is another area where our policy differences are vast. Labor is proud to be at the forefront of change and we will remain that way. The Liberal Party has no credibility when it comes to policies on the environment and climate change. It is not just because it is in partnership with The Nationals. It is because, as we know, it has no real appetite for reform. It is not prepared to make the hard decisions and put the hard work into developing the policies. The people of New South Wales see through the Opposition and they know that it will never really deliver reform or service improvements. It will never really make a difference to the lives of working people in New South Wales because it has no real capacity for the reform that is required.

I want to speak about one area that the Leader of the Opposition mentioned because it deserves some attention. It is the area of community services. There is no doubt that families in New South Wales who are vulnerable, marginalised or suffer from dysfunction are very dependent on the services of the Department of Community Services and the various non-government agencies that are funded under the banner of Community Services. The Leader of the Opposition seems to have a very short memory. I do not have a short memory. I can remember the last time the Coalition was in government: it slashed thousands of Community Services staff across New South Wales.

The Coalition in government closed one-quarter of the Department of Community Services offices across New South Wales. Who can forget the 2003 Labor Party election campaign policy to rebuild the Department of Community Services—more than a billion dollars invested, nearly a thousand new caseworkers, and early intervention services? What did the Opposition do? Two days before the election the Opposition tried to slip through that it would not implement that reform package; it would slash almost a billion dollars from the Department of Community Services budget. It would take almost a billion dollars from the most marginal and most vulnerable families in New South Wales.

The people of New South Wales did not reward that sort of behaviour in 2003. The people did not reward the Opposition's policies in 2007 because they saw through the Opposition and they know what it is about. The people of New South Wales have seen that the Opposition has no commitment to improving services in New South Wales. I listened carefully to the comments of the Leader of the Opposition, but I did not hear one statement that indicated that he has any vision for the future of this State. He did not make one statement that outlined what he would do as the leader of the alternative government.

I oppose the motion because the people of New South Wales need a government that understands their aspirations. They need a government that is prepared to do the hard work to deliver on those aspirations. The people of New South Wales deserve a government that is prepared to grapple with difficult policy issues and difficult service delivery issues, and is prepared to improve the services that people rely on. The people of New South Wales want a government that takes the job seriously, that will not go missing in action when the going gets tough. That government is the Rees Labor Government. The motion should be opposed. It will fail. It exposes the Opposition for the policy-free zone that we know it is.

Mr ANDREW STONER (Oxley—Leader of The Nationals) [6.51 p.m.]: Government members are leaving the Chamber. This is going to be a wonderful contribution; they should stay. There is no more important motion or political manoeuvre in this State than a motion of no confidence in the Government. This is not a motion that the Opposition brings forward lightly. Yet, the new Premier has left us with no other choice. As the political administrator of the State, the Premier is responsible for the efficient management of the State's finances, public utilities and services, and for the welfare of its citizens, regardless of their postcode. Since the appointment of Premier Rees on 5 September 2008—just three weeks ago—he has systematically failed in that role.

Premier Rees has not bothered to appear to take part in this debate to defend his Government. He has sent the Deputy Premier, who really made a meal of it by talking about the vision of the Leader of the Opposition and the qualities of the shadow Cabinet. But guess what? The motion is all about no confidence in the Government. The motion is very clear, and it reflects the public feeling that it is time for a change of government in New South Wales. The public is fed up to the back teeth with a Government that is not delivering on any measure of what is expected by the taxpayers and the community at large. The Deputy Premier spent most of her time talking about the Opposition because she could not defend the indefensible.

In just three weeks, Premier Rees has overseen the State's debt blow out to $42 billion. He has overseen the induction of a new Cabinet that does not include any regionally based members of this House. Neither does its numbers represent anywhere near the one-third of this State's people who live outside the metropolitan areas. Moreover, the Premier has put together a leadership team that consists entirely of inner-city party hacks. He has cast doubt over the commencement and/or completion of vital infrastructure projects in regional and rural areas, leaving many communities without much-needed services. He has appointed a Treasurer who oversaw the Pacific Highway upgrade project fall years behind schedule. He has appointed a Minister for Finance who, as Minister for Small Business and Regulatory Reform, oversaw the continued excessive regulatory burden on small business in New South Wales, many of which are the lifeblood of country and coastal areas. He also failed to address cross-border issues.

The Premier has overseen the continual underfunding of New South Wales government schools. Just this week he lumped the blame for the backlog of school maintenance projects on local councils. Unbelievable! How can the people of country and coastal New South Wales have confidence in a Premier who will not stand up for their communities? How can the people of country and coastal New South Wales have confidence in a Premier who will not give those communities a strong voice and show leadership around the Cabinet table? How can the people of country and coastal New South Wales have confidence in a Premier who has left vital rural and regional infrastructures hanging to swing in the breeze? The answer is they cannot, and more importantly they should not have to.

Right around country and coastal New South Wales people are screaming out for an early election. They have had enough—13½ years of decline in services and infrastructure, in stark contrast to the increase in State revenue and the increase in government debt. The people are rightly asking, "Where has all the money gone?" They were duded by a tricky changeover of Premiers prior to the last election, but they will not fall for that again. They did not elect Nathan Rees as Premier, they did not elect Carmel Tebbutt as Deputy Premier and they did not elect Eric Roozendaal as Treasurer. The people want the democratic right to elect a government that can fix the problems besetting this State in the midst of great global uncertainty—and that is not an inexperienced Labor coterie, hand picked by Sussex Street on the basis of factional allegiances and back-room deals.

It is a known fact that a third of the New South Wales population resides outside the Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong regions. Yet, when choosing the new Labor Ministry, Karl Bitar—my mistake— Nathan Rees failed to include any regionally or rurally based members of the House, leaving those communities without a strong voice around the Cabinet table. Let me say that another way: A third of the population of this State is essentially unrepresented at the table where all the decisions affecting New South Wales residents are made. Even the portfolios of Regional Development and Rural Affairs were handed to a member of Parliament from a metropolitan region. It is fair to say that Nathan Rees and his new Cabinet have left country and coastal people out in the cold.

To add insult to injury, the Rees leadership team fails also to include a regional and rural voice: not a single one. Residents of country and coastal New South Wales are living in a State run by politicians who know only the city life, who fail miserably to understand the issues facing regional people. The new Premier has made no secret of the fact that all current infrastructure projects, at whatever stage of development, are now under threat due to 13 years of financial incompetence by the Labor Government. There is a giant hole in the budget, and the Premier does not know how to fill it. And as a result the people of country and coastal New South Wales may have much-needed infrastructure projects shelved.

In Tamworth, the much-needed hospital redevelopment that was promised prior to the last election is now under a cloud of doubt, so much so that the Hon. Trevor Khan and I have started an online petition calling on the Government to honour its commitment and get on with the job of building the hospital. That is not a stunt; it is about life expectancy and health outcomes for country people. I know that people in the north-west have a much higher death rate from cancer-related illnesses than do people from the city. And why is that? Because they cannot access services at their local base hospital. The redevelopment of Tamworth Hospital is absolutely critical in providing equity of access to life-saving services for country people on the basis of where they live. For it to be under threat for any reason is a disgrace. Many people support that online petition; the names are coming in thick and fast. The community urgently needs that hospital development.

In Port Macquarie the upgrade to the hospital's emergency department, which has been in the planning stages for two years, is now in doubt. Health professionals have had no response as to the current status of the urgently required upgrade. Also in Port Macquarie, construction of the long-awaited fourth pod of the base hospital now is in doubt. Following the cancellation of the sale of the State's electricity assets, the former health Minister included this project on the list of essential services that may be cut. This is non-negotiable. Again it is about health outcomes for people outside the metropolitan areas, and if they do not have access to decent standards of health facilities their quality of life suffers and their life expectancy overall is reduced. That has been proven by any number of studies.

In Monaro, the Snowy Business Enterprise Centre is set to be axed due to funding cuts. In the west of the State, the Parkes and Forbes hospital projects have been delayed over and over and still are not funded. The former Premier announced during a visit to Parkes in 2004 that "planning will occur in 2006 with a view to beginning construction in 2007". These projects still have not begun. In Orange, we are still waiting for the State Government to commit to a timetable for the completion of the new Orange Base Hospital. All of these projects and more are at risk thanks to the economic mismanagement of New South Wales Labor. The columnist Robert Gottliebsen recently commented upon Labor's managerial incompetence in the Australian Financial Review dated 5 September. He stated:

The economic downturn and a few decisions from Canberra simply multiplied the effects of the big mistakes made in NSW. It did not cause them.

He goes on to opine that Sydney, and indeed New South Wales, have been dying for at least five years, citing Harry Triguboff, who made that claim in the Australian newspaper. Mr Gottliebsen continued:

It's dying because NSW has zoned out good land, forcing house prices up to levels that people could not afford.

It's dying because NSW taxed developed land at around $140,000 a block—six times the amount charged by other States.

It's dying because its health and safety rules use the French system of justice (guilty until proved innocent).

It's dying because there are a maze of bodies that strangle industrial development and the proper working functions of the state.

There are many other forces at work preventing this State from reaching its full potential. The business people and politicians in Queensland have developed a strategy of expansion based on the NSW joke. Melbourne will soon become Australia's largest city because of the Sydney/NSW morass.

But there's a problem. NSW is our richest state and Sydney is still our largest city so everybody suffers when the 'Premier State' is badly managed.

Now to the man who has been charged with managing the State's finances. In 1996 the Labor Government promised that the Pacific Highway would be 80 per cent dual carriageway by 2006. But under Eric Roozendaal's watch, by July this year only 52 per cent of the highway had been upgraded to dual carriageway. In 2007 the Auditor-General found that Mr Roozendaal had spent just $23.9 million of the $460 million budgeted for the upgrade in that financial year.

Also last year, Mr Roozendaal failed to submit a vital AusLink application and has since admitted he was playing politics in doing that. That is a disgrace. He was essentially playing politics with the lives of those who use the notorious road. I see the member for Coffs Harbour behind me in the Chamber. He and I can attest to the awful implications for families and entire communities with any delay in fixing that highway. Furthermore, in this year's budget Mr Roozendaal misled the people of New South Wales by claiming that the State had committed $613 million to the upgrade when in fact it was only $291 million—the remainder being Federal money. He essentially misled the people of New South Wales to cover his own back.

While Eric Roozendaal has dillydallied around on this and other roads issues—being more concerned with trying to further his own political career—people and the motorists of this State have been suffering in a variety of ways, whether it be in relation to unsafe roads and the tragic consequences of that or the ever-increasing traffic congestion and the loss of quality of life associated with that. He certainly let down regional and rural communities, and now Nathan Rees expects us to believe that Eric Roozendaal can handle the management of this State's finances.

I now turn to Mr Roozendaal's dodgy brother, Joe Tripodi. During his time as Minister for Small Business, Joe Tripodi oversaw the continued excessive regulatory burden on small business in New South Wales, which in country and coastal areas is the backbone of local economies. Red tape has done nothing but increase and bog down small businesses in mountains of paperwork. To add insult to injury, cross-border issues remain a very significant burden for small business in regional and rural New South Wales. In the Tweed, for example, it is cheaper for business to operate across the Queensland border rather than deal with the New South Wales Labor Government. And Joe Tripodi did absolutely nothing to ease this mess. Now the Premier has put this man in charge of the finances of the entire State, and we are expected to believe he can deal with them competently. Nathan Rees has even tried to spin that the dodgy brothers and the other tired old Labor mates are somehow a fresh new team. Frankly, the people of New South Wales know better.

In relation to education, which the Deputy Premier spoke about, the truth is that when you talk to school communities, parents and citizens associations, teachers, students and their families, what you find are schools across the State with substandard facilities, including classrooms with leaking roofs, threadbare carpets, trip hazards and other safety hazards around the school grounds. That is the result of 13 years of financial mismanagement and the neglect of school maintenance. And the problem is not going to go away. Although we have had more than a decade of Labor promises of school funding, there is still a nearly $83 million school maintenance backlog that is being felt every day by students, teachers and parents in the 2,242 government schools across the State.

Yet despite Nathan Rees' promise to cut out the spin, one of his first forays into the Education portfolio was to make a big announcement about rewriting planning laws because about eight schools in Sydney have had their planning applications held up. But what about the other 2,234 schools in New South Wales? Nathan Rees went on to claim that some schools have waited 10 months for upgrades to be approved by local councils. But the Primary Principals Association has produced a list that shows that many schools have waited 10 years for funding from the New South Wales Labor Government for upgrades. Meanwhile, a first-class public education system is slowly unravelling, with enrolments in non-government schools increasing at a much greater rate than enrolments in government schools.

The great risk is the advent of a two-tiered education system: one for the haves and one for the have-nots. That is due more to the failure of State Labor to properly support public education than it is to either the current or former Federal governments. And it is not helped by a new education Minister who sat around the Cabinet table for 18 months but did not even realise that the State Government funded State Government schools.

Now I come to the Premier himself. Just a few weeks ago we saw that time-honoured Labor trick right out of the Hawker Britton playbook: as one useless State Premier fades in the opinion polls due to his lack of ability to maintain basic public services and infrastructure, the faceless hacks of the Labor Party head office step in and anoint a new Premier to take up the mantle—a blank canvas or an unelected Neville nobody. The truth is that the Labor Party has turned the premiership of this great State of New South Wales into an absolute joke. Under Labor there is no prestige in the Premier's job any more. This State has had some great Premiers: Greiner was one; those on the other side may argue that Wran was another.

But from those two—to name just a couple—look how far we have fallen. From Morris Iemma, who had no claim on the job apart from the fact that he worked for Graham Richardson and was less unpopular than Carl Scully, to Nathan Rees, who earned his stripes in the Labor Party by working for two failed Premiers, Morris Iemma and Bob Carr, and for convicted paedophile and drug offender Milton Orkopoulos. Nathan Rees is the man who is always in the right place at the right time. He conveniently got out of the office of Milton Orkopoulos on the last working day before Orkopoulos told a staff member to contact police about child sex allegations against him. And what was Rees' reward? It was a Labor Party safe seat, and ultimately the premiership. According to his childhood mate Paul O'Grady, Nathan Rees had concerns about Milton Orkopoulos' behaviour but was told basically, "You don't want to know". So he stuck his head in the sand, putting his political ambition ahead of any concerns he may have had about unethical or criminal behaviour on the part of his Minister.

Indeed, Nathan Rees is the personification of how far Labor has fallen in New South Wales. The Labor Party has taken the prestige and privilege of public office and put it firmly in the sewer. Is it any wonder that one wag recently quipped of John Watkins—the only man with any real life experience among the hacks, Iemma, Costa and Meagher, who quit recently—that he was the first ship to leave the sinking rats. Under Labor it is no longer about ability; it is about knowing where the bodies are and who has skeletons in the closet, and about striking a deal with the factional warlords. Nathan Rees is now so out of touch that he thinks having a part-time job while going to university is some sort of unique selling point—some type of qualification for holding the highest office in New South Wales. Welcome, Nathan, to the real world. It was a good sound bite and a good news grab, but here is a tip: having a part-time, non-union job might be the exception in Young Labor, but it is entirely normal in the community. We have all been there.

But I congratulate Nathan Rees on finding a job even dirtier than being a garbo: joining Bob Carr's spin machine. Most people would call that hitting rock bottom. But Nathan had to start drilling when he went to work for convicted paedophile Milton Orkopoulos. So Nathan Rees knows how filthy State Labor is. Like Michael Costa, the failed State Treasurer who wanted to abolish State government, he knows how bad this Labor Government is. Nathan Rees' first promise was to cut the number of Labor Party spin doctors because he knows how bad they truly are. But his first promise did not take long to turn into his first broken promise when he increased the need for spin doctors by bloating the ministry by an additional two Labor members of Parliament because Eddie Obeid and Joe Tripodi told him to. But what a good defence Nathan Rees has. How could any Cabinet possibly function without Tony Stewart, Jodi McKay, Barbara Perry, Graham West, Phillip Costa or Michael Daley? Like Karl Bitar and Mark Arbib before him, Nathan Rees has found that what Eddie and Joe want, Eddie and Joe get. But do not get us wrong: On this side of the House we love Joe because every time his face appears on television our vote increases!

But it is seriously bad for the people of New South Wales when the show is being run by faceless numbers men in Sussex Street and by puppeteers such as Joe Tripodi and Eddie Obeid in Macquarie Street. No-one can dispute that Morris Iemma was a failed Premier—possibly the worst in this proud State's history. Yet in his dying days as Premier, in a somewhat well-meaning gesture, Morris planned to cull Costa, Tripodi, Meagher and some of the other underperformers from the ministry in what would have been just about his only achievement in office. Instead, the factional hacks and the puppeteers cut off Morris' head, leaving us with another unelected Premier in Nathan Rees—the only man who could possibly be more beholden to Joe Tripodi, Eddie Obeid and the Labor Party head office than Morris Iemma. History shows that when Eddie, Joe and Karl run the show, the big losers are the people of New South Wales.

The people of country and coastal New South Wales know better than to place their confidence in a Premier who so far has failed to give them the representation they deserve. The failure of this Government to provide adequate services and infrastructure across New South Wales, the gross mismanagement of the State's finances by the two people entrusted to work us out of that mismanagement—Joe Tripodi and Eric Roozendaal—as well as doubts about the Premier's integrity and character mean that we can have no confidence in this terrible Government to fix the State of New South Wales. After 13½ years of Labor incompetence, this great State has slipped from its position as the premier State to the bottom of the barrel according to virtually every economic criterion, and increasingly every quality-of-life criterion.

Whether people are waiting in pain for hours in an overcrowded emergency department or for years on a long elective surgery waiting list; stuck in traffic, gridlocked, for increasingly long hours away from their families; travelling on a crowded, late train or bus, or on crumbling public roads; or their children attend a school with rundown classrooms and putrid toilets, they can have no doubt that things have gotten worse in New South Wales after 13 long years of Labor. That is why New South Wales residents increasingly are pulling up stumps and moving to other States, particularly Queensland. The long-suffering New South Wales public has no confidence that this latest Labor incarnation has any ability to rescue the State. I speak on behalf of all New South Wales when I say that we have no confidence in the Rees Labor Government. It is time for a change in New South Wales.

Mr DAVID CAMPBELL (Keira—Minister for Transport, and Minister for the Illawarra) [7.16 p.m.]: This motion is no more than a political stunt. There is no clearer demonstration of that than the twaddle we have just heard from the Leader of The Nationals. His speech was so repetitious that even the member for Vaucluse almost nodded off. He had to pinch himself to stay awake to listen to the nonsense from the Leader of The Nationals. The greatest irony in this debate is that a party hack from central casting, the former head of the faction-ridden New South Wales branch of the Liberal Party, tried to cast others as machine men who are beholden to special interests. The mover of this motion is such a person—if the shoe fits, Barry, then certainly you should wear it. He is the original hollow man. Barry O'Farrell is the bagman of the Liberal Party who has never held a job outside politics. Let us look at his biography. He has been a staffer and head office hack—that is it. Barry O'Farrell used his position as the head of the New South Wales branch of the Liberal Party to set himself up in a safe Liberal seat.

Contrast his record with that of members on the Government benches. The members newly appointed to Cabinet include Phil Costa, a former school principal and diligent member who represents the diverse Wollondilly electorate; Virginia Judge, a former mayor of Strathfield who has extensive experience with roads, education and training, industrial relations and finance through her role as a Parliamentary Secretary; and David Borger, the former Lord Mayor of Parramatta and a proven, dynamic leader of Sydney's second central business district. Other members of the ministry have more than 60 years of Cabinet experience. The Ministers in the Rees Government are committed to facing the difficult challenges that lie ahead with courage, enthusiasm and hard work. They are very different from those on the Coalition front bench, where the only qualification for attaining a shadow ministry is how unlikely one is to challenge the leader.

The member for Myall Lakes is a case in point. He has asked not a single question in this place in the past two years. Let us work our way through the litany of mediocrity on the Opposition front bench. The member for Ballina did not ask a single question in 2007 or 2008. In the past two years the member for Terrigal and the member for Bega have asked a single question each—and both questions were of very dubious quality. That is not to suggest that the member for Terrigal is not busy, because he is. He is always busy white-anting whoever his leader happens to be at the time. The member for Vaucluse has a wry grin because he experienced it. The member for Terrigal is always white-anting his leader and muckraking. The mob opposite does not even deserve to be members of Parliament, let alone to be in government. They lack the talent, the ideas and the vision.

The political stunt they are pulling today is all about masking the fact that they do not have any policies or the intellectual grunt to come up with alternatives. The Deputy Premier pointed out that the Leader of the Opposition spoke for about an hour in this debate and not once did he make any suggestion that the Opposition has any alternative way, point of view or policy. Indeed, the reason that a mini-budget is afoot and that this Government is working so hard to secure the State's fiscal future is that Standard and Poor's put the State on credit watch because of this Opposition's policy position. The member for Vaucluse had a hissy fit and went to the back bench, but members opposite eventually returned to his policy position.

The Rees Government has put forward the right people to get on with the job. We will build on the achievements of previous Labor governments that have rescued the State from six consecutive deficit budgets under the Coalition Government. We have pulled the State out of that mire; we have broken that cycle of deficit budgets. The achievements of Labor governments are many. They include establishing trade schools to address the trades skills shortage. That is a new policy direction, a new idea and a new way of thinking. Those schools have been delivered to a number of places. I will not list them because the Deputy Premier made that point. The Government also has made progress with many mental health initiatives, including the housing and accommodation support initiative that links treatment with stable housing for people with a mental illness. Again, that is a new and progressive way of doing things. It is not mired in the past like the ideas from that side of the House.

The Government is working to secure Sydney's water supply through a comprehensive program that involves recycling, demand management—which we heard about from the Minister for Housing today—and, of course, investment in infrastructure such as the desalination plant and a very valuable and important leak reduction program. Again, these are new ways of doing things and delivering, and appropriately so. This Government spends more than $36 million a day on health care in New South Wales, treating more than two million patients in emergency departments. There are one million ambulance responses and over six million outpatient services such as chemotherapy and dialysis. All of this has contributed to a 35 per cent reduction in deaths from cardio-vascular disease since 1995 and a 16 per cent decrease in cancer death rates for men and 11 per cent for women since 1995. Survival rates for babies admitted to neonatal intensive care units increased from 90 per cent to 94 per cent between 1996 and 2006, and New South Wales has the lowest diabetes mortality rate of any State.

People often ask were the money has gone. It has gone into services that achieve results like that. Make no mistake: the money that has come in on the income side of the budget has gone out on the expenditure side of the budget to improve services and outcomes for families across New South Wales, whether they be in the suburbs of Sydney, regional locations such as the Central Coast, Newcastle or the Illawarra, or those very important substantial regional towns such as Queanbeyan. I know the member for Monaro would be pleased that I mentioned Queanbeyan. Those improved services are provided in Bathurst, Dubbo and Kempsey, which the Leader of The Nationals represents. The money has been spent to provide those sorts of services to achieve those sorts of outcomes for families.

The money has also been spent to rectify the mistakes made by members opposite at the Port Macquarie Base Hospital. It has been spent also to rectify the mistake that members opposite made, led by the Leader of the Opposition at the time, with the airport rail link. Those projects have been bailed out because of the Opposition's failed policies and inability to write contracts and to manage the finances of this State.

Mr Gerard Martin: It is the debt lag they left when they lost government.

Mr DAVID CAMPBELL: Yes, it is related to the debt this Government inherited when members opposite left government, as was pointed out by the Deputy Premier in her contribution a little while ago. All of these things are real accomplishments and action taken for the people of New South Wales. Members on this side of the House are getting on with the job and have a demonstrated track record of delivering for the people of New South Wales.

What I found particularly intriguing when I listened to the Leader of the Opposition's contribution was that he had no understanding of how a budget works. He continued to talk about the fact that it was inappropriate for the Government to get income and that it should not impose a charge on this and a tax on that. That would be nice and I suppose it is what populist politics is all about—telling people they will never be charged—but governments would never collect revenue. He then went on to complain that there is not enough expenditure. There are two sides to a budget. I know the Treasurer understands that and I know the Minister for Finance, who is in the Chamber, understands that because he keeps reminding me about it. It is something that I learnt a long time ago when I was running a very successful budget at Wollongong City Council. But I will not go there now.

The Leader of the Opposition revealed in his contribution that he does not get it. We have also had a demonstration of how members opposite do not get it. The Leader of the Opposition was the person who blew up Debnam's photocopier just before the last election: it could not keep pace with the expenditure pages in the Opposition's campaign documents. The documents had no income pages, but there were so many expenditure pages that the photocopier could not cope. The people of New South Wales remember that. They know that the mob opposite wander around with a magic pudding. They know that the Government takes very seriously the importance of having a triple-A credit rating. That rating is on credit watch because of the Opposition's policy vandalism. They do not get it; they do not understand the importance of good public policy. The Government is busy responding to the task at hand while the Opposition is wasting time and, indeed, losing business confidence. I witnessed that at a function in Wollongong last Thursday night at which the Leader of the Opposition spoke. He turned off the audience within five minutes. He made a long-winded speech.

Mr Steve Whan: Just like tonight.

Mr Gerard Martin: Just like he did tonight, putting everyone to sleep.

Mr DAVID CAMPBELL: That is the point I was going to make, but I am grateful for the help of the member for Monaro and the member for Bathurst. I received notes from people in the room who had never voted for the Labor Party in Wollongong—it was a group of Liberals from the business community—telling me that the Leader of the Opposition had lost them. He certainly lost members on the Opposition benches tonight because he went on and on. Again, he provided no leadership or sensible alternative direction. As always, he will follow us on this side of the House because we have put in place the policies that will achieve better mental health outcomes, better ageing and disability services, and better general health services across the State. As the Deputy Premier pointed out, the money has been invested in infrastructure, particularly health infrastructure, across the State. We need to continue to point that out to members opposite. The Government is responding to the current economic environment in a reasoned and robust way. It is looking very carefully at what is required in the circumstances.

However, we also have the rabble known as the Federal Opposition—this mob's colleagues—indulging in a knee-jerk reaction. Malcolm Turnbull has called on the Federal Government to undertake an American-style bail out of our banks. Even those with the most basic understanding of economics know that that would be completely irresponsible in the current environment. Asserting that our banks are under the same pressures being experienced by banks in the United States is simply incorrect. Our banks are protected by a greater level of regulation. Indeed, even the former Commonwealth Treasurer made that point in the media. He said that the world economic problems are caused by a lack of oversight in the United States. That lack of oversight is not evident in this country. This has been pointed out by Glenn Stevens, Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, who said earlier this month:

Australian financial institutions continue to present a contrasting picture to their peers in the US ... Europe and the UK ...

They have tightened credit standards for some borrowers ... particularly those associated with property development ... and are holding a higher proportion of their balance sheets in liquid form.

It is economic vandalism for Liberal Oppositions in this country to talk down the Australian economy at a time when it needs to be supported and at a time when governments need to make strong and robust decisions. That is what is proposed in the mini-budget process on which this Government has now embarked. At the same time the Government has made it clear to businesses that it wants them to invest and to continue to employ people so that this State remains in a strong economic position. It is clear at a State and a Federal level that the Liberal Party is bereft of ideas and talent. That is what we saw tonight.

Mr Steve Whan: The emperor with no clothes.

Mr DAVID CAMPBELL: As the member for Monaro reminded me, the would-be emperor on the Opposition benches certainly has no clothes. Tonight in his contribution to debate on this motion he demonstrated that has no ideas and no sense of leadership. When the Leader of the Opposition was speaking the member for Manly was sitting in the Chamber with his abacus doing the numbers so he can move from a backbench position where the member for Vaucluse is sitting to a frontbench position where the member for North Shore is sitting. The counting has begun. I assure members that the member for Manly was not about translating fiscal responsibility into any sense of policy because the Opposition has no policies. The member for Manly was not trying to avoid blowing up the photocopier as occurred just before the last election. The member for Manly was doing the numbers to do over the Leader of the Opposition. The member for Terrigal and the Hon. David Clarke, who are out there doing the numbers, do over their leaders time and again.

Tonight's debate is not about the good governance of the State and it is not about good politics; it is a stunt by Opposition members to cover up the fact that they have no ideas, no plans, no discipline and no cohesion. Contrast that with members on the Government front bench, such as the Minister for Local Government, who are getting on with the job of engaging with local government communities. I am sure that the Minister for Ageing, Minister for Disability Services, and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs is engaging with representatives of the ageing and disability communities, and the list goes on. This motion is a stunt, it will be seen as stunt, and it has been reported as a stunt. For those reasons it will not be agreed to tonight. This straight-up stunt attempts to mask the fact that the Opposition has no plans, no ideas, no policy and no leadership. Contrast that with the effort, intelligence, integrity and enthusiasm of Premier Nathan Rees. I will back him as the Premier of this State any time.

Mrs JILLIAN SKINNER (North Shore—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) [7.33 p.m.]: I have never heard such a load of drivel in my life—a speech full of platitudes that mean nothing. The Minister for Transport, and Minister for the Illawarra did not address this serious issue. I am happy to support this motion, not because I like to criticise a government, but because I support the people of New South Wales who regularly say to me wherever I go, "What can we do to change this Government? Please do everything possible to give us the opportunity to have a vote so we can vote in a government that we trust. Please give us an opportunity to have a government that will address issues that are important to people right across New South Wales. Please give us a government that is honest and willing to give us the facts about the financial position of this State, the horrible state of our infrastructure and major services. Please give us a government that is prepared to focus on the delivery of services that are its primary responsibility. Please give us a government that has people of honour, integrity and intelligence, and people capable of dealing with tough issues."

People are saying that they are fed up to the back teeth with the same old people circulating in an apparent attempt to try to present a picture of a new government. People are saying, "Please do all you can to get this Parliament to bring on an election." I am proud of the speech that the Leader of the Opposition made this evening because it was measured and thoughtful and covered issues relating to State debt. Over the past three years State debt has gone from $15 billion to a projected $42 billion. Everyone should be reminded that that is more than $6,000 for every person in this State, despite Labor's constant claims of being fiscally responsible. I want to focus on the second paragraph of this motion, which refers to:

(2) The claimed breakdown in the State's balance sheet and the Labor Government threat to delay or cancel essential infrastructure projects despite repeated pledges to improve services across New South Wales.

The Leader of the Opposition said in his speech that much has been made of the revelations by the former Treasurer that the Health budget was $300 million in the red. If we look at budgets from the year 1995-96, when the Labor Party brought down its first budget, to the 2006-07 budget—the last time I can find a revised budget figure—we find that there has been a cumulative $3.2 billion of overruns in the Health budget. On average, that is about $250 million every year. Why is that so? People always ask, "Where has all the money gone?" As the Leader of the Opposition pointed out, over that same period we have had $17.5 billion of unexpected revenues—that is, windfall revenues from a buoyant economy—thanks largely to the former Commonwealth Coalition Government, and the fact that the property market was going very well in New South Wales. This money has gone to prop up the Government's overspends in portfolios such as Health—a factor that has been noted on previous occasions by Standard and Poor's.

I refer members to my speech to the budget in 2000. I opened that speech with a quote from Standard and Poor's that referred to this Labor Government's inability to balance the budget when it came to major portfolios such as Health. I am happy to give to anyone who wants to see it a copy of the calculation for the recurrent budget blow-out in Health. I have sourced it from New South Wales estimates papers from the year 1996-97 to the most recent papers. The smallest budget overrun of $82,722 occurred in 1995-96. The highest overrun of $787,799,000 occurred in 1999-2000. That is just a Health budget overrun. As the Leader of the Opposition said, frequently it would have been much more than that. I am sure that that is what Mr Costa wanted us to believe when he made his claim about the $300 million budget overrun. Mr Costa failed to admit, and inexperienced Premier Rees failed to tell us, that every year the Government has clawed back a huge budget overrun by cutting expenditure in the last quarter of each financial year—in many cases in the last few months of each financial year.

Royal North Shore Hospital is a particular example of that. Members will remember we had a parliamentary inquiry into the conditions at Royal North Shore Hospital. That partly came to pass because so much evidence had been leaked to the Opposition regarding the budget position of that hospital. It was heading for a budget blow-out, as the member for Hornsby will attest, of something like $30 million—not only for Royal North Shore Hospital, but for Hornsby-Ku-ring-gai hospital and other hospitals in the region. At the last minute we found the Government was going to claw it back.

A document was leaked to me showing the year to September 2007 net cost of services summary for the area health service. For September 2007, just for clinical operations in that region—which includes hospitals on the Central Coast, the Hornsby area, North Shore-Ryde and the northern beaches—hospitals were 10 per cent over budget. In the year to date it is 7 per cent but it projected by the end of the year that the budget overrun would be 2 per cent. So, in that short period it has gone right back to 2 per cent. How did it do that? There are worse examples in other parts of the document. There is a budget overrun in clinical operations overtime—this is staff overtime—where the year-to-date figure in September was 59 per cent over. It was projected that it would claw back to 36 per cent over.

How it was done was revealed in a further document that showed the Government was going to introduce a number of initiatives to cut back the overrun. This list included cutting funding for surgery, particularly expensive operations such as orthopaedic surgery and joint operations. It was going to cut back on nursing recruitment, and cut back on implants and things such as that that would be used in orthopaedic procedures. It was going to cut back on the employment of staff specialists and cut back on infection control. I find it extraordinary that any responsible government would cut back on funding for infection control. It was also going to cut funding for its teaching and research budget.

This was just a glimpse of what the Government was prepared to do to cut back the budget overrun in just one of its eight area health services. Further, in that area health service, the minutes from the area health advisory council meeting of 29 March 2007 revealed that that meeting had talked about the budget overrun. Part of those minutes states that the meeting was provided with a presentation on the area's financial position and, "There has been an increase in activity and an increase in staff which have adversely impacted on the general fund. Budget should be met at the end of June 2007 but only by shifting funds notionally allocated to capital expenditure to operating budget."

Anyone who knows anything about finances knows that that is an irresponsible thing to do—shifting money that is allocated for capital works to infrastructure for upgrading equipment to cover your back when you are short on recurrent funding. That is a disgraceful, unprofessional way to run a service. So, the recent recurrent expenditure blow-out in health is nothing new. It has been, on average, $250 million overblown in every budget under Labor. The difference this time is that the windfall revenue from the property market has been depressed because of the Government's own actions and now it is pleading poor. It will be interesting to see exactly what the budget overrun is, but the Government is hiding the real figures because it does not want anyone to know.

With regard to capital funding, after Mr Costa's outburst, the former Minister for Health, with her parliamentary Labor colleagues, went around scaring the living daylights out of communities by threatening to cut back on their much-needed infrastructure projects. It was a disgraceful display by these bullying members of Parliament trying to scare constituents. The member for Wagga Wagga and people from places where they had been waiting for years and years had to quell the fears of their communities. Wagga Wagga hospital has been promised for many years. Of course, Mr Costa told Parliament on 24 June that all the projects in the Government's State infrastructure plan were already funded. One has to wonder where the truth really lies. Some of the other projects in that plan include the northern beaches hospital, Tamworth hospital and Bega hospital—

Mr Daryl Maguire: Dubbo.

Mrs JILLIAN SKINNER: Dubbo hospital, of course. And then there are the upgrades currently underway.

Mr Daryl Maguire: Orange.

Mrs JILLIAN SKINNER: A month or so ago I visited Orange, where work is already proceeding—but will the full project go ahead? There is now a question as to whether the extra services that were to be provided will be provided. Of course, we heard about the disaster at Bathurst hospital. Nearly $100 million was spent on the major rebuild of that hospital. I toured that hospital with some of my parliamentary colleagues from the upper House. We saw some rooms with very fine views, but the crunch came when we went into, first, the imaging department. A very honest young member of staff took me aside and showed me the room that workmen were lining in lead, because it had not been done and they could not use the X-ray equipment.

Mrs Judy Hopwood: That is outrageous!

Mrs JILLIAN SKINNER: Exactly! This woman also showed me some modern scanning equipment—ultrasound equipment used for pregnant women to see that their pregnancies are progressing nicely. However, it was on a tiny little trolley that one would be hard-pressed to fit a child on, let alone a pregnant woman. The people showing me through public hospitals always include a public relations person, one of the spin doctors. They tried to hurry me past that corridor and on to the next one, but the next corridor was the intensive care unit. An equally honest clinician showed me the resuscitation bay. A patient was covered in tubes and hooked up to this very modern equipment, but there was only room for one person to treat the patient. Ventilated patients could not be treated by a team of people, as would be necessary in order to provide quality care. Who showed us this? It was the head of the intensive care unit—not some person just passing by.

Mr Daryl Maguire: What about the morgue?

Mrs JILLIAN SKINNER: I will come to that. Next I went into the emergency department, and it was the same story. The resuscitation bay, just off the ambulance entry, was not big enough to accommodate staff around the trolley where the patient would need to be resuscitated. It was disgraceful. How do you fix this? They admitted to me this would be a major rebuild because it required shifting the entrance for the ambulances, pulling down a wall and widening that room—a major undertaking— and there is no money in this year's budget. Because of the activities of a former Minister for Health there were queries about whether there would be any money to make sure those matters were rectified.

I refer to capital projects generally. Some of the projects in this year's health infrastructure statement are cumulatively 70 years late. That is, if you go to the project that is identified, look back to the point where it was first listed in a health capital works budget and then work out where the expected completion date is moved to for all of those projects, it adds up to 70 years. This shows that this Government cannot manage the important task of providing infrastructure, by way of buildings and upgrades, to our hospitals. In this year's budget alone 19 years of delays are added to that list. No wonder it is cumulatively so high. The Health capital budget is frequently underspent so that the money can be used to meet recurrent expenditure, as has already been demonstrated in the minutes from the North Sydney Central Coast Area Health Service Advisory Committee. In Parliament on 24 June Michael Costa said:

No items in the infrastructure strategy are dependent upon the Government's electricity plans.

Yet following the Government's failure to get its members to support these plans we had this scare campaign conducted by the Government and some of its Ministers, now former Ministers and former members. I recently visited Port Macquarie Base Hospital and met a number of staff members and did a tour of the hospital. I was particularly interested in doing that because the chairman of Port Macquarie Base Hospital's medical staff council, Dr Stephen Begbie, told the special commission of inquiry headed by Peter Garling that regional areas are suffering from a lack of capital funding needed to meet population growth. Dr Begbie said:

We have a certain level of capital infrastructure, but that capital infrastructure is not keeping up with population growth or the needs of an ageing population, that's the north coast's big problem, and one that we would hope that the Garling Commission would address.

I raised in this House last night as part of a matter of public importance the need for an urgent upgrade to that hospital, particularly to the emergency department, in the short term. That department was built in 1994 to cater for something like 14,000 to 15,000 attendances. Last year there were 30,000. When I visited there were patients lying on trolleys in the corridors. The staff, as always, were very committed and hard working and doing their best. They have tried every trick in the book. I think it is very revealing that in a document leaked to me by some of the staff at the hospital, which is the submission to the Government about the need for this emergency department and which has been sitting on the Minister's desk since about April, they admit that one of the strategies they have developed is to set up a virtual ward in the emergency department, otherwise known by this Government as a medical assessment unit. I found it fascinating that staff actually called it a "virtual ward".

Mrs Judy Hopwood: I've got one too.

Mrs JILLIAN SKINNER: I knew the member for Hornsby would smile at that. She has one, too. A number of us have them in our electorates. Staff have introduced a number of strategies but, despite that, this hospital is really struggling to cope with demand. They have come up with a relatively inexpensive proposal to extend the emergency department to enable it to meet that tremendous increase in demand. I find it extraordinary that that proposal has sat on the Minister's desk since April 2008. I have just referred to the Garling special commission of inquiry, and I want to talk about it briefly. This motion is about the failure of the Government to provide services. Nothing could be more vivid in my mind—and will be until the day I die— than the death of Vanessa Anderson. My colleague the member for Hornsby and I attended the Coroner's Court during those hearings—she on many more occasions than I.

I was there on the final day of hearing, when the Deputy State Coroner declared that Vanessa's was an entirely avoidable death and recommended to the Government that it set up an inquiry—with the Government dragged kicking and screaming, I might add. We had been calling for a royal commission for a very long time, as had Vanessa's father, Warren Anderson. The special commission of inquiry was established. The inquiry has heard evidence right across the State. I have met with Mr Garling and written 18 letters to him to suggest places he should visit and people he should speak to. I am pleased that he has done so. As the Coalition indicated when it was first announced, the time frame was far too short. He was supposed to have reported by the end of July. He said no, and he is now doing that in November. I sincerely hope that in the spirit of openness, transparency and integrity that are supposed to be the new hallmarks of this Government the report will be released on the very day that Mr Garling gives it to the Government and that it is not held over until 24 December.

In a minute I will refer to other evidence given to Mr Garling, but first I want to point out some of the services that are very obviously examples of the failure of the Labor Government over time to meet the health needs of the people of New South Wales. Emergency departments are very good tests of how a hospital is coping. The figures for June 2008 were almost the last gasp for outgoing health Minister Reba Meagher and she claimed that they showed the hospital system was in very good health. When one looks at the details of the figures, which she finally put on the Health website, one finds they show that 23 per cent of patients were not treated within required emergency department benchmarks. The figures reveal that of 33,592 patients admitted to the hospital from the emergency department, more than 8,000, or 24 per cent, waited more than eight hours for a bed. This is a very worrying figure because research clearly shows that the longer a patient waits in the emergency department, the longer that patient will spend in hospital and the more difficult the recovery, the greater the complications. It is an indicator that does not augur well for patients.

I believe the Government has always tried to cover up these figures and denied repeatedly the evidence provided to it through so many reports that the major problem is access block. Patients waiting more than eight hours in a hospital emergency department to be admitted cannot be found a bed because there are not enough acute care ward beds open in the hospital to take emergency department patients. Any suggestion that general practitioner clinics will be opened and that that will solve hospital blockages is simply nonsense. The Australasian College for Emergency Medicine has said that loud and clear. In fact, I was at a full-day conference in Melbourne last Friday sponsored by the college where that story was repeated time and again. The bed occupancy rate needs to be lowered to a maximum of 85 per cent to make acute beds available for emergency department patients.

Today the Auditor-General put out a report on home-based health care. This report talks about the need for more hospital beds and suggests that greater efforts should be made to treat people in the home. Whilst we support in principle the increased delivery of out-of-hospital care—there are some very good projects such as the one in Hornsby; a former Coalition health Minister introduced hospital in the home—it must be properly funded and it must be properly monitored. There must be the resources to look after those patients when they are discharged early. It is absolutely no good sending a patient from a hospital bed to home if that patient cannot cope and there is not a home nurse to provide assistance with medications, dressing changes and so on, and there are not people to help with showering, cooking a meal or getting the patient out of bed. That will be a disaster. This should not be the way for a chaotic hospital system that is struggling to cope to get rid of patients so that the benchmarks look better.

Today I have called for a thorough publication of data in relation to any hospital-in-the-home patients. It should be put on the NSW Health website on a quarterly basis. The Government needs to publish details about unplanned hospital readmissions and all the results of patient satisfaction surveys, not just the good news results. We need details about the impact of increasing out-of-hospital care on existing hospital medical professionals. They are already run off their feet. Does this mean ward nurses will be expected to go to a patient's home to look after them? We need extra nurses, allied health staff and doctors.

The State Government must comment also on the practice of including beds in the private home in hospital bed counts. A bed bought by somebody is counted now as a hospital bed if it happens to be occupied by a patient who has been discharged early from hospital. The Government must stop the cover-up of reports on emergency department figures. It must also come clean with concerns about the FirstNet system being implemented in emergency departments across New South Wales. I would be interested to know the concerns of the member for Macquarie Fields on this. FirstNet has resulted in hundreds of complaints from clinicians, including patients being lost to the information technology system. It is taking doctors away from patient care into administrative duties, where they have no clinical benefit. Last week one doctor at Liverpool Hospital told me that it now takes 15 minutes to order a blood test whereas previously it took only two minutes.

Latest figures show that the waiting list for elective surgery was 58,000 compared with 56,000 a year ago and 44,000 when Labor came to office on a promise to halve hospital waiting lists. As the Leader of the Opposition said, people can see on my website what the Government does about elective surgery and charts. It shows that the waiting list goes down before an election and then up again. This is because the Government spends a burst of money just prior to an election to artificially reduce the waiting lists. Indeed, it has redefined how doctors admit patients to hospital by saying that they cannot request an admission or put in an admission form for a patient unless a guarantee can be given that the patient will be treated in a clinically appropriate time. If doctor X has five patients with breast cancer needing a mastectomy but only has time in the operating theatre in the next month to treat three patients two of those patients will not be included on the waiting list because it is clinical urgency 1. That is disgraceful. I find it appalling that the Government will stoop to those levels.

The Government is not transparent on workforce issues either. The annual report shows 100,000 nurses in New South Wales but only 38,000 work in the public health system. Karen Fernance, a nurse unit manager at Bankstown, told the special commission of inquiry that up to 70 per cent of her time was taken up in administrative tasks such as payroll and supply ordering—that is, work done in the office, away from clinical management. Professor Stephen Hunyor from Royal North Shore Hospital said that specialist medical staff are leaving the public system because they are becoming demoralised. He criticised the lack of transparency. He commented on the servant-and-master relationship between chief executive officers and specialists. The head of the Bathurst Medical Staff Council spoke of the obvious disconnect between clinicians and health management. Complaints have been made about lack of funding for infection control, information technology equipment and ambulances. We have had the Graeme Reeves scandal and major health failures under Reba Meagher. This Government has failed to deliver, and there should be a vote of no confidence in it.

Mr PAUL LYNCH (Liverpool—Minister for Ageing, Minister for Disability Services, and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) [8.03 p.m.]: This motion debases the coinage: it devalues the currency of no-confidence motions. No-confidence motions should be an important, substantive part of this place. This is a stunt. It has no value. The purpose of this motion was not to get a new election; it was not even to hold the Government to account. The purpose of this motion was very simple. It was about the Leader of the Opposition trying to get himself on television tonight.

Mrs Jillian Skinner: Oh!

Mr PAUL LYNCH: In response to that interjection I point out that that is no mere rhetoric; one needed only to listen to the point of order taken by the Leader of the Opposition against the member for Smithfield earlier this afternoon when the Leader of the Opposition could not restrain his anger that his motion was not being debated at the time he wanted: he was not able to get himself on television because the motion was not called on at a time to suit him. The purpose of this motion is not about a new election and it is not about holding the Government to account. It is about trying to get a television grab.

The speech given by the Leader of the Opposition went for 65 minutes—it was something of a challenge to listen to it for that long—and it was 65 minutes of 15-second sound bites. That was the entirety of his contribution. Over the years since 1856 this Chamber has seen a large number of serious debates and a large and significant number of serious motions of no confidence. This is not one of them. This is a debate where the Opposition has presented spin over substance. It is a debate where the Opposition has tried to give a particular appearance, but an appearance that is clearly inconsistent with the reality of its position. It is about trying to get television coverage, and nothing else.

Let me turn to the ostensible reason. This is about a serious attack on the Government. If it were serious it would not have moved this motion; it would have moved a motion under section 24B (2) of the Constitution. It might actually help Opposition members if they read the Constitution occasionally and understand the legalities of what they are doing. If they were serious about trying to bring on an election they would do that. If this motion passes, they do not achieve an election. They have not worked out what the Constitution says and what the implications are of passing the motion.

The motion is a stunt. Looking at it seriously, objectively and rationally, we have a new Premier, a new Deputy Premier and a new Treasurer. There is no parliamentary logic to having a motion of no confidence on the first day. It is a stunt and a television grab. It is not a sensible, rational, political strategy. In parliamentary terms, it is absurd. In the words of Barack Obama, it is the trivialisation of politics. The basis of what Opposition members say is an attraction to and an obsession with ephemera; with bits and pieces—no vision, no substantive attack upon the Government. There has been no overwhelming alternative view as to how the State should be run.

Of course, that is a tradition of the Opposition parties in this place—a triumph of spin over substance; the conflict of reality with the appearance. The classic and best example is that the Liberal Party pretends to be the party of private enterprise, of support for business and commitment to the market mechanism. We heard the Leader of the Opposition talk about that earlier today when he moved his motion of no confidence. In one of those 15-second sound bites he talked about the importance of free enterprise and how a private sector economy will lead us everywhere as that is the only way to create jobs. That is the rhetoric. The reality is that the Coalition opposed privatisation of the electricity industry. It is perhaps the most extraordinary case of the difference between reality and appearance seen in this place.

Opposition members were ranting and raving, and carrying on at great length about the importance of the market. Yet when the privatisation of electricity was proposed, which is the one bit of the Holy Grail for the privateers and those who support market economies that has not yet got into New South Wales, they did not support it—with due respect to the member for Vaucluse. It is unusual for me to say this to him, but he has emerged with a degree of credit from all this. At least he has some principles. On this side of the House we have had an exchange over the years, and it is unusual—

Mr Andrew Fraser: Watch it. He will take a point of order.

Mr PAUL LYNCH: If I said it outside we could probably both sue. The point is that there is this extraordinary divergence between what Opposition members say and what they do. They say they support the private market and support private enterprise yet when they get the chance to do something about it—the ideologues have talked about this for a couple of decades—they do not do it. On the Government benches there were clear challenges for a number of members for a whole range of reasons that I understand only too well, but it was about whether as a matter of ideology and politics we could do what the Government wanted. On the Opposition benches it was about members turning their backs on things they had always believed in and always said that they believed in.

To continue the theme of substance versus reality, there is an extraordinary part of the motion involving the Leader of the Opposition attacking us for talking to the General Secretary of the Labor Party. That is a terrible thing! Members opposite do not talk to their general secretary; they make the general secretary the leader! What was Nathan Rees' crime? That he was not the general secretary? That is what he would have had to be to match what Opposition members have done. We have this extraordinary hypocrisy on the part of members opposite. They pretend that they did not have any involvement with head office, but their former State director runs the party. It is an extraordinary bit of hypocrisy.

The hypocrisy continues. To pretend somehow or other that factions are a problem for this side of the House but not for the other side is just a little bit too cute by half. Whatever Opposition members want to say about factions on this side of the House, the factions within the Liberal Party are clearly a destabilising factor. Whilst the current Leader of the Liberal Party might be in that position now, as I said earlier, formerly he was the State director. I have to say that he, amongst others, failed to remove from the Liberal Party the stain of Urbancich. If members opposite want to talk about factions and what they mean, and about the evil they can sometimes be, I suggest they go to Urbancich and his successors. I suggest they go to the extraordinary amount of right-wing stacking of branches in the Liberal Party, and the control the right wing has in the Liberal Party caucus. They should go through Brogden, the member for Vaucluse, and the current Leader of the Opposition. They should go through what happened to Geoff Selig. They should go through guns being produced at branches at Punchbowl. There have been some robust struggles within the Labor Party at various times but we never produced guns.

Mr Andrew Fraser: Do you remember the black eyes on the front page? We all remember that one.

Mr PAUL LYNCH: If there is one person in this House who should not interject about black eyes it is the member for Coffs Harbour. The cold, dead hand of the extreme right has made a very significant claim on the Liberal Party in this place. So for members opposite to criticise this side of the House for factional involvement is not just hypocritical; it is utterly absurd. Another case in which there is the triumph of spin over substance is the attempt by Opposition members to say that they are trying to hold us to account, that they are being a serious Opposition. I think there is an argument that the single most distinguishing feature of the Opposition is a comprehensive lack of a work ethic.

The Leader of the Opposition admits to small target strategy. He says he is not going to put out policy. That, at least, is something we can believe, because there is no evidence of policy coming from the Opposition. There has been no policy since 2007. There is no work going on over the other side. There has been a consistent theme for a number of years in relation to that. At the last State election there was no transport policy. Members will recall that the member for Willoughby had prepared one and was going to launch it at a really big function. She got everyone to pay for the tickets and then she cancelled the function. It takes a certain amount of style to organise a fundraising function and then not to hold it but keep the money.

Mrs Karyn Paluzzano: Did she give the money back?

Mr PAUL LYNCH: I am told she did not give the money back. In fact, she asked if she could hang on to it, which takes a certain amount of gall if nothing else. The member for Willoughby claimed that she could not release the policy because she could not get a costing of it.

Mrs Karyn Paluzzano: Couldn't get it photocopied?

Mr PAUL LYNCH: No, the lack of photocopying was another one. It is for those reasons that the Coalition has been in opposition for 15 years. It has had four election losses and five Opposition leaders within that period. There is no work going on over there; there is nothing serious happening over there. It is unusual for me to quote the Sydney Morning Herald with approbation, but let me do it. Mark Duffy wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald of 20 September 2008:

The NSW Opposition is the black hole of Australian politics, and it's a time for creative thinking.

I realise creative thinking is not the forte of the state Coalition. There have been two attempts in recent times to set up a policy development process outside the parties, to develop a plan to save NSW. In each case the step was taken in desperation, after those involved had despaired at the Coalition's lack of interest in policy and ideas. In both cases the initiative foundered because the sort of business people needed to fund it appeared to have lost all faith in the Coalition

It is not often that people such as Mark Duffy and I would agree on a lot, but I think he has got it absolutely right in this instance. The article highlights the complete lack of work ethic on the other side. As I said, this no-confidence motion debases the coinage: it devalues the currency. It treats as a joke what should be a significant and important part of the parliamentary process. It treats it as an excuse to get a 15-second grab.

One of the mantras that has been used by the Opposition so far is, "Where has all the money gone? You have raised all this money and nothing has happened." Previous speakers, including the Minister for Transport and the Deputy Premier, have gone through in broad terms what has happened to money and funding. I approach the issue from a slightly different perspective, at a local level. I will talk about what it has meant for the member for Liverpool during the period Labor has been in power. This is where the money has gone: the Liverpool-Parramatta transitway and the redevelopment of Liverpool Hospital. When I became the member for Liverpool in 1995 if you wanted to get oncology treatment in Liverpool you went to Liverpool Hospital and got on a bus that took you to the eastern suburbs. We now have world-class oncology facilities at Liverpool Hospital. If you wanted cardiac surgery you could not get it at Liverpool but you can now.

We have had significant expansion of the mental health facilities in Liverpool. We have the widening of Hoxton Park Road, the widening of Cowpasture Road, a new police station at Green Valley, a new railway station at Liverpool, the Liverpool transport interchange, a new school at Hinchinbrook, Cecil Hills High School and Cecil Hills Public School, and a new TAFE building. That is where the money is going. There is a very clear list of things. The money is going where it did not go for the seven long years before that. When the Coalition was in power those areas got nothing. But this Government, whatever else members opposite want to say about it, has done very well at delivering capital infrastructure to the parts of Sydney that were being ignored by the Coalition Government—and ignored very unfairly.

Mr David Borger: Barry wouldn't know where Liverpool is.

Mr PAUL LYNCH: That is true. Liverpool is usually a place that Opposition members drive through on their way to the snowfields. They just have no understanding of Western Sydney. I turn to some of the points made by Opposition speakers. The Leader of the Opposition, in his 65 minutes of soundbites, started off by saying that the purpose of this motion was to get an early election. He finished off his presentation by addressing two Independents and various unknown members of the Government that he thought might vote with him. That is all a fine bit of rhetoric that gives him some sound bites, but it fundamentally misunderstands the constitutional position. You can only get an early election if you get a motion of no confidence pursuant to section 24B (2) of the Constitution. This motion is not that. It is a fundamental lie for the Leader of the Opposition to say that this motion can get an early election. It cannot. If people want to follow that through I suggest they look at the standing orders. Standing Order No. 111 makes it pretty clear.

Mr Paul Pearce: What is the reference again?

Mr PAUL LYNCH: Section 24B (2) of the State Constitution.

Mr David Borger: It's a lie.

Mr PAUL LYNCH: Indeed, it is a lie—like most of the soundbites. The Leader of the Opposition then said he wants to raise standards in the Parliament. He tried to have a bit of fun with what the Premier said earlier. If Opposition members want to raise standards they might start with their staffers. Opposition members in this place are so hopeless they need help from their staffers with their interjections, as happened yesterday. A string of Opposition staffers yesterday joined in the interjections, including on one occasion a particularly foul bit of abuse. It only happened once today, so that is an improvement. However, that might be a pretty good place to start if the Opposition wants to improve the standards.

One of the other great absurdities in the presentation of the Leader of the Opposition—and it was echoed by the two speakers who followed him—was his mantra, "You've got too much debt. It's terrible, it's terrible, it's terrible." However, the Opposition wanted the infrastructure. I do not know what the Opposition's policy is. Perhaps it has a money tree somewhere with which it is able to build all this infrastructure without borrowing money to build it. The Deputy Premier pointed out that the Leader of the Opposition in his budget speech banged on and on about the necessity for greater infrastructure. How does he expect to get that infrastructure without borrowing money for it? Some of us are old-fashioned enough to think that the role of government is to engage in a nation-building exercise. That means you build things. That means you create infrastructure. If you do not do that the rest of society cannot operate. We have this extraordinary bit of voodoo economics circulating around in the speech of the Leader of the Opposition.

There is another fundamental contradiction in what the Opposition said. The Leader of the Opposition, the member for North Shore and the Leader of The Nationals went on at great length about all the extra things they want built. As I said, you cannot do that without borrowing and without having a proper capital program. The Leader of the Opposition went on to say, "You are not being honest with the people of New South Wales by telling us what you are doing, and you have a really serious problem and you need to fix it." Our position is pretty obvious: We are going to have a responsible and robust mini-budget in several weeks time, and that is a proper and sensible way to proceed.

Yet it seems that the Leader of the Opposition does not want us to do that; he wants it all done right now. Do not worry about a proper rational assessment, just get on with it and work out whatever you think. Write it on the back of an envelope and it will be fine. That is the essence of economic irresponsibility and the essence of how not to do things. The Leader of the Opposition raised the issue of community services. He was right to say that getting community services correct is critical to our society and it should be above politics, but he dragged it into politics today.

Ms Linda Burney: The Opposition does not keep it above politics.

Mr PAUL LYNCH: That is exactly right. You can always tell when Opposition members are being profoundly political because they say they are trying to keep it above politics. The point I make is that there is one political group in this State that has nothing to be proud about in relation to community services—the Opposition. In the first year of the Greiner Government—when the Opposition was last in government—it inflicted untold damage on the Department of Community Services when 1,000 positions were slashed: 1,000 community services staff gone, finished. It has taken years to recover from that stupid exercise. The Opposition closed 23 community services offices, which was almost a quarter of the total number of offices. The Opposition disbanded three police child mistreatment units and three sexual assault investigation units at Wagga Wagga, Campbelltown and Flemington. It was an absolute disgrace. How many people did it leave without protection and help? How many people were left in that position because of what the Opposition did?

Apart from the 65 minutes of 15-second sound bites, the other thing that emerged very clearly from the speech of the Leader of the Opposition was that he has no vision or idea of where he is going. That comes with the obsession for a 15-second grab, the small target: do not worry about a target—we do not need it. As a political opponent I can say that in the context of the debate the speech of the Leader of the Opposition should have been an incredibly important contribution to democracy in this place, but it was not. He failed abysmally the standards set for someone who moves a no-confidence motion.

The Leader of The Nationals did not give any sound bites. Mind you he read his speech very well but had no-one sitting behind him in support, which was a bit curious. I wondered who was doing the numbers in The Nationals tonight. As is not unusual for the Leader of The Nationals, he got himself tied up with the logic, or the illogic, of his position. On the one hand he was happy to attack the people sitting on the front bench now as being an inexperienced Cabinet that does not know what it is doing, but on the other hand they had been around for 13½ years. The Leader of The Nationals had the wonderful contradiction that on the one hand they were all inexperienced but on the other they had all been there for so long.

The reality is that there was not a lot of thought given to the presentation of the Leader of The Nationals. He came out with a series of not terribly clever and not terribly witty bits of rhetoric and ranting but he got caught up in all sorts of logical tangles. The Leader of The Nationals went through a long list of infrastructure projects that he wanted completed at Tamworth, Port Macquarie, Monaro, Parkes—a wonderful list of places. He ranted and raved about the Government daring to go into debt, borrowing money for projects. He was caught once again in that profound contradiction of—

Mr Richard Amery: Moral manoeuvrability.

Mr PAUL LYNCH: As always, I am upstaged by the member for Mount Druitt. I move briefly to the speech of the member for North Shore, who was also guilty of the sins of the other speakers on the Opposition side. She demanded that we get a new government from this no-confidence motion. The member for North Shore fails to understand parliamentary procedure or the provisions of the Constitution. She has no idea. The member for North Shore also said that the Government comprised the same old people but a bunch of inexperienced parliamentarians. One has to wonder where the Opposition dreams this stuff up!

Mr Kerry Hickey: You've got to wonder why they were in Opposition!

Mr PAUL LYNCH: Yes. One of the interesting things I found about the speech of the Leader of The Nationals was his ranting and raving about failed Premiers and the terrible people who were all hopeless and no good. That raises the question of why the Coalition has been on the other side for 13½ years. The logic is just a little bit slippery for those guys. There is a long list of things that have been done by the Government. I dealt with the Liverpool-specific things a moment ago but I should briefly touch on a series of other things. The Minister for Transport mentioned mental health. Over recent years the Government has spent substantial money in this area—for instance, 1,000 spaces in the Housing and Accommodation Support Initiative.

If Opposition members understood what that was they would understand why people get so excited about it. That program literally saves lives and is one of the most effective and innovative programs that any government anywhere has instituted. It is great stuff. Nine psychiatric emergency care services now operate with a range of money going to non-government organisations. There has been a significant increase in mental health beds. From July 2001 to June 2007 more than 400 additional mental health beds were opened in the State. There has been an increase of nearly 800 mental health beds over the last 10 years. There are now 2,300 mental health beds—an incredibly substantial number during the last decade. For the first time last year's budget got to $1 billion for mental health expenditure.

When the Government came to power the figure was $300 million. The Government has tripled expenditure on mental health during the period it has been in power, a considerably greater rate than the increase in the population or inflation. I know that is a mathematical calculation that might challenge the member for Coffs Harbour. There are a series of other significant achievements. The Deputy Premier spoke about the record expenditure on schools. The results are extraordinary. Smaller class sizes for kindergarten to year 2 classes are incredibly important to the results that are coming out of our schools. Our 15-year-olds rank amongst the best in the world in reading, mathematics, science and literacy. Statewide tests in 2007 recorded the highest average scores ever for year 5 literacy and numeracy and year 7 literacy. One could go on and on and read a vast amount of that sort of material—

Mr Andrew Fraser: You could and you often do.

Mr PAUL LYNCH: Do not tempt me. There could be more punishment in store if you keep interjecting like that. New South Wales has been amongst the first to take steps in the formation of carbon rights for the purpose of emission trading. The New South Wales greenhouse gas reduction scheme commenced in 1997. The scheme became the world's first mandatory emission trading scheme in 2003. New South Wales was the first jurisdiction in the country to set emissions reduction targets with a return to 2000 emission levels by 2005 and a 60 per cent reduction on 2000 levels by 2050. One could speak at great length about these things—

Mrs Karyn Paluzzano: BASIX.

Mr PAUL LYNCH: I was about to mention the building sustainability index. In July 2004 new single residential dwellings in New South Wales must achieve a 40 per cent reduction in water consumption and a 25 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared with the average New South Wales home. I will not go through all those things, because other speakers have appropriately done it, but in closing I will return to the first point I made in my contribution to this debate: it should be a serious debate. There is not anything more important or fundamental to the Westminster system than a vote of no confidence, with the exception of an election. The core of the Westminster system is an election and the next most important thing is a vote of no confidence. People have been having these debates in this House since 1856. The way members behave and operate in this place is incredibly important to the structure of government and to this institution.

In that context it is outrageous that we have been subjected to the nonsense that has been served up tonight. We have heard a speech on the motion of no confidence that is a series of sound bites designed for television news. The Opposition has no vision or sense of where it wants to go. It has a grab bag of whinges and complaints but no coherent critique of any real substance. It debases the coinage and devalues the currency of no-confidence motions. It is not just a waste of time and an insult to our intelligence but an attack upon this institution to have this sort of inadequate drivel served up in the guise of a no-confidence motion.

Mr ANDREW FRASER (Coffs Harbour—Deputy Leader of The Nationals) [8.29 p.m.]: I congratulate you, Madam Deputy-Speaker, on your appointment and I look forward to seeing you in the chair—maybe not so after tonight. This motion of no confidence in the Government is a challenge to the Government members who courageously stood up to Michael Costa and Morris Iemma and said they would not support the privatisation of electricity in this State. Former Premier Iemma was so confident that he could get the support of the Opposition to pass Government legislation that he recalled the Parliament at a cost of half a million-plus dollars to the people of New South Wales. At the time the Government held 52 seats, or 52 votes. The challenge tonight is to the dozen or so Labor party members in this House who forced the Premier back to Macquarie Street during a break to try to gain the support of the Opposition to have the courage of their convictions to cross the floor to vote on a motion of no confidence in the Government.

This is the most serious motion that can be put before a House of Parliament. Under a four-year fixed term regime, this motion could bring down the Government. In reality, a motion of no confidence in the Government was passed prior to the recalling of Parliament. Those Labor Party members who listened to their electorates and what the people on the street and others within the community were saying realised that the sale of the electricity industry was totally unpalatable, for philosophical and economic reasons. Those members had far better briefings in caucus than we did on the true state of the budget of New South Wales. I will not name and embarrass the member who told me about the true situation, but I will quote him. Joe Hildebrand, a newspaper reporter, was the only person quoting a $25 billion sale. Obviously, he was well and truly sold by Michael Costa at the time. The Labor backbencher was told that the sale was going to net $10 billion. The Premier, the Treasurer and other Ministers told us and the business community that out of the $10 billion $7.5 billion would be invested in a future fund to ensure a return of $690 million per annum back to the people of New South Wales and that the remaining $2.5 billion would be invested in infrastructure. At the same time the Premier, the Treasurer and other Cabinet Ministers promised that an amount of $12 billion to $13 billion would be spent on the North West Rail Link. One does not have to be a genius to know—in fact, probably any child in second class would know—that a $2.5 billion net gain in the budget of New South Wales would not pay for even 20 per cent of the North West Rail Link.

The Government members revolted. They decided that Michael Costa was not telling the truth and that the State was in such a mess that the sale of the electricity industry was not going to provide the benefits promised by Michael Costa and Morris Iemma. Premier Iemma could not guarantee the numbers in his own caucus room or on the floor of the House to pass legislation, which he never wanted to bring before the House, to sell the electricity industry in this State. So the dozen or so Labor members in this House—16, 17 or 18, I am not sure how many—who were going to vote against the legislation have already voted no confidence in the Government. We have had a Labor Government for 13½ years. Each year the Treasurer has come into the House from the other place and said, "We have delivered yet another Labor budget." We are only now seeing the real truth of that Labor budget—a $42 billion black hole. The truth was told to us by Michael Costa, who was still Treasurer at the time, prior to the deal being done by Karl Bitar and others to replace Morris Iemma with Mr Rees. He went to the press gallery on the level below us and told us what he should have told us when he came into this House earlier this year and delivered the State budget, that is, that we were in a mess. He said that our triple-A credit rating was at risk and that we were under watch by Standard and Poor's, and Moody's. According to Michael Costa, we were under credit watch because of 12 years of mismanagement of this State by the Labor Government.

Everything we have seen from this Government has been a mirage. Everything that we have been promised by Michael Egan, Bob Carr, Morris Iemma and Michael Costa has been incorrect. Everything they told us over those years was wrong. It was a $42 billion debt, as compared to $15 billion. Despite the assertions of the Deputy Premier, the Minister for Ageing and others, the Opposition does not have a problem with debt as long as it provides valued infrastructure for the people of New South Wales. I do not have any problem personally or politically with future generations paying for roads, hospitals, dams and water supplies that will provide them with services into the future. I do have a problem with a $42 billion debt being run up and nothing to show for it. We were told that 80 per cent of the Pacific Highway upgrade was to be finished by 2006. A huge amount is still to be done and lives are still being lost. It is well and truly $1 billion over budget. That is bad fiscal management.

Against a background of no confidence from their own caucus and their own conference and with a deal done by Joe Tripodi, of all people, in conjunction with Eddie Obeid and others to replace Morris Iemma because Morris Iemma wanted to clean the rubbish out of his Cabinet, Morris Iemma provided the Right caucus with a list of people he wanted to get rid of. I have not seen the list, but I believe that Joe Tripodi would have been at the top of the list. What did Joe do? Joe did what he has been famous for doing. He speared his friends in favour of himself. I would much rather be an enemy of Joe Tripodi than a friend. His record shows that he speared Carl Scully in favour of Morris Iemma. He has renounced Morris Iemma in favour of a left-wing factional member. According to the history of Joe Tripodi in the Parliament, along with Reba Meagher, he would have hated him. Joe formed an alliance with Nathan Rees. Was it for the good of the people of New South Wales? No, it was not. It was for the good of Joe Tripodi. He also speared his long-term colleague and Young Labor ally Reba Meagher. She was part of the trash that had to be thrown out so Joe could survive.

Joe Tripodi has a very poor record in this State. Joe Tripodi has been before the Independent Commission Against Corruption four times, together with a number of other Labor Party members. What have we heard from successive Premiers in this State when it comes to Labor Party members being referred to the Independent Commission Against Corruption? This person is not a person of interest to the Independent Commission Against Corruption. The Minister for Transport said tonight that credit watch in New South Wales was part of our vandalism. I suggest that the start of the rot for the latest series of dominoes falling in New South Wales was the absolutely disgraceful Wollongong City Council and interference by Noreen Hay—not a person of interest to ICAC.

Mr Steve Whan: Point of order: In casting aspersions on other members of this place, the member for Coffs Harbour is going outside the standing orders. He is also casting aspersions on the judgement of ICAC, which is an independent body. Suggesting in sarcastic terms that there is something wrong with a judgment of ICAC is a reflection on a judicial body, which he should not be allowed to make.

Mr ANDREW FRASER: To the point of order: ICAC is not a judicial body—it never has been.

The DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! I have allowed a certain degree of latitude during this debate. However, I warn the member for Coffs Harbour not to cast aspersions on other members.

Mr ANDREW FRASER: What I am saying is on the record in New South Wales. I thank you for your ruling, Madam Deputy-Speaker, but the fact is this is a motion of no confidence in the Government and therefore every member on the Government benches is subject to criticism or an observation within this debate. We have all seen what happened to Wollongong council: ICAC brought down very heavy findings, but it was the council that was referred to ICAC and not the members of this place, who, by admission, had some association with the council and who, in fact, were demoted by the former Premier.

The Minister for the Illawarra tonight blames us for vandalism of this State, but his role within Wollongong council and bribery scandals within the council has not been fully explained, which is one of the reasons why the people of New South Wales and the members of this place have extreme reservations about the ability of the Labor Party, its front bench and its Executive Council to govern New South Wales. It is on the public record that Matt Brown took donations from developers in Wollongong, but was he ever held to account during the investigation? No. He was not a person of interest. In fact, when Premier Rees took over in New South Wales he promoted Mr Brown to police Minister. Mr Brown was only in the job three days when revelations about a party in his office on budget night meant that he had to stand down or, in effect, be sacked by the Premier. Since then, Noreen Hay has been stood down and sacked by the Premier.

We see a group of Labor Ministers and members who are so arrogant that they believe that the standards of New South Wales and the standards of governance in New South Wales can be tossed into the scrapheap—or into the garbage bin, as it relates to the current Premier—and nobody needs to worry about it. I challenge any member opposite to jump in a taxi at the airport and ask the driver to take him or her to Parliament House and then ask, if the driver does not offer an opinion, what that driver thinks of the Government of New South Wales. In the past three months in my job as shadow Minister for Primary Industries, shadow Minister for Rural Affairs and shadow Minister for Road Safety, I have done a considerable amount of travelling around New South Wales—not overseas as members opposite have done. No matter where I go, be it Broken Hill, Cowra, Bathurst, Orange, Forster, Port Macquarie, Taree, Newcastle or Sydney, people have had a gutful of the perceived corruption—and I would say actual corruption—of this Government.

I believe that a lot of fine members opposite come in here with very altruistic motives, as I believe we all do. But a lot of members here would be extremely embarrassed to be part of this Government—a government that has not delivered services and infrastructure to the people of New South Wales. I notice the member for Macquarie Fields—a paediatrician of some renown in this State—is in the Chamber tonight sitting at the table.

Dr Andrew McDonald: Only because I have to be.

Mr ANDREW FRASER: As he says, only because he has to be. To some extent I feel sorry for this man because, having an office on the same floor as him over the period since the last election, I know that he is an honourable man. I think he would be embarrassed by the level of services that have been provided to our hospitals, particularly in Coffs Harbour, as has been demonstrated in the past week or 10 days in this State: hospitals cannot afford to pay the butcher's bill; people who are employed by the health service are placed in the embarrassing situation of having to tell local suppliers that their hospital cannot afford to pay the bill. Yet we will not have an opportunity to question the Government as to why this is happening because the estimates committees have been deferred.

When people are ill, when they are not hospitalised, when they are not able to get the surgery they need, and when the Government cannot pay the grocery bills for the people who are in the hospitals, the competence and the ability of this Government to govern is questioned. The new Premier said that he wanted transparency, accountability, integrity and honesty in this Government. He has already demonstrated that he has not been honest with the people of New South Wales. He told the media outside of this place, and therefore not covered by parliamentary privilege, that Reba Meagher had left him a text message or had phoned him, but then he had to come back 24 hours later and say he was confused and she had not contacted him, because Reba Meagher had said that was a lie.

The Premier has also had to backtrack on what he knew or claimed to know about his former boss, Milton Orkopolous. We are still confused as to what he actually did know or what he did not know. I wonder whether he will front the upper House inquiry into the treatment of Gillian Sneddon, the electorate officer who has been treated very poorly by a government that purports to represent the workers in this State. She is a whistleblower within an electorate office who has been absolutely castigated by this Government and who is being driven down because she deigned to tell the truth. We now have a Premier who claims he knew nothing, although, as I said, that story is changing daily, weekly, monthly—who knows what. I would love to know what the Premier knows; I would love him to be honest with the people of New South Wales.

The Premier also said that he had selected a talented, hardworking Cabinet with lots of new faces. That is another lie. Karl Bitar told him who those people were going to be on the advice of Joe Tripodi, Eddie Obeid and Eric Roozendaal—those luminaries of politics in New South Wales. They are not really faceless men, as was the case years ago under the Town Hall stage, but those who control and pull the strings: the marionettes of New South Wales politics. They are the talented, hardworking new faces that he has in Cabinet. The sad part about this is that these people have very shady histories. Look at Eddie Obeid. Look at his sons' Streetscape contracts with Sydney City Council and the flashing lights around schools that have been promised for the past three years, but have not been provided. How much money are they making out of that? Members should look at the Labor Party returns and find out whether Streetscape is a major donor to the Labor Party—possibly expected and not too bad if one considers that, yes, it was in the name of the Labor Party over many years. There are huge question marks when one considers that Streetscape is getting contracts from this Government and then donating part of the money for those contracts back to the Labor Party so that it can be re-elected.

Why do these people, these failures, bubble to the top? Joe Tripodi speared Carl Scully, Morris Iemma, Reba Meagher and anyone else associated with him in his survival race. He is now one of the senior members in this Government. It honestly frightens me that a man such as him can hold such sway in a Government in which the people of New South Wales have no faith. Wherever I go in New South Wales people ask me when there is going to be an election so that they can get rid of this Government. The only way we can do that is to move a motion of no confidence in the Government in this House.

Mr Steve Whan: You did the wrong one.

Mr ANDREW FRASER: The member for Monaro may say we did the wrong one. He sat on the Unsworth committee and promoted the sale of electricity in this State. To be honest, I feel sorry for him because he has been a faithful servant of some people in the Labor Party. Was he given a spot on the front bench? No, he was not. I think he probably has the ability. Behind the abrasive front that he brings into this House, he is probably not a bad bloke. The problem is that even though he did their bidding he was too faithful. If he had been a little off line, he might have ended up with a promotion. Perhaps he is not close enough—or perhaps he is too close—to Eddie Obeid and Joe Tripodi. As I said, we have seen what Joe Tripodi does to his friends.

Every year for the past 13 years of this Government surplus budgets have been predicted. Members opposite bag Greiner and the Coalition Government about the way they set up this State prior to the Labor Party's inheriting it. We could talk about Jack Lang's days. Members opposite have had 13½ years of good times. They have had GST income. Each year they have budget surpluses.

Mr Steve Whan: It was good budget management.

Mr ANDREW FRASER: It was better than good budget management. The Government has had bonuses; it has had $17.5 billion income over budget. However, each year, every year we have had a mini-budget in about November. Each year, every year the Government has blown its budget.

Mr Steve Whan: There has not been a mini-budget for years.

Mr ANDREW FRASER: I will take that back.

Mr Steve Whan: They are supplementary.

Mr ANDREW FRASER: They are supplementary! The Government has needed to come back to the Parliament to ask for more money. Even after the supplementary budgets have been approved to increase proposed expenditure, surpluses have still been achieved. But what are the benefits? Do we see hospitals flourishing? No, we do not. A fortnight ago an 82-year-old man was sent home from Coffs Harbour hospital at 3.00 a.m. He was found by his wife at 7.00 a.m. drenched by rain. Why did that happen? It was the result of the stress suffered by the nurses and doctors at Coffs Harbour because of a lack of funding. Because of that, mistakes are made. An 86-year-old woman subsequently wrote to the newspaper saying that she had suffered a similar experience. This is on the public record. Contrary to what members opposite have said this evening, services have not been delivered.

The Minister for Disability Services spoke at length this evening about mental health facilities. He is the only member I have ever seen—and probably the only member I will ever see—sat down during his inaugural speech for displaying his left-wing loony attitude, but he was sent in to do a job on someone else. It was sad to hear him criticise tonight. He talked at length about the mental health budget, but he said very little about disability services. Aboriginal people come into my electorate office and tell me that they tell lies to the police to ensure that their loved ones are arrested because they get better mental health care in Grafton jail than they do in the hospitals. That is sad.

Mr Steve Whan: What are you going to do about that?

Mr ANDREW FRASER: We are going to spend some of the surplus income on services and not spin doctors. Chouefiate and Walters were put into the Premier's Department, but were ceremoniously sacked by the Premier. I want to see some real movement on the part of this Premier. He should get rid of all of the spin doctors. This Government is sacking Department of Primary Industries employees all over the State in a time of drought. The Minister finally admitted that since July last year 134 jobs have been slashed from the department. He tried to blame the drought, but the reality is that he has had his budget cut by $21 million. They were jobs in rural communities, which are hurting at the moment. I invite the Parliamentary Secretary to come with me around drought-affected New South Wales and to talk to the people who are suicidal. He is a doctor and he knows the facts and figures about the number of people who commit suicide in regional New South Wales, especially in drought-affected areas.

Members opposite beat their breasts about the situation, but nothing has changed at the coalface. People are asking me and everyone else in the State when we can get rid of this rotten Labor Government. I genuinely feel sorry for the Parliamentary Secretary, because I believe he has a genuine heart—despite those pyjamas I see him in every now and again. I believe that he came into this place to do good for the people of New South Wales. However, he has been lumbered with a Government that is rotten to the core and that is dictated to by Sussex Street. The members on the front bench and the Executive Council have been selected by people with the worst records in New South Wales. Those people still hold sway, but Morris Iemma would have sacked them. I have no doubt that the reason Joe Tripodi is now Minister for Finance is that he speared his old mate Morris. We all heard Morris' comments.

Members can talk about road safety and primary industries, but they should visit Kelso school, as I did last week. Members should hear what the teachers and members of the parents and citizens say about the attention they receive from this Government through their local member, who has promised everyone for years that he will be on the front bench but has never arrived. I refer to Gerard Martin, who will be out of a job. Prior to the great revelation that the Opposition's not supporting the sale of the State's electricity infrastructure caused the Premier to fall, the member for Drummoyne warned everyone in her caucus that members with a margin of less than 10 per cent were in real trouble. I suggest that anyone with a margin of less than 20 per cent is in real trouble. What I am hearing is what everyone else is hearing, and it is what members opposite are hearing. A party cannot have a dozen members of caucus refusing to support legislation based on public opinion. It does not have members publicly criticising the Premier unless they are hearing something from the people of New South Wales. What they are hearing is that this Government is no longer fit to govern.

Members opposite may quote section 24B (2) of the Constitution, or whatever it is, as the Minister for Disability Services did tonight. However, the reality is that the challenge comes back to members opposite who were game to vote against the electricity legislation. As I started, I shall finish. Those members have already voted no confidence in this Government. It does not matter if they promote Nathan Rees or anyone else, as was said in this debate earlier today, the fish starts rotting from the head down. This Premier has a poor past and a poor history, and a government that does not enjoy the favour or confidence of the people of New South Wales.

Mr GREG PIPER (Lake Macquarie) [8.59 p.m.]: I start by apologising because I will be breaking the rhythm of the House and the rhythm of Hansard: I do not intend to consume the full 30 minutes allotted to me, as others before me have so ably done. This is a very important matter. Because of how I feel about this issue, I asked the Leader of the House whether I could speak from the Government side. I thank him for acceding to that request. As an Independent member I am beholden only to my electorate, the people of New South Wales and my conscience. I am only relatively new to Parliament, but I have been in local government for more than 17 years and I know good governance when I see it. I believe this motion warrants my making a statement.

The speech by the Leader of the Opposition supporting his motion of no confidence in the Government contained many facts and many beliefs that no doubt would be shared by the people of New South Wales. I thought the speech was somewhat loquacious but well delivered. I enjoyed listening to it. However, to me the question comes down to timing and reasonableness of such a motion—whether with a new Premier of only three weeks, and a clearly stated attempt to change the way business is done in New South Wales, the people of New South Wales would support bringing down the Government at this time. It is my opinion that when it comes down to it the public would not think that that is reasonable.

The way in which the Government has been run leading up to this point has, in my view, been appalling. The debacle with the proposed privatisation of electricity assets was underpinned by spin and misinformation. And when it came to an end we discovered that the State's finances were much worse than we had been told. This was unacceptable. With numerous other well-documented scandals and failures, I would guess that if the State Government had a similar authority over it as it exercises over local government, it may have been sacked well before this. That said, the Premier has committed to change, and I do not believe it is in the interests of the State to continue or to exacerbate political instability in New South Wales.

If in the fullness of time the Government has not redeemed itself in the eyes of the people of New South Wales, the Opposition may have good grounds to bring forward a motion of no confidence. When that happens the people of New South Wales will expect the Opposition to back itself with policies. Government is charged with making many complex and sometimes courageous decisions. Not all of its decisions have been bad and, as a matter of record, I have supported many of the decisions of individual Ministers and the Government. Has the new Premier made mistakes in his short time in the job? Absolutely. I believe if we asked the Premier whether he has made mistakes he would agree that that has been the case. He has had a baptism of fire in a highly charged political environment. This period is a better opportunity for the Government to change than it is for us to change the Government. I believe that the people of New South Wales would also think this is a time to give the Premier a fair go. On that basis, I cannot in all conscience support this motion of no confidence in the Government.

Mr CHRIS HARTCHER (Terrigal) [9.03 p.m.]: Madam Deputy-Speaker, I congratulate you on your election. Politics is an extraordinary journey for a community. Recent weeks in New South Wales have shown that it is both eventful and fateful for a community. We have seen the resignation of a Premier, a Deputy Premier, a Treasurer and a Minister for Health. We have seen the reconstitution of a Cabinet and the dropping of the Minister for Planning. We have seen major legislation involving the State's principal asset—its electricity industry—presented to Parliament and then withdrawn from Parliament. All of this has been presided over by the same political party that has ruled New South Wales since 1995. The significance of this motion—this is the first time such a motion has been moved in the life of this Parliament, and it was not moved in the life of the previous Parliament—is that if passed the Government has, under the State Constitution, 10 days to recover, failing which the Governor is authorised to issue writs for the dissolution of Parliament and the calling of an election.

The people of New South Wales are entitled to ask their Parliament to examine the record of the Government and to pass judgement upon it. This Parliament is like the King in the Old Testament, who saw the handwriting upon the wall, "MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting." No Government in the history of New South Wales has been found as wanting as this one. In examining the record of a government, it is appropriate to address the integrity of its Ministers. The Leader of the Opposition addressed the economic performance of the Government and addressed the confidence of the Government. However, it is also appropriate to address the integrity of the Ministers whom the Government presents to the people of New South Wales.

Upon attaining office, the new Premier stated that he would govern and seek to govern with hallmarks of integrity and transparency. Let us examine the record of part of representation of the ministry that the new Premier presented to the Governor, who took the oath as executive councillors and the oath of office as Ministers of New South Wales. I start with the member for Fairfield, Joe Tripodi. The member for Fairfield, as the Leader of the Opposition pointed out in his speech, has been before the Independent Commission Against Corruption on no fewer than four occasions. One of those occasions involved allegations of sexual assault on a young woman on the night the Olympic torch came to Sydney in 2000. The Independent Commission Against Corruption found that Joe Tripodi had taken that young woman into his office and removed his trousers. It did not make a finding as to whether an assault took place.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption further investigated Mr Tripodi's activities at the Orange Grove inquiry, where allegations were made that a decision of Planning New South Wales was prejudiced in favour of a major contributor to the Australian Labor Party. In the submission written by the counsel assisting the Independent Commission Against Corruption, Mr Jeremy Gormley, SC, put to the Independent Commission Against Corruption that Joe Tripodi had lied in his evidence; that Joe Tripodi was not a man of integrity; that Joe Tripodi could not be believed; and that, on the contrary, the evidence against Joe Tripodi—that he had promised to deliver certain things, that the Premier had intervened and directed through his staff that the contributor to the Labor Party be favoured over the particular party that had an entitlement to the factory outlet—was to be preferred.

In other words, the submission to the inquiry by the counsel assisting the inquiry was that Joe Tripodi had committed perjury in his evidence to the inquiry. We had before the Independent Commission Against Corruption submissions and findings conducive to sexual assault and conducive to perjury. These are just two of the findings and submissions of the Independent Commission Against Corruption—nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with Parliament—in relation to the Hon. Joe Tripodi, a man who is now chosen by the Premier to be a Minister in his Government.

Let us look at the next Minister, the former Minister for Police, the new Minister for Transport, the Hon. David Campbell. David Campbell, as the member for Coffs Harbour said, has not answered the allegations that have been put in relation to Wollongong City Council and the corruption and sleaze that surrounded Wollongong council—a council of which he was mayor. David Campbell was involved in an incident in relation to the Department of Housing. He owns five properties. He took his mother to the Department of Housing, sat down before the officer and opened with these immortal words, "You know who I am"—words immortalised by Belinda Neal on the Central Coast. That was tenor under which an inquiry as to his mother's eligibility for public housing was conducted. And the man already owns five properties. "You know who I am." The public servant had to deal not with the applicant but with a senior Minister of the Crown.

The Hon. David Campbell—and I use the word "honourable" strictly in its parliamentary sense of title rather than character description—is the man who on two occasions police officers allege swore at them. Two police officers in the Maitland district allege when they raised issues with him as Minister for Police they were told to "Get f'd." This is David Campbell, who is presented to us now as the Minister for Transport following on from Joe Tripodi, who is presented to us as the Minister for Ports. More significant than that, if I can seek the indulgence of the House on an issue relating to confidence in the Government, is to look further at the qualifications of the man who is now the Minister for Health, and Minister for the Central Coast—an area in which I happen to live. The Public Schools Principals Forum, which represents 700 principals of public schools throughout New South Wales, said about the Hon. John Della Bosca on 24 July 2008:

The Public Schools Principals Forum representing more than 700 principals say Mr Della Bosca should be held accountable to the same code of conduct that requires all Department of Education staff to behave in a professional manner that 'models appropriate standards for students'.

The statement went on to say that Mr Della Bosca had not met the minimal standards required of a principal of a public school. These 700 school principals—the Hon. John Aquilina would uphold the principles of public education—said that John Della Bosca was unfit to be a Minister of the Crown. They said that, as the Minister for Education and Training, the Hon. John Della Bosca—again I use the word "honourable" in its parliamentary sense, not its character description—was responsible for the anti-bullying policy in public schools. Bullying is a major issue in public schools at the present time. More than that, on the night of 6 June 2008 he was the Minister for Industrial Relations and was responsible for the anti-bullying policy in public employment. What happened on the night of 6 June 2008? Della Bosca was at a certain restaurant formerly in my electorate but now in the electorate of the member for Gosford. I turn to some of the matters relating to Mr Della Bosca incidental to that night. On 13 May Della Bosca said in the Legislative Council:

Although I have not yet received official notification about the status of my licence, I have ceased driving. Of course, I have personally paid all associated fines. In addition to the penalties provided by the law, I surrendered my general entitlement to a ministerial vehicle.

In other words, he had ceased driving. On 14 May John Della Bosca told the Premier that he would not use his ministerial car, that he would not drive and that he would use public transport. He stated in the Daily Telegraph:

Mr Della Bosca said he had spoken with Premier Morris Iemma and suggested he surrender his ministerial entitlement to a car and a driver. But, he said he would need some "driving services" to fulfil his ministerial duties, including when he attended a TAFE awards ceremony in Sydney. "Otherwise I'll be using my best endeavours to get from one place to another as appropriate," Mr Della Bosca told Macquarie Radio. "I'll catch public transport it's just the way things are."

The next day, 15 May, Mr Della Bosca rode his bicycle along the road. When a photographer approached him he, as reported in the Daily Telegraph, said to the photographer from News Limited, "Get a job you " I will not repeat the end of that sentence. On 6 June John Della Bosca was at Iguana Joe's nightclub. Despite the undertaking he had given to Parliament on 13 May and despite the promise given to the Premier on 14 May that he would not drive, on that night Della Bosca drove his car. On Monday 9 June on the Ray Hadley program on Radio 2GB John Della Bosca spoke about his promise not to drive his car. I shall quote some of the comments made by Mr Della Bosca on Radio 2GB:

RAY HADLEY: You said in parliament you wouldn't drive a car.

JOHN DELLA BOSCA: That's right.

RAY HADLEY: You lied.

JOHN DELLA BOSCA: No I didn't. No I did not Ray. Can I deal

RAY HADLEY: No, but you did promise me and you did promise parliament you wouldn't drive. So get to the part where you broke the promise.

JOHN DELLA BOSCA: And no I didn't, I didn't break my promise. What happened

RAY HADLEY: Well did you drive or not?

JOHN DELLA BOSCA: Yes I did drive.

RAY HADLEY: Well you broke your promise.

JOHN DELLA BOSCA: No I didn't make a promise. I said I had ceased to drive or I would cease to drive and I have not driven since. And I said to the gentleman

RAY HADLEY: But you did break your promise?

JOHN DELLA BOSCA: No Ray, I didn't break any promises.

RAY HADLEY: Yes you did. You promised you wouldn't drive and you broke your promise.

JOHN DELLA BOSCA: I didn't promise. I said I would not drive

RAY HADLEY: I would not drive, but I did.

On Radio 2GB John Della Bosca was caught out by Ray Hadley as having lied in respect of the promise and undertaking he gave that he would not drive—an undertaking he gave to the Premier on 14 May and to Parliament on 13 May. After lying to the Parliament, the Premier had to instruct John Della Bosca not to drive again. As quoted in the Daily Telegraph of 9 June 2008, the Premier said:

Notwithstanding the legal status of his licence I have instructed him not to drive again in the period before the formal cancellation takes effect.

It is not a question of me saying that John Della Bosca lied, it was the former Premier—to whom Government members showed great loyalty—who said John Della Bosca lied and who gave the instruction he was not to drive again. In relation to the Iguana's incident, the Daily Telegraph of 9 June states under the heading "Iemma grounds Della Bosca but won't sack him":

Premier Iemma said today: "Mr Della Bosca has insisted he is not at fault in this (Iguanas) incident. "He has also provided a written official apology from the restaurant concerned, which appears to support his account. There is currently no allegation of criminal behaviour—and given the club's apology and withdrawal of claims—no allegation of improper conduct. Mr Iemma said Mr Della Bosca would explain the incident to Parliament at the next sitting, including the reasons behind his decision to drive away from the location. "Notwithstanding the legal status of his licence, I have instructed him not to drive again in the period before his formal cancellation takes effect," the Premier said.

The Sydney Morning Herald of 11 June states under the heading "Premier backs Della Bosca":

The Premier says he will not sack the Education Minister, John Della Bosca, over his alleged behaviour at the Iguanas bar, saying he was "not in a position to be dismissing him or standing him down" as there was no proof of illegality or improper conduct

The Premier said he was instead relying only on an apology to Mr Della Bosca from the general manager of Iguanas—delivered after at least four phone calls from the minister to the club's owners—and a statement from Mr Della Bosca on the matter. Mr Iemma did not accept that the apology delivered by the nightclub came after pressure from Mr Della Bosca. Asked if he believed Mr Della Bosca was being truthful, Mr Iemma said: "He has been consistent from when I first spoke to him and this is what he said. He is telling the truth

On 13 June the Daily Telegraph reported the Premier as saying:

"I am standing John aside on this basis: that is the faxing and drafting of the apology was not in (his) report," Mr Iemma said.

"For the sake of completeness and detail I believe it does not require that he stand aside from his duties as a minister."

In other words, what the Premier was saying was that John Della Bosca had lied to him about the apology. John Della Bosca said he had received the apology from Iguanas, when in fact John Della Bosca had dictated the apology and then Iguanas faxed it back to him. For that second offence of lying to the Premier after he had lied to the Parliament John Della Bosca was stood down from the ministry. Further to the Premier suspending Della Bosca, the Iguanas management also added that the apology was inaccurate. After appearing on radio and saying that he made no threats to Iguanas for the apology, Della Bosca said on Radio 2UE on 9 June, "No one talked about legal action or solicitors or barristers or any other kind of litigation." On Jason Morrison's program on Radio 2GB on the same day Mr Della Bosca said, "I've never threatened anybody with legal action." Yet, in the Sydney Morning Herald on 16 June, after police interviewed the Iguanas management and staff, they are reported as saying:

Iguanas Waterfront management has told police its apology to John Della Bosca was inaccurate and was only issued under pressure from the minister.

So the Minister not only lied to the Premier but he lied to the community when he told the community that he had received the apology from Iguanas, when in fact he had forced the apology, which he dictated to Iguanas management, from the Iguanas management. This is the level of integrity of the man who the new Premier now appoints as Minister for Health, and Minister for the Central Coast. John Della Bosca lied in respect of not driving and he lied in respect of the apology, both of which are matters not alleged by me but confirmed by the former Premier of New South Wales, Morris Iemma. Continuing the lies and deceit to the Parliament, the then Premier and the people of New South Wales, John Della Bosca again lied when he said he would be cooperating with the police investigation. In the New South Wales Parliament on 17 June 2008 John Della Bosca said:

Members will be aware that the matter is now the subject of a police investigation. I can assure members of the House that I will be cooperating with that investigation.

What happened? When the police wanted to interview John Della Bosca he refused to be interviewed, despite the undertaking he gave to the Parliament that he would cooperate. As reported in the Daily Telegraph on 1 July, two weeks after he made his statement on 17 June:

Police are becoming increasingly frustrated with the failure of Belinda Neal and John Della Bosca to tell them if they will consent to an interview over the Iguanas scandal, despite the pair telling their parliaments they would cooperate fully with police.

Sources close to the investigation have told the Herald that the Labor couple have yet to commit to an interview about their now infamous June 6 row at the Iguanas Waterfront restaurant and nightclub in Gosford.

One source said police were keen to wrap up the investigation but had been hampered by the couple's apparent unwillingness to tell police what they planned to do.

"There's nothing [police] can do; they want this investigation finished as much as anybody," the source said.

On the following day, 2 July 2006, under the heading "Iemma turns on Della" the Sydney Morning Herald reported:

Mr Iemma released a statement saying: "I made it clear at the start of the investigation last month that I expected full cooperation from Mr Della Bosca. As a result, I have tonight spoken with Mr Della Bosca. In my conversation with the minister, I made clear my expectation that he agree to a police interview. This is essential to satisfy the commitment Mr Della Bosca gave to me and to the public of NSW that he would cooperate fully with investigators. As a result of our conversation, Mr Della Bosca said he would undertake an interview with NSW Police at their earliest convenience. I expect this commitment to be honoured, and that cooperation be provided for the duration of the investigation. I have notified NSW Police of these developments."

So Mr Della Bosca lied about not driving his car, he lied about the apology, and he lied about his cooperation with the police. Premier Iemma dismissed Carl Scully after he lied twice. Mr Della Bosca has been allowed to lie three times—not just to the community but also to the Premier and to the Parliament. Mr Della Bosca has lied on three separate occasions, and yet this is the man that Nathan Rees appoints as the Minister for Health.

Mr Barry Collier: Point of order: As the member for Terrigal well knows, it is unparliamentary to call members of Parliament liars in this place. I ask him to withdraw that statement.

Mr CHRIS HARTCHER: It is not unparliamentary.

Mr Barry Collier: Of course it is, and you know it.

Mr CHRIS HARTCHER: I am quoting the statements by the Premier himself.

Mr Barry Collier: You are not quoting statements; you are calling people liars. It is inappropriate and unparliamentary, and you well know it.

Mr CHRIS HARTCHER: There is no ruling on that.

ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Thomas George): Order! If the member for Terrigal is quoting, I accept his use of the word "lying". However, I remind him that the use of the word "lying" is unparliamentary.

Mr CHRIS HARTCHER: Mr Della Bosca was again loose with the truth when he undertook that he would not sue anyone for defamation. On several occasions Mr Della Bosca said he was not going to sue anyone for defamation, nor did he threaten anyone with defamation proceedings. On Channel 7 news on 8 June Mr Della Bosca said, "You have to defend your reputation, and I indicated that legal ah, legal um action, was an option for me." After receiving the apology from Iguanas management, Mr Della Bosca stated on 9 June, "I have accepted the apology from the restaurant and I will not be taking legal action against Iguana Joe's Bistro." Yet, when asked by Ray Hadley on Radio 2GB on 9 June whether he would pursue defamation or legal action, Mr Della Bosca responded, "Why would I Ray? Why would I be wanting to put anyone in jail or sue anybody?" On two occasions he threatened legal action, yet on 9 June he said he never wanted to take legal action.

On Radio 2UE on the same day, Mr Della Bosca denied making any threats to Iguanas to get the apology. He said, "No one talked about legal action or solicitors or barristers or any other kind of litigation." On the same day on the Jason Morrison program on Radio 2GB John Della Bosca said, "I've never threatened anybody with legal action." In early August 2008, two months after he made those statements on Radio 2UE and Radio 2GB, John Della Bosca, through his solicitors, wrote to Jared Golla, the Iguanas operations manager, and threatened him with legal action. This is the man who undertakes to the community, through Radio 2UE, that he would not take legal action and yet, two months later in August, he instructs his solicitors to threaten legal action. That letter was referred by a retired judge on the Central Coast to the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney General, on the basis that it was an attempt to intimidate a potential witness as Mr Della Bosca was then under investigation by the State Director of Public Prosecutions for criminal misconduct.

Yet John Della Bosca has been returned by Premier Rees to the ministry. John Della Bosca is a man who on three occasions has lied to the Premier, the Parliament and the public. What has the conduct of John Della Bosca been like since he became the Minister for Health? After being returned to the ministry for only two days John Della Bosca was at it again. On 10 September, only a few days ago, the Central Coast Express Advocate wrote an article about the Minister for Health and the Minister for the Central Coast entitled "Doctors fury at Della Bosca mix up".

It was reported that Della Bosca offended doctors and nurses at Wyong Hospital by making them wait for 20 minutes while he stood in front of the media telling them he was there to listen. Doctor Simon Battersby was so angry at the ill treatment he resigned as the Medical Staff Council chairman, a voluntary position, and he was also considering resigning as a staff doctor. Staff put off surgery and changed shifts to accommodate Della Bosca on short notice.

When John Della Bosca was appointed Minister for Health he said he would like to visit the Wyong Hospital. The next day he summoned the doctors and senior nurses to a conference that lasted precisely five minutes and he then left the doctors and nurses for 20 minutes to hold a press conference. Doctors and nurses that need to return to the serious duties involved in medical assistance in a major public hospital were left in a room while John Della Bosca talked to the press. Disgusted, the doctors and nurses walked out and went straight to the media. The story of the fury of doctors at John Della Bosca was then carried all over the Central Coast newspaper.

This is the man that could not change tables on the night of 6 June at Iguanas. This is the man who promised he would not drive. This is the man who promised he would not take legal action. This is the man who promised he would look after the doctors and nurses in the hospital system. Yet this is the man who is now Minister for Health and the Minister for the Central Coast. Premier Nathan Rees has a case to answer because these are the people that he appoints to his ministry. He appoints people such as Joe Tripodi, David Campbell and John Della Bosca. There is a list of people that one could go through like green bottles hanging on a wall, each one waiting to fall. Yet Premier Nathan Rees has not reached the level of incompetence of appointing to the ministry people such as the member for Miranda. That level of incompetence has not yet been reached, but it probably will be.

Honourable members need to be aware that this is a rotten government. This is a government that has failed the people's trust. This is a government in whom nobody has confidence. This is a government that no matter where you go the people of New South Wales ask, "How long, Lord? How long?" With the passing of the no-confidence motion honourable members have the chance to finally pass judgement on the Government and invite the Governor of New South Wales to exercise her discretion, as the representative in New South Wales of the sovereign, to withdraw the commission given to this Government—as Sir John Kerr withdrew the commission given to the rotten and incompetent Whitlam Government—and invite the people of New South Wales to pass judgement. I support the motion of the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr DONALD PAGE (Ballina) [9.33 p.m.]: I support the no-confidence motion. I do so because I believe that the Government has been one of wasted opportunity. It has been a government of declining services. It has been a government of failing infrastructure. I know that the member for Lismore, who is in the chair, will be the first to agree with me that the taking away of the Casino to Murwillumbah train service was a good local example of the Government allowing infrastructure to decline. I note that the member for Willoughby is the next speaker on our side. She will clearly state the failures of transport infrastructure. It has been a government of insufficient police presence. The constant complaint of the people across New South Wales has been that there are insufficient police available to attend to the State's level of crime. It has been a government that in many areas has made New South Wales business uncompetitive with business in other States, particularly in taxation and regulation. It has been a government of spin over substance and a government that after 13½ years has lost the confidence of the people.

In most fields of government activity the Government has been a failure. Even though the Government continues to rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic every so often, the fundamental challenge of addressing the good management of the hospital system, the education system and the transport system, which are all State responsibilities, seems very much beyond it. It is not as if the Government has not had the money over the years. It has had the money but done nothing except waste it. When the Government first came to power it had a revenue stream of about $17 billion dollars; after 13½ years it has a revenue stream of about $46 billion dollars. The Government has disappointed the people of New South Wales who in the past put their faith in it. Even those who were prepared to give the Government one more chance at the last election must be disappointed.

It is going to be a long night so I will be brief because many members wish to speak on the no-confidence motion. I will concentrate on the areas of particular interest to me in my shadow portfolio of tourism and business. Members would be aware that the report of John O'Neill on tourism came down recently. The key finding of that report was that the Labor Government has cost the people of New South Wales at least $3.5 billion over the past six or seven years. The reason for that has been the neglect of the Government to understand the importance of tourism to the economy of New South Wales and the Government's inability to seriously address the marketing of New South Wales as a product at the same time as Victoria and Queensland have been undertaking serious promotion campaigns.

According to the O'Neill report the loss of revenue in tourism was due largely to the fact that New South Wales hosted 18 million fewer visitor nights than would have been the case had the visitation levels of 1999-2000 continued. I will quote a couple of salient features from the report. On the decline of visitor nights in New South Wales the report said:

The graph shows that over the period as a whole, New South Wales hosted 18 million less visitor nights than it would have if it had maintained visitation at 1999-2000 levels, while the rest of Australia hosted 20.8 million visitor nights.

John O'Neill went on to state:

On the basis that during this period a visitor night was worth about $128 in expenditure, this means that over the seven-year period the rest of Australia gained an extra $2.7 billion in revenue. In contrast, New South Wales lost about $2.3 billion in revenue. Had New South Wales actually kept up with the rest of Australia, it would have received an extra $1.2 billion in tourism revenue. So, given the decline in New South Wales visitor nights, the State was about $3.5 billion (or $0.5 billion per annum) worse off in tourism revenue than if it had maintained its position relative to the rest of Australia. These are not trivial.

That is not from the Opposition; that is from a detailed report commissioned by the Government and produced by John O'Neill with the backing of a lot of very informed people in the tourism industry. The Government sat on the O'Neill report for about nine months because it knew that the report was damning about its lack of performance. It was not keen to see it released. It was only as a result of pressure from the Opposition and the tourism industry that the Government finally released the report. But it was not able to spin doctor the report. The fundamentals of the report showed, as I indicated, that the Government has cost the State $3.5 billion dollars in lost tourism opportunities.

John O'Neill, in the executive summary of his report, stated:

Despite the attraction of Sydney, New South Wales is progressively losing market share of Australian tourism, due to a combination of factors including ongoing societal and technological change—

this is important—

government imposed constraints and inaction and the way government promotes tourism in New South Wales.

The John O'Neill report on the tourism industry is most damning. Government members, whether they belong to the right or left faction, should acknowledge the importance of the tourism industry, the significant contribution by John O'Neill, and the damning nature of his report. One of the major problems in tourism has been the Government cuts in expenditure over the past eight years. The Government has reduced expenditure on the promotion of tourism in this State by 12 per cent in real terms. At the same time that the Government has cut expenditure Victoria and Queensland have substantially increased expenditure by 20 per cent and 46 per cent in real terms. They have seriously increased their expenditure. New South Wales Labor has been asleep at the wheel.

Overnight visitors in New South Wales have fallen from 33 million people in 2000 to 24 million for the year ending 30 June 2008. Sydney is the only Olympic city to have experienced a downturn in tourism after the Olympic Games. That is disgraceful. The reason is that the Government took for granted that it did not have to promote Sydney following the hosting of the Olympic Games. The figures show that Victoria and Queensland have promoted their States and have stolen our market share. The New South Wales tourism budget expenditure per visitor is the lowest of all States and Territories. New South Wales is losing market share, and has been for many years, to Victoria and Queensland.

The O'Neill report recommended that regional tourism should be funded by in the vicinity of $21 million per year. The Government's response to that recommendation was to provide $10.5 million over three years—about $3.5 million each year. The former Minister for Tourism, Matt Brown, made that announcement last month, but that commitment may be up in the air because, as we heard today, the Premier is not prepared to rule anything in or out except the reduction of payroll tax to 5.5 percent over a three-year period. Regional tourism is a significant contributor to the tourism market. Government members may not be aware that in the holiday and leisure market the regions account for 72 to 73 per cent of the total number of visitor nights throughout the State. The regional tourism budget gets a very small percentage of the total tourism budget and a fraction of the amount recommended by John O'Neill. I implore the Government to seriously consider the impact on regional tourism and to implement the recommendations of the O'Neill report in relation to tourism throughout the State.

I remind the Government that the tourism industry is a significant employer, employing approximately 165,000 people in this State. About 73,000 of those are employed in regional areas. So it is roughly a 50-50 split. The industry is worth $23 billion a year to the economy of New South Wales. Unfortunately, because of the negligence of this Government and its neglect of the tourism industry, the State has lost about $3.5 billion—according to the O'Neill report—in the past five or six years in revenue opportunities. That means not only lost opportunities for businesses involved in the tourism industry but also lost government revenue. Investing in tourism means increased employment, more payroll tax and probably more stamp duty because of increased money flow. This incompetent Government does not understand the many benefits to be derived from the tourism industry.

The O'Neill report is condemnatory of the Government's lack of performance over many years in the tourism portfolio and highlights the significant failings of the Government. However, in the latest ministry announcements the new Premier appointed the most junior Minister to this portfolio. I will not attack the Minister; she is new to the Parliament and new to the ministry. Tourism is a significant industry that is worth more than $23 billion a year to the State, and the O'Neill report states that the Government has forsaken the tourism industry. Yet the Government has given the portfolio to its most junior Minister. That shows that the Government has learnt absolutely nothing from the O'Neill report and its interest in tourism is zero.

People talk to me all the time about problems with small business. Red tape is choking small business. In a report this year Westpac stated that small businesses in New South Wales spend on average 20 hours a week on administration and red tape compared with 15 hours a week for small businesses in Queensland. Some of that relates to Federal red tape and administration. However, the Federal component would be common to businesses in all States. Businesses in New South Wales spend five hours a week more than businesses in Queensland on administration because of the administrative and regulatory framework in New South Wales. I implore the Government while it is in office—God knows how long that will be; I hope we have an election soon so that we can get rid of it—to examine the issue of red tape and not just pay lip-service to it.

New South Wales is the only State in the country where businesses cut spending in the June quarter, following cuts in spending in the previous quarter as well. The Sensis Business Index report released last month showed that 15 per cent of small businesses had reduced employee numbers, with 60 per cent of small businesses reducing the number of full-time staff in the past year. Business confidence in New South Wales is at its lowest level in 15 years at just 7 per cent. New South Wales has far too many taxes on small business. A small business can pay potentially 23 separate State taxes. A New South Wales Business Chamber survey of 400 businesses showed that 57 per cent of respondents stated that New South Wales was uncompetitive compared with other States.

The Premier seems to be hanging his hat on payroll tax when he says that he will retain the commitment to gradually reduce payroll tax over the next three years to 5.5 per cent. Payroll tax in Queensland is 4.75 per cent and in Victoria it is 4.95 per cent. The threshold in New South Wales is $623,000, compared with the threshold in Queensland of $1 million. The payroll tax rates in Queensland and Victoria are much lower than the projected rates in three years' time in New South Wales and the threshold at which businesses start paying payroll tax is $623,000 in New South Wales and $1 million in Queensland.

I can understand why people, particularly in my part of the world near the Queensland border, say that they would rather invest in Queensland than in New South Wales because New South Wales is not competitive. The Government must take heed of their comments. The introduction of a vendor tax at a time when the property market was looking superficially overheated but was going into decline—so that property owners paid stamp duty on purchase, land tax during ownership and vendor duty on sale—was the worst thing that this Government ever did. Michael Egan must account for the flight of investment capital from New South Wales to other States, particularly investment in rental accommodation.

People did not want to put up with high land tax as well as bad tenants. And in those days too, of course, the State Government reduced the threshold on land tax and took it back to zero for a year, which meant that if you owned any property other than your own home you had to pay land tax. The combination of the removal of the threshold on land tax and the introduction of the vendor tax was an absolute disaster for the property market in New South Wales and it caused a flight of investment out of this State into other States, particularly Queensland.

There are 32,000 businesses that operate across State borders, and they are burdened by not only an uncompetitive tax system but also an inefficient regulatory system. The Government needs to do much more than it is. It pays lip-service to the small business community in the same way it pays lip-service to the tourism industry, and in neither case is it addressing the real needs of either of those sectors. I point out that the Coalition introduced cross-border legislation in two Parliaments in the past seeking to address cross-border anomalies, but this Government on both occasions voted down the proposed legislation.

Furthermore, to my great pain and to the anger of people out there who know about this issue, the State Government voted down legislation that was designed to protect homeowners who cannot pay their mortgage to ensure that those in a mortgagee-in-possession situation would at least get market price, because, as we know, if someone has a property worth $1 million but owes the bank $700,000 the bank is only interested in getting that $700,000 back, and the $300,000 equity that is held by the borrower can easily be sacrificed in such a situation. Our legislation would have guaranteed that the borrower would get at least market price, but what did the Labor Government do? It voted down the legislation. The legislation would have been very important in the current financial crisis. Many people are suffering more stress at the moment and yet this Government voted down the legislation.

We support the no-confidence motion because the State Government has done so many stupid things that people have had a gutful and we are determined that through the passage of this motion—I hope the Independents will back us—we can have an election in this State and get rid of this bad Government. I support the idea of fixed-term parliaments, but the problem is that they do not allow us to get rid of a bad government. That is the problem we have in New South Wales today. The Government has been a complete and utter failure to both the tourism industry and the small business community. I strongly support the motion of no confidence in the Government.

Ms GLADYS BEREJIKLIAN (Willoughby) [9.52 p.m.]: I reiterate at the outset that this is not a motion we take lightly. It is not a motion that is debated often in this place, but it reflects community sentiments and it reflects the concerns people have about the lack of attention to service delivery, the lack of attention to the needs of the community, and this Government's total inability to manage and deliver services and to provide economic credibility. A large portion of my contribution to this debate will focus on transport issues, given my responsibility in this place as the shadow Minister for Transport. The Government's failure to improve services and its failure to deliver one single public transport infrastructure project in the past 13 years on time or on budget are having a devastating impact on the community.

The impact of bad transport on people's lives cannot be measured because when you waste valuable family time trying to get work, when you waste productivity because you cannot get to work on time or you need to leave early to catch a particular service that may or may not arrive, when you are stressed already managing work and family life and trying to drop off children and organise family activities, bad public transport does not just impact on the people who want to use public transport services; it affects everybody who is stuck in traffic—

[Interruption]

ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Thomas George): Order! The member for Willoughby will be heard in silence.

Ms GLADYS BEREJIKLIAN: It affects all of us trying to move about the city and trying to move about regional and rural areas. The lack of confidence in the public transport network is increasing daily, and I want to take some time this evening to address some of the issues.

Mr Barry Collier: My train was on time this morning.

Ms GLADYS BEREJIKLIAN: Well, that was an anomaly.

[Interruption]

ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Thomas George): Order! Members will direct their comments through the Chair.

Ms GLADYS BEREJIKLIAN: It is of concern that in September 2005 when the last railway timetable was publicly released the State Government slashed 416 daily rail services. When the last bus timetable was released in September 2006 the State Government slashed 1,500 weekly bus services. This had a huge impact on overcrowding; it had a huge impact on reliability; and it had a huge impact on skipped stops and the lack of accessibility of public transport services. This overcrowding issue was a problem even before petrol prices increased. Now that petrol prices have increased and people, through sheer necessity, have to consider their options and move back onto the public transport system they are finding public transport not viable. A survey yesterday demonstrated that two-thirds of people who catch trains—commuters who try to negotiate the rail network on a daily basis—say that overcrowding is a huge burden for them in their personal lives and in their personal day-to-day activities.

Mr Barry Collier: Not in the shire it is not.

Ms GLADYS BEREJIKLIAN: That is a quote. I am concerned that the member for Miranda does not think overcrowding is an issue in his electorate.

Mr Barry Collier: I catch the train every day coming to Parliament. It is great.

Ms GLADYS BEREJIKLIAN: I will take on board the comments made by the member for Miranda.

ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Thomas George): Order! Members are obviously feeling the lateness of the hour. I believe the debate will be lengthy. The member for Willoughby will be heard in silence.

Ms GLADYS BEREJIKLIAN: I take on board the comments made by the member for Miranda, but regrettably his opinion is not one shared by his constituents—constituents who email me or call my office in utter dismay at the state of the public transport network. In relation to overcrowding, yesterday's survey demonstrated that two-thirds of commuters regard overcrowding as a major problem. The question I put to members opposite is: Why during World Youth Day celebrations did the State Government find the ability to add 400 rail services a day? Why was the Government able to put on those services during World Youth Day celebrations but it is not able now to cater for the commuters who face the daily grind of trying to get to work and get home, who face massive overcrowding and massive unreliability because the State Government has slashed services and who, due to high petrol prices, are priced out of being able to drive their cars?

I now refer to an issue raised in the House that really concerns me: commuter car parking. The Government is full of hot air in relation to what it is going to do about commuter car parking, but the reality is that yesterday and last week both the Treasurer and the Premier refused to rule out taxes and charges on commuter car parking. This is another huge blow for commuters, especially given that the NRMA report in February this year demonstrated that 40 per cent of people would consider leaving their cars at home if they thought they could get commuter parking and reliable public transport services. This is a missed opportunity, and it demonstrates people's lack of confidence in the public transport network.

The Government had the opportunity to encourage people to change their behaviour and catch public transport—something that would have improved air quality, improved our health and improved road congestion. However, this opportunity has been missed because of the Government's incompetence in managing public transport. People would rather sit in a car park on a road than leave their cars at home and catch an unreliable public transport service.

Coupled with these concerns regarding day-to-day services, it is commuters who are being asked to pay for the State Government's incompetence. It concerns me enormously that a submission has been made to the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal recommending a 30 per cent increase in rail fares over four years. This State Government is providing fewer and less reliable services, but it is asking commuters, who do it tough every day, to pay for its incompetence. Nowhere else in Australia is that the case.

One need only look north of the border to see that Premier Bligh—who is obviously of the same political persuasion as this Government—has managed to implement integrated ticketing in Brisbane and its surrounds. The commuters who utilise the integrated ticket system, or the Go Card, as it is called in Brisbane, are able to take advantage of a 67 per cent discount in public transport fares. Similarly, the Victorian Labor Government, without condition or qualification, recently offered free travel for people travelling before a certain time on the public transport network. Members should compare that to what our State Government is offering: higher fares, taxes and charges on commuter car parking, and fewer and worsening services. The community is being asked to dig deeper to pay for this Government's incompetence.

What type of incompetence am I referring to? This Government's inability to manage the network or to appreciate the angst that commuters suffer on a daily basis is not the only problem. The situation is exacerbated by the Government's total waste of money and utter incompetence when it comes to public transport infrastructure. Brian Langton, a former Minister responsible for public transport, announced in 1997 that the Tcard would be ready for the Sydney Olympics. Eight years on, not only do we not have integrated ticketing, but also at least $95 million of taxpayers' money has gone down the drain with nothing to show for it. A decade of promises about integrated ticketing has resulted in at least $95 million—it could be more—going down the drain with nothing to show.

Members should compare this to the situation in Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth. Each of those cities has at least trialled, and two of them have implemented, integrated ticketing using smart card technology. Sydney is supposed to be a global city and the leading capital in this country. I want to feel proud of my city; I want to showcase our city to the world. However, that is not possible because this State Government has run down services to such an extent that moving around the city is impossible without suffering enormous stress and facing the prospect of sitting in traffic or being stuck on a public transport service that has broken down. That is the reality; it is the daily grind that people must experience.

In addition to not being able to deliver any public transport infrastructure project on time and on budget, this State Government has overseen RailCorp, which has embedded corruption. The Independent Commission Against Corruption made a number of recommendations to successive transport Ministers 18 months ago and then again in December 2007. A total of 41 recommendations were made about how the State Government should clean up processes within RailCorp to prevent a culture of corruption. Of course, the State Government chose to ignore those recommendations.

In recent times, $23 million has been wasted. That is all that has come to light; some are suggesting that the figure is much larger than that. The Government cannot run services or deliver any projects on time or on budget, and it cannot keep the bureaucracy free of corruption, notwithstanding the fact that the Independent Commission Against Corruption has made 41 recommendations about RailCorp alone. That is a sad indictment of the state of affairs in New South Wales. It also demonstrates why the public has lost confidence in this State Government and in public transport services. Again, who is paying for the State Government's incompetence? It is the poor commuters and the poor taxpayers. Commuters are being asked to dig deeper to pay higher fares and the taxpayers are being asked to pay for the State Government's gross incompetence in managing public transport.

The list of rail lines and other projects that have been announced over years and then axed is truly concerning. The Bondi Beach link was promised and has been shelved; the high-speed rail link to Newcastle was announced and has been shelved; the Hurstville to South Strathfield link was announced and has been shelved; the Sutherland to Wollongong high-speed link was promised, announced and then shelved; and the Epping to Parramatta rail link was announced ad nauseum and then shelved.

In more recent times the central business district [CBD] rail link has been axed. In addition, the north-west heavy rail link has been axed without any explanation and a metro line has been announced in its stead. I will get back to that later. What concerns me is that before the last State election we had a number of breakdowns on the harbour bridge and many commuters were severely disadvantaged. I remember the tragic situation of a disabled man who was stuck on the train for hours because no-one could get him off. That should not in happen in Sydney in 2008. Regrettably, the State Government's response is, "Don't worry, we are building a second harbour crossing with the CBD rail link. This won't happen in the future." However, since the election the Government has axed that CBD rail link. That link was supposed not only to provide a second harbour rail crossing but also to support the north-west and south-west rail links. Where does that leave the south-west rail link? When the Government announced the CBD rail link it said that it would serve both the south-west and north-west rail links.

We know what happened to the north-west rail link. It was supposed to be delivered by 2010 but, all of a sudden, after 10 years of announcements and line items in the budget papers about the link, the State Government dropped the project. It did not explain why; it just dumped it and announced the metro instead. The Opposition has always supported, and always will support, the construction of a rail link to the north-west. We do not understand why the State Government abandoned the heavy rail link. It did so without explanation. When the State Government announced the CBD rail link, the south-west rail link and the north-west heavy rail link, it said that the three projects would cost $8 billion. Those three lines would have eased congestion on the CityRail network and provided valuable and critical services to parts of outer Sydney that currently do not have rail services—that is, the south-west and the north-west.

The State Government has already axed the CBD rail link. The north-west heavy rail link has also been abandoned for a metro link. That means that the residents of Rouse Hill will have to stand on rail journeys for 45 minutes. Examples in Europe demonstrate that metro lines are ideally suited for shorter distances and where people hop on an off on a regular basis. These services are not traditionally used for long-haul journeys. I have yet to hear of one example from the State Government of a metro system that is designed to transport people a long distance into the CBD on one link that is not connected to any other form of public transport. This State Government has failed and it is little wonder that the residents to the north-west are shaking their heads and wondering whether they will ever get a rail link, given 10 years of broken promises and false hope. The residents of south-west Sydney are also concerned because if this trend continues there is little doubt that there will be some hiccup with their rail link as well.

I also note concerns that have been raised about safety on all modes of public transport. The State Government has failed to implement all of the recommendations from the Waterfall inquiry. Recommendation 38, one of the principal recommendations, referred to communication between staff on the rail network. It is enormously concerning that this recommendation has yet to be implemented. In recent times there have also been problems with steering on buses and drivers not feeling that they have been adequately trained on certain buses. Once again, the State Government made a lot of announcements, amid great fanfare, about new buses. Sadly for the commuters of Sydney and New South Wales, the budget papers indicate that there is insufficient money for the purchase of even one new bus. The only buses that will come on the road in the next 12 months will replace very old buses. The number of new buses on Sydney streets in the next 12 months will not increase, which is an utter disgrace given the levels of overcrowding at the moment and given the increased demand for services.

I wish I had hours to speak tonight because that is at least how long it would take me to even touch the surface of the major public transport issues that have caused havoc for commuters of New South Wales and caused them to lose confidence. Another issue I wish to address is Sydney Ferries, which affects the member for Manly and his electorate. Tragically, in January and March 2007 a number of people lost their lives on Sydney Harbour in incidents involving Sydney Ferries. In response, the State Government established the Walker inquiry to examine Sydney Ferries and make certain recommendations. At the time, and until today, we raised concerns that the terms of reference did not include those incidents.

Commissioner Walker was not given the freedom in the terms of reference to determine whether those incidents were in any way linked to the management of Sydney Ferries. Notwithstanding that, he commissioned a report and made a number of recommendations. The State Government said it would provide a response to those recommendations in February this year. That has not happened. Then it said it would provide a response to those recommendations in April this year. That has not happened. Then it said it would provide a response to those recommendations by mid year. We are already towards the end of September and there is still no response. Again, how on earth will commuters ever have confidence that the Labor Party will be able to fix anything given its broken promise after broken promise?

It pains all of us to know that on average each of the 38 vessels in the Sydney Ferries fleet breaks down at least twice a month. Reliability is such a problem that hundreds of thousands of journeys are no longer taken because commuters have turned their backs on Sydney Ferries. Here is an opportunity for a fantastic form of public transport to be maximised and utilised but, instead, the State Government has turned its back on safety problems plaguing Sydney Ferries, turned its back on the management problems facing Sydney Ferries and failed to address the safety concerns that exist. Here is yet another example of the State Government totally failing the public transport commuters of New South Wales.

I refer now to CountryLink services. I know members in this House, such as the members for Burrinjuck, Wagga Wagga, Lismore and Bega, are extremely concerned about CountryLink services, both rail and bus, but particularly rail, given that the State Government has removed the Casino to Murwillumbah rail line. The State Government has closed a number of CountryLink offices. It has also added an unfair pensioner booking tax to CountryLink services. The so-called free voucher system for pensioners has just been turned into a joke because now pensioners have to pay a booking tax every time they use those vouchers. That is causing enormous angst for people in the community. I commend the Pensioners and Superannuants Federation of New South Wales for all the representations it has made on behalf of pensioners, both in Sydney and in rural and regional areas.

Some of the comments by the member for Monaro concern me, given the number of his constituents who are concerned about the lack of CountryLink services and the lack of patronage. CountryLink services should be enhanced and preserved. They should not be allowed to be degraded as they have been. People wanting to travel to country New South Wales and country people wanting to travel to Sydney for important appointments should not have to put up with such a lack of reliability.

I place on record again aspects of the Coalition's policy that we released in February this year regarding an integrated transport authority, the need to improve connections between modes of transport and the need to have oversight of major public transport infrastructure projects. It is extremely concerning that the State Government has ignored our calls for that policy. Every other State in Australia, which, until recently, was Labor coast to coast, has an integrated transport authority. Although New South Wales has 11 transport agencies, none of them functions properly; not one agency in New South Wales is responsible for transport interchanges. Not one New South Wales transport agency ensures that services are coordinated and run properly. That is an absolute disgrace.

All this Government can do is talk, and the most recent example was yesterday in the House when the Minister for Transport talked about a commuter survey. The spin he put on the results of the survey was just appalling. It demonstrates again why people have lost confidence in the State Government. He and the Premier and every single member of the Government have their heads in the sand. They are in denial. They are in a parallel universe because they obviously do not appreciate how much commuters in their electorates are suffering because of a lack of confidence in public transport and the impact this has on people's lives, not just economically, not just in terms of productivity, but socially. Valuable hours are taken away from family, from workplaces and from other free activities because people simply cannot move around as freely as they would like because of the appalling public transport services.

Many problems in my electorate of Willoughby have caused my community to lose total confidence in this State Government. The feedback I have received, certainly in recent months, about how angry people are with this Government urges me to place some of those concerns on the record. In recent times we have lost a number of bus services. This is of enormous concern because residents of the Willoughby electorate feel fortunate to live so close to the central business district. Many have chosen to make the Willoughby electorate their home because of its proximity to the CBD.

Regrettably, we are bogged down in traffic and, rather than increase public transport services, the State Government has slashed all daily express services of the 272 bus from Willoughby to the CBD between 9.30 a.m. and 2.30 p.m. After 9.30 a.m. and before 2.30 p.m. one cannot get an express service to the city, which is appalling given the proximity of the Willoughby electorate to the Sydney CBD. We lost more than 140 services when the last bus timetable was issued. This includes services from Chatswood to Bondi, from Chatswood to Ryde, and from Chatswood and Willoughby to the CBD. This is an area where public transport should be encouraged, not discouraged. Again, this demonstrates why the local community has lost confidence in the State Government.

Also, people have lost confidence in the reliability of the North Shore train line. Only last Wednesday when I was catching public transport from my electorate office to Chatswood to attend the Chatswood Chamber of Commerce lunch, I could barely get onto the bus. It was overcrowded because the train line was down at Gordon and everybody was forced onto the bus, causing enormous delays. I just made the lunch on time even though I left half an hour early to give myself plenty of time to get there. Again, this is an example of how people in their daily lives are wasting precious time getting from one location to another. While members on the Government side might think it is a joke, it has a huge social impact. Again it is little wonder that people have lost confidence in the system.

I also comment on public schools in the Willoughby electorate. Chatswood public and Chatswood high schools have been demanding improvements to their capital program ever since I have been the local member and for five or six years before that. It concerns me that the State Government is proposing to have 500 extra units above the rail line at Chatswood, yet across the road is a primary school that is bursting at the seams with demountables taking up playground space. The State Government refuses to give any capital support to that school, notwithstanding it is proposing to have 500 extra units across the road. Here again is an example of a State Government that has lost all its sensibilities in relation to planning issues and providing community renewal and support.

There are also traffic issues. Because of the location of the Willoughby electorate it is a traffic thoroughfare from other parts of Sydney. The Roads and Traffic Authority has ignored a number of traffic hot spots in the electorate. One I note in particular is the right-hand turn from Edinburgh Road in Castlecrag on to Eastern Valley Way. This is a very dangerous intersection. Castlecrag has only one or two entry and exit points, and that right-hand turn is critical to maintain safety. Yet, repeated calls to the Roads and Traffic Authority to address the issue have been ignored.

An issue very close to my heart is the community mental health facilities in Hercules Street, Chatswood. Only in the last few days we learned that, contrary to the State Government's promises over the past three years that it would retain the mental health services in Hercules Street, the Government has sent out a letter without any notice saying that those facilities will close. What confidence can the residents of the Willoughby electorate or anybody else in New South Wales have when the State Government says one thing and does another? Only a few months ago the former Minister for Health advertised the fact that the mental health services would continue, yet we have a letter from the same northern area health service advising that the services will be ripped out of the community.

Clearly when it comes to public transport and the needs of people on a daily basis the State Government is letting down the people of New South Wales through its sheer incompetence. I wish I had more time to outline these matters in detail. I will briefly outline a couple of projects that the State Government has refused to approve ahead of the mini-budget. One is the clearways project. Members would appreciate that the Opposition has always supported this important project to clear railway lines so that if there is a breakdown on one part of the network it does not adversely affect trains on another part of the network. Regrettably, the clearways project has blown out by another two years at least, from 2010 in the 2007-08 budget to 2012 in the 2008-09 budget.

In addition, in recent days the Premier and the Minister for Transport have refused to rule out that certain sections of that project will actually continue. It is a major blow to the community, given that failure to deliver the project on time or to deliver the entire project will result in commuters facing the prospect of a breakdown in one part of the network, which will affect the reliability of the rest of the network. I have some knowledge of the Epping to Chatswood rail link as it starts in my electorate. That project was supposed to be finished the year before last, so it is two years overdue already. It is half the rail link at double the cost. Originally it was to cost $1.5 billion-odd and now half the link is costing double. That is another example of the State Government being unable to deliver one single public transport project on time or on budget.

I have demonstrated in the short time available why the people of New South Wales have lost confidence in the New South Wales Government to ease public transport stress or provide any hope for improvement. I thank the residents of the Willoughby electorate for their ongoing feedback and assure them that, notwithstanding the Government's incompetence, the Opposition will keep fighting on their behalf.

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE (Bega) [10.22 p.m.]: I contribute to debate on this motion of no confidence in the Government. Lack of confidence clearly exists in the disability sector, particularly amongst carers as a result of their treatment by the Government. During question time in the last sitting of Parliament Minister Keneally made a statement with respect to the failed electricity bid on the part of the Iemma Government. She said:

I have a long list of projects that we could cut in Opposition electorates. We could cut supported accommodation in Coffs Harbour or respite beds in Cronulla Opposition members might like us to cut the new group home in the electorate of Wakehurst, or they might like us to cut the modification of group homes in Castle Hill.

She used people with a disability as political pawns in a nasty game. People with a disability, their carers and families were stunned that the Minister was prepared to disadvantage people with a disability on the basis of where they live. It was a disgraceful attempt to play politics. It is why the people of this State have lost confidence in the Government and why this motion should be passed to bring on a general election. Minister Keneally realised later that she had overstepped the mark. She sent me an email dated 1 September 2008, which stated:

Look, it's clear from last week's question time on energy reform and funding for future planning and disability services that passions ran high on this issue on both sides of politics.

She spoke about the fact that I need to have a briefing with the department to discuss the future financial challenges that the Government is facing in the disability and ageing sectors.

Mr Steve Whan: That is very generous of her.

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE: She wrote that email after having come into the Parliament and treated people with a disability with utmost disrespect on the basis of which electorate they live in. It was disgusting. Everyone is aware of this. I am going to continue to speak for the next 27 minutes and if I continue to hear a commentary from the member for Monaro, I will start highlighting a few things about him that he will not enjoy.

Mr Steve Whan: Highlight the new respite care unit.

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE: Commiserations to him. The convenor of Country Labor could not even get a spot in the Rees Cabinet. Indeed, the Minister for Rural Affairs in this State comes from the Sydney Basin. The member for Monaro could not even get a look in, while the member for Wollondilly has become the Minister for Rural Affairs. The convenor of Country Labor could not even get the numbers in the Right caucus. The disability services sector has lost confidence in the Government and there are many reasons for this lack of confidence. It is not just the Minister's attitude but also the recent respite policies released by the Department of Ageing, Disabilities and Home Care, endorsed by the Minister.

The policy on the department's website cites that people with a disability who remain in respite care beyond their allotted time will be treated as trespassers by the Government and the department will no longer accept responsibility for their care. It is in black and white. That is indicative of the types of policies of the Iemma and Rees governments. Indeed, this policy is being debated across the sector. The New South Wales Liberals and Nationals held a forum in the Parliament on 2 September 2008 to discuss the policy and everyone is asking the Government to shred it. The member for Monaro denies that the Government is treating children with disabilities as trespassers. He should look at the website of the Department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care.

Mr Steve Whan: What is your policy?

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE: The first thing I will do is shred this grubby policy because it is characteristic of the Government's contempt for people in the community who need support, and there is no greater need than providing for people with a disability who cannot care for themselves. The policy is disrespectful. It is probably in breach of the Anti-Discrimination Act and the Convention on Human Rights. Despite this, the Government is pushing the policy, yet wonders why the community no longer has confidence in its performance. The community has lost confidence in the Government's ability to provide supported accommodation and respite services around the State. Government members tell me this is not an issue when they know full well that people are lining up outside their electorate offices complaining about the lack of supported accommodation and respite care.

Mr David Harris: No.

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE: The member for Wyong has said that he does not have any respite or supported accommodation problems in his electorate. We know the member for Bathurst has those problems in his electorate. Two or three weeks ago when I held a carers forum in the Bathurst electorate carers turned up en masse to complain about the lack of centre-based respite in Bathurst. What is the member for Bathurst doing about that? He is ignoring the problem. The member for Wyong reckons there is no respite—

Mr David Harris: We're getting a number of new things in my electorate.

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE: The Government has been promised, and promised, and promised, but nothing has been delivered. As for the member for Monaro, a new respite facility in Queanbeyan remained unopened for 18 months. Apparently, the brand-new facility was sitting there for 18 months and his Government could not get it opened. One need only look at the figures. Last year 1,596 people applied for supported accommodation in New South Wales. Only 85 of those people were successful. In other words, last year fewer than 5 per cent of people with a disability who applied for supported accommodation were successful in their applications to the Department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care. On top of that, the unmet need of people with a disability in this State is in the order of 8,000, as documented by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Members opposite are saying that they are not going to address these problems. The first thing they could do—which is what I would do if I were in office—is make sure that the 19 vacant group home properties the department currently owns are opened and not left vacant.

Mr Steve Whan: Have you been to the one in Queanbeyan?

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE: I stood outside the one in Queanbeyan—as the member for Monaro knows full well because I was pointing out the fact that people in a wheelchair cannot access the home because it has no mobility access, yet is supposed to service people with a disability. The problem for the member for Monaro is that WIN Television captured all of that on film, so he cannot deny it. The planned spending on supported accommodation in New South Wales under both Stronger Together and the disability assistance package might provide up to 1,900 places by 2012. This means that, at a minimum, 66 per cent of people with a disability will remain unfunded for supported accommodation.

The former Minister said that those places were all dependent upon electricity privatisation. The Minister not only made that clear in this House but she also made the point to the disability sector. The question now remains: Given the period over which the Government did not fund disability services in New South Wales, and that prior to the last State election the Government put together a package to start to address the issues, how will the Government begin to assist those who need supported accommodation?

One need only look at the performance of New South Wales compared with that of Victoria. Despite our population being almost 1.7 million more than the population of Victoria, the Victorian State Government assisted 13,666 people with a disability to receive accommodation support. In contrast, the New South Wales Government provided 7,000 people with a disability with accommodation support. In Victoria, 13,719 people with a disability were assisted with respite care. In contrast, in New South Wales 4,593 people with a disability were assisted with respite care, and in Queensland 4,451 people with a disability received respite care assistance. Those figures are based on a Commonwealth State/Territory Disability Agreement study undertaken by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare—the same figures that the New South Wales Government takes to the Federal Government when seeking funding.

Last year the department's capital works budget was slashed by 10 per cent. Under the Iemma-Rees Government 19 group homes in this State remain unopened, yet people with a disability cannot get supported accommodation. Respite beds are blocked all around the State. Indeed, in the State seat of Ryde, the Salerwong respite facility has two blocked beds. The facility has had blocked beds for years. In some areas of the State people have stayed in respite facilities for more than eight years. Some parents are at their wit's end trying to get their child into respite so they can take a break.

People are fed up with hearing about what the Government is going to do. They are fed up with hearing about large amounts of money that they never see spent on supported accommodation in their local community. What is being done? Nothing. We now have a new Minister for Disability Services. The Minister was in the Chamber this evening and could have defended the Government's record on disability services. He made one brief comment on it. Under the current policies people with a disability are being treated as trespassers. The lack of supported accommodation and respite facilities is tearing families apart, and members opposite are making light of it.

Mr David Harris: No, we are asking how you pay for it. What is your answer about how you pay for it?

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE: That is an interesting point. The Government was supposed to have a Commonwealth State/Territory Disability Agreement in place—it was due to be signed 12 months ago. Labor is in office at both the Federal and State levels, yet it could not even get the agreement signed. Labor managed to sign the Kyoto Protocol inside two weeks, having won the Federal election, but it could not get the Commonwealth State/Territory Disability Agreement in place. When we come to year's end, the agreement still will not be in place. If the member for Wyong wants to make those sorts of comments, he should get the facts straight, because he is wasting my time and his time with this nonsense.

ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Thomas George): Order! Members will direct their comments through the Chair.

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE: The disability services sector in this State, which is run by the Department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care, is not being administered as it should be. Another matter that concerns me as the shadow Minister for Disability Services is child deaths. Of the 114 children who died and were known to the Department of Community Services as part of the 2006 review, 27 of them were children with a disability. The Government's memorandum of understanding between those two departments has not been effective. The Government is now holding another review into that matter. They are the types of issues that people want to see fixed and that must be addressed. The Government's lack of focus in these areas is costing lives.

I hope this motion is passed tonight, because it will bring on a general election and it will give us a good opportunity to start spelling out how we are going to turn this State around, making it the State it should be, rather than it being a State that has been run into the ground by a bunch of misfits who do not know what they are doing. The serious problems relating to people with disabilities need to be addressed. Another example of the Iemma-Rees Government's sheer and utter incompetence is the number of young people in nursing homes. The Government has had an 18-month, $80 million program in place, jointly funded by the State and Commonwealth, to relocate young people out of nursing homes. How many people have been relocated in that time?

Do the member for Wyong or the member for Monaro want to answer that question? I bet they do not know the answer. I am happy to tell them that the number is four people. That is an example of the Government at work. It is typical of this Government. The member for Wyong and the member for Monaro both know, as do other Government members, that these types of programs are designed to change lives. Yet the best the Government can do is relocate four people in 18 months. Is it any wonder that the people of New South Wales have lost confidence in the Government? Is it any wonder that the Opposition has had to move a motion of no confidence to bring on a general election?

Mr Steve Whan: It's not doing that. You guys got it wrong. You didn't understand the standing orders.

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE: Are you telling me those figures are wrong?

Mr Steve Whan: No, your procedures.

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE: Well, take an abstention, Steve. You don't have to cross the floor, just abstain from the vote. Get three of your mates to do it. The other point I make relates to ageing. The Iemma and Rees governments have treated seniors in this State with utter contempt. It is amazing to think that in 2008 the State Government has failed to produce a plan for demographic ageing. The Commonwealth Government has managed the intergenerational process but not the New South Wales Government. We have heard platitudes from the famous well-known former Treasurer, Michael Costa, talking about the impending budget crisis as a result of demographic ageing in New South Wales. Yet the Government has not produced any plan for demographic ageing.

The State has issues about the way in which pensioners and self-funded retirees are being treated; yet the State Government shows no leadership towards the changing age demographics. The Iemma Government cut Seniors Week budgets and hundreds of organisations for seniors missed out on small grants that would have enabled them to celebrate Seniors Week. This might be a non-issue for Government members but it has a real and profound effect on community organisations across the State. The shadow Minister for Transport touched on pensioner booking fees, older drivers and pensioner rebates for water. That demonstrates the Government's contempt for the senior citizens of New South Wales.

From time to time the member for Monaro, who is in the Chamber, and I have had some very interesting debates on ABC Radio. The member for Monaro knows that the people of south-east New South Wales have had a real gutful of decisions made in Sydney that do not support their local communities. The member for Monaro has become so out of touch as a result of his being so proactive in the State's electricity policy. When the caucus vote was held for Cabinet positions, the member for Monaro and the member for Bathurst had their monthly meeting down at the local telephone box and it was decided that the member for Monaro would be the convenor of Country Labor. They had a vote and it was one all.

ASSISTANT-SPEAKER (Mr Grant McBride): Order! A motion of no confidence in a Government is a very serious motion. The attitude of the member for Bega does not reflect that seriousness.

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE: What standing order does that ruling relate to?

ASSISTANT-SPEAKER (Mr Grant McBride): Order! The member for Bega will continue his speech.

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE: They had their monthly meeting and what happened? The member for Wollondilly ended up as the Minister for Rural Affairs. Country Labor has not even made Cabinet. What really tops the lot is that the member for Monaro jumped at being on ABC Radio after the Cabinet reshuffle and said Nathan Rees really cares for, and is passionate about, country New South Wales. The member for Monaro failed to mention the fact that the former Minister for Water Utilities had run around in local government circles for the past 12 months telling them how he was going to restructure their water utilities—the big cash cow for how country councils operate. That is the attitude of the new Premier. We have these wishy-washy statements from the member for Monaro that Premier Rees is a champion of country people, but he has not seen fit to put one country member in Cabinet. That speaks volumes.

A whole raft of country issues have meant that country people have lost confidence in the State Government. The closure of maternity services has affected constituents in the electorate of the member for Monaro and my constituents. The State Government held a review into maternity services at Bega and Pambula hospitals and has had the report for the best part of four months. The report was to be released back in May, but we are still waiting. Two doctors are away, so the Government has decided to close the Pambula maternity unit. Doctors want to see the report on that review, and so does the community. For many years Labor has not put resources into maternity units across country New South Wales. Is it any wonder that country people have had a gutful of the way the Government has managed these issues?

It gets even better. Over many years the parents of Mogo Public School have written letters in an effort to get a car park for the school. Currently the school's car park is a clearway that is one metre off the Princes Highway. Has the Government done anything about that? No! Will it take the loss of a child before the Government decides to act? More than likely! These are the types of issues that people have had a gutful as a result of the incompetence of the Iemma and Rees governments.

Mr Steve Whan: Tell us a bit more about Pambula Hospital. Tell us what you told me last night.

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE: The member for Monaro should release the review.

Mr Steve Whan: You told me last night—

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE: Do not sit here and make up stories. I told you last night that the Government should release the review.

Mr Steve Whan: Point of order: My point of order is that the member for Bega has just suggested that I am sitting here making stories up when he should come clean with the fact that last night he said if the review were released he would be quite happy to agree to Pambula Hospital's maternity unit being shifted to Bega.

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE: No, I did not. Hang on a second! You cannot tell lies and make accusations like that—as we quite clearly remember in relation to your staff member's actions. The member for Monaro has a long history of twisting and turning, and making these things up. I made it very clear to the member for Monaro last night that the Government should release the review because the community wants to see it. Everybody suspects that the review talks about closing Pambula's maternity unit. That is what was said and that is what is going on, but the member for Monaro will not come out with it. We have all seen the documentation that is floating around the member's electorate relating to developments. It refers to a price of $154,000 to the Labor Party. What else does it say? It states:

Your Backyard—Queanbeyan Community's Future.

SOLD TO: The biggest political donor.

PRICE: $154,000

SOLD BY: NSW Labor Party.

On the documentation Steve Whan says, "I don't say no to anybody "

Mr Steve Whan: Point of order: The member for Bega is quoting from a Nationals publication recently circulated in my electorate.

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE: It is taxpayer funded.

Mr Steve Whan: It is taxpayer funded, is it?

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE: I think so.

Mr Steve Whan: By The Nationals—that is interesting. A taxpayer-funded political document that is put out by The Nationals and authorised by The Nationals. I would suggest that is not relevant to this motion. It may be relevant to corrupt conduct by The Nationals in misusing taxpayer funds, but it is not relevant to this debate.

ASSISTANT-SPEAKER (Mr Grant McBride): Order! The member for Bega has the call.

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE: The south-east of New South Wales has issues. For example, Bermagui preschool is reducing services for one day a week because the State Government will not fund it properly. The Government is not showing any leadership: It is doing nothing to help the Bermagui Surf Life Saving Club project. Following the coronial inquest into the Princes Highway the State Coroner recommended that 15.1 kilometres of highway between Victoria Creek and Dignams Creek be upgraded. Is that going to happen? Kurt Jackson, one of the local schoolchildren at Eden, highlighted in a school project the fact that students have to cross the Princes Highway to participate in schools sports and other activities, and they have to do this approximately 300,000 times a year. They want a pedestrian crossing on the Princes Highway. Can the Government deliver on that? No. Can the Government fix the problem at an intersection at Payne Street, Narooma? No. I refer to the Reeves matter.

Mr Steve Whan: Obviously you need a decent local member.

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE: What is your point in relation to the Reeves matter?

Mr Steve Whan: I am referring to your previous points.

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE: Tell me about the Reeves matter. The member for Monaro has been very quiet about that.

ASSISTANT-SPEAKER (Mr Grant McBride): Order! The member for Bega and the member for Monaro will not conduct a conversation across the table.

Mr ANDREW CONSTANCE: I cannot believe what occurred in the Reeves affair. I still lay awake at night thinking about it. I cannot believe the Government has not provided comprehensive grief counselling to the female victims directly affected by the actions of Reeves, let alone the behaviour of the former Minister for Health. I was happy to see her leave this place. As I said earlier, a long list of issues have a real impact at a grassroots community level. For that reason, people throughout the State are bowling over Government members. They are saying, "Enough is enough, bring on a general election." If the Government has nothing to fear, it should agree to an election. Nathan Rees has spent the last three weeks apologising for the actions of his own Government. If he had nothing to fear and was confident that he has a refreshed Government, then he should put it to the people and let them have a say. Let us trust in the people's judgement, not Karl Bitar's. The people want a say in the future direction of their State: They are fed up with the nonsense of the New South Wales Labor Party.

Mr MIKE BAIRD (Manly) [10.52 p.m.]: I support the motion of no confidence in the Government. It is incredible for a Government at its 18-month mark to be at such a low ebb in the view of a broad spectrum of the community. The Government has got to the point where it cannot hide. After almost 14 years of financial mismanagement, on street corners, in town halls and hospital waiting rooms and at stations and ferry wharves, wherever you go, people are saying they have had enough. The reasons they have had enough are compelling rationale for the Government to say, "We have got it wrong. We believe that the people of New South Wales deserve a better Government. We will go back to the people, put a new vision to them and let the people have a say."

I will focus on finance. Today the Rees Government admitted that it does not have the capability to manage itself out of this mess. It has appointed Bernie Fraser and Ian Macfarlane. We do not begrudge the appointment of experts in any matter. Indeed, if experts, rather than mates, had been appointed to administer the State, we would be in a much better position than we are today. The Government appointed Bernie Fraser and Ian Macfarlane within a week or two of appointing the new Treasurer and the new Minister for Finance. Obviously the Premier said, "I hope you like the jobs but we want to get someone we can trust to get us out of this financial mess." How did the Government get in such a mess that it needs Bernie Fraser and Ian Macfarlane to pull it out?

Today the new Treasurer, reading diligently from the copious notes that were put before him by staff, let the genie out of the bottle. He said that Standard and Poor's had confirmed that the credit watch was due to the net financial liabilities. That is, the Carr-Iemma-Rees-Bitar-Tripodi Government has led us to the point that the State is on credit watch. The State is in crisis: there is no money left. That is what they are telling us, and the appointment of Bernie Fraser and Ian Macfarlane confirms it. The debt binge, which has been laid out by the Leader of the Opposition, has come at the worst possible time. It is happy days when record revenues—an unbudgeted $17.5 billion—are rolling in. There is no need for accountability or discipline.

The Government has had a general gun-slinging, western saloon style, "she'll be right" attitude. Do whatever you like; pay whatever bill you want. It does not matter, it will all come out in the wash. The chickens have come home to roost. Under the naked glare of one of the worst financial crises the world has ever seen—indeed, Alan Greenspan has said it is a once-in-a-century event—the Government's lack of discipline over the past 13 to 14 years and an administration that got it horribly wrong have led the State up the garden path. The revenues in economic activity are collapsing, combined with a huge increase in debt. It is the worst combination at the worst possible time.

I will refer to the key financial points to show why we have lost confidence in this administration. In market terms, it equates to a management team that has failed to deliver for its stakeholders. How do rating agencies make their assessments on credit ratings? Moody's assigns a rating based on an institutional framework, past behaviour and individual characteristics. Thus, rating committees are able to distinguish between other governments in the same jurisdiction. A whole range of parameters goes into a rating and it takes considerable time to get to the point of a credit watch. In this country only New South Wales is on credit watch. They have observed the Government's complete lack of historical financial discipline and its huge debt splurge. In June Standard and Poor's said that the debt funding of new generation capacity would likely put the State credit rating under pressure. Of course, there was no mention of that in the budget. I will come back to that. Standard and Poor's also spoke about a failure to maintain operating surpluses, which would likely put the credit rating under pressure.

The Vertigan and Stokes audit, commissioned by the Government in 2006, found that since 2000-01 average growth in expenses have exceeded the growth in revenues by one percentage point; total expenses have risen faster than growth in the economy over the last five years; and this situation raised important procedures and processes that prioritise existing and new expenditures. The Vertigan and Stokes audit showed what was wrong. I will give Cabinet a tip: The Government must understand that if expenses grow faster than revenue it is going backwards. That has been going on for 13 to 14 years. It was highlighted in a special report to Cabinet in 2006, but it was ignored. In March 2007 a report by the Reliability Panel highlighted the risk created by mismanagement. The report stated, "The biggest risk to New South Wales rating is the operating performance." That performance is managed by this team. Standard and Poor's, who cut its outlook from stable to negative, said it would see how the Government reprioritised its capital works program in the mini-budget. Tonight it is worth pointing out that there are a couple of risks. Standard and Poor's said:

The mini-budget is not in itself a sufficient condition to return the outlook to stable. We will need to believe that the Government has the political willingness and ability to execute what is likely to include unpopular decisions.

The rating agency also said:

The trend of increasing debt cannot continue indefinitely without threatening existing ratings.

Whatever happens in the mini-budget, Standard and Poor's are on watch. The Government has led us to this point: it is the Government's mismanagement, a complete lack of fiscal discipline and a debt splurge that has gone with it. In relation to the second part of the situation, infrastructure and the black hole that has effectively been created, Standard and Poor's stated that a surplus would need to be ongoing. But let us look at some of the points on infrastructure in particular. On 24 June 2008 the Treasurer told Parliament:

No items in the infrastructure strategy are dependent upon the Government's electricity plans.

The Government's June budget estimates forecast a surplus of $268 million but Treasury officials recently informed Mr Rees of the $1 billion shortfall during his first Cabinet meeting. As soon as that came to light our new Premier said he did not have the time or the inclination to discuss it. That could have been a poor choice of words at a particularly poor time, but any Premier that is faced with a $1 billion shortfall would surely understand that that is a huge priority, whatever he is doing. The words "no time or inclination to discuss it" give an insight into the culture of the people who sit around the Cabinet table. Cabinet members do not care about expenses; they do not care about the consequences of their actions—and that is the core of the problem.

Until you get some accountability, until you get some aggressive understanding that budget allocation is sacrosanct and that a lack of performance results in dismissal of the Minister, you will not change the problem. The Premier also said he had no explanations of how the black hole had come about. We all heard what Treasurer Costa said—that colourful display of bile and wonderment. He said that the Government had already overcommitted on spending by $500 million. Areas such as transport were planning a further $3 billion, which the State could not afford. Treasurer Costa said:

Capital programs are about $2 billion too ambitious. I have been advised by the health Minister that health recurrent expenditure has blown out by approximately $300 million this year. And, in addition, that the health 10-year capital program is overcommitted at the moment to the tune of half a billion dollars.

Those are not small numbers and they show what is wrong: not only can the Government not control recurrent expenditure; it cannot control capital expenditure. We have had a number of examples of projects that have gone over time and over cost, and no-one is being held to account. That is why we are here tonight debating this no-confidence motion. It is time that someone in the Government is held to account for the decisions it is making and actually executes those decisions, because recurrent expenditure continues to blow out, as does capital expenditure. Alan Greenspan has already labelled the situation "a once-in-a-century type of financial crisis", and when there is this complete lack of fiscal discipline, "once in a century" starts to become very perilous for the State.

Mr Barry Collier: He is an American economist. He is the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve. What has the Federal Reserve got to do with New South Wales?

Mr MIKE BAIRD: The member should look him up; he might learn something. Employee expenses for front-line workers are also an important point. We hear much from the Labor Party on how it is the champion of working families. We hear much from the Labor Party about how it stands up for the workers. Front-line worker groups who ask this Government for pay increases are paying for the Government's financial mismanagement. There are no funds to provide these front-line workers with pay increases because members of the Government have been filling their own pockets, looking after their own perks, paying for their mates and filling spin teams rather than putting the money back into front-line workers.

Professor Henry Ergas, at a Senate select committee in July, revealed that salaries in the New South Wales public sector had risen by 51.5 per cent over the 10 years to June 2007. That was 14 percentage points higher than the private sector. The important point about this is not that the public sector has not received more money but where the money has gone. It has not gone to the people it should have gone to. I am happy to include us in the same analysis. Members of Parliament have received a 55 per cent pay rise, and that seems completely at odds with what our front-line workers have received. A nurse's base salary is $45,797; a teacher's base salary is $49,050; and a police officer's base salary is $51,000. Yesterday we heard the news that teachers are still fighting for a pay rise that keeps up with inflation. Where has the money gone?

I will tell the House where the money has gone and why we are not able to pay the front-line workers what they should be paid and what they deserve: the Iemma Government had 335 media and policy staff, and that compares with 17 for the New South Wales Opposition—and the 17 do an incredible job serving the public and serving the Opposition. But last year the Iemma Government spent $63.8 million on its media and policy staff. Last Easter the Iemma Government advertised for seven spin doctors, offering a total of $628,634 in salaries. This is not a Government that is in touch with the needs of the community; it is not looking after its front-line workers; it is feathering its own nest and its money is going to its mates, to spin teams and to its own little enclaves.

I move on to the State Super Fund, and this again highlights a culture of a lack of discipline. When a government starts to have heat turned on to its budgetary performance what does it do? It has to start cooking the books. It has to find a way to squeeze money out of places where it should not. The State Super Fund has had a $2.7 billion loss this year, which is the reason this Government has started to reach for some of the assets. The annual losses in First State Super Fund were close to $1 billion. Not only are we not paying our front-line workers; most of our public servants lost 6.8 per cent during the last year, which was above the industry average of 6.4 per cent. It was a bigger loss than expected. The Government has admitted in this budget that it manipulated the State Super Fund: it understated its future unfunded super liabilities by about $7 billion.

By using old accounting standards the unfunded super liability peaks at about $12 billion, but if the current standards are used—the accounting standards that every other corporation currently uses—it would be $19 billion. The Government has managed to take away $7 billion and pretend that liability does not exist. That means that with every budget it produces the Government does not have to provide hundreds of millions of dollars because it is pretending the liability does not exist. In 2007-08 the budget amended some of the assumptions underlying this calculation, which obviously reduced its unfunded liabilities. It changed the investment return assumption from 7 per cent to 7.7 per cent. How does 7.7 per cent compare with the 6.8 per cent that was lost last year? It increased the discount rate from 7 per cent to 7.3 per cent—again, the only State in the country to use a rate different from the long-term bond rate. Most other States, and the Federal Government, used a figure of 6 per cent.

The Government has apparently ignored the ageing population and has said pensioner mortality rates will increase. These sorts of management practices are not out of step with those of corporate cowboys. The Coalition successfully amended the Superannuation Administration Amendment Bill 2008 in April because the Treasurer was proposing to give himself the authority to access the superannuation reserves of public sector employees and to transfer the funds to other accounts. These practices raised doubt about the veracity of management. If the Carr-Rees-Iemma-Bitar-Tripodi Government is happy to use public servants' money to manipulate super for short-term budget results, what else has it done? It is on this premise that we start to wonder.

We do not know what is going on but we know that the culture is not right. We know that the Government cannot control its recurrent income; we know it cannot control its capital budgets; and now it is starting to play with things such as superannuation. It is a very serious problem and they are deferring it for future generations to address. The public of New South Wales needs to know about that and it deserves some answers.

The airport duty is another example of this Government's activities. The ratings agencies said that they wanted to see surpluses, so the Government pretended to the world that it was producing them. In the 2007-08 budget, when it needed a surplus of $368 million, it was in $40 million or $50 million in the red. It submitted an invoice for $401 million in land tax due on Sydney airport. As a result it had a surplus. At the time Peter Costello said it was rubbish and Morris Iemma said that the Federal Coalition was a bunch of cowboys and that they needed to be responsible. Lindsay Tanner has also said that the claim was rubbish. The Government fabricated $401 million to make it look as though the State had a surplus. It is also dipping into the teachers', nurses' and police officers' superannuation funds. This Government's financial platform is about to collapse. The people of New South Wales deserve to know that this mob on the other side, which can be very loosely called a management team with some capacity, is jeopardising everything we have in this State.

Where has the money gone? Over the past 13 years we have heard about windfall taxpayer revenue of $17.5 billion and dividends have also been plundered. Freedom of information documents show that the Iemma Government's bill for office space in the CBD was $118 million a year, including $15 million rising to $20 million for lovely plush offices in the Governor Macquarie Tower. Why not throw in $7 million for car parking? Those expenses show that the Government is completely out of touch.

I have spoken about State debt before and the Leader of the Opposition clearly articulated the situation. The important point is that if a government has crumbling revenue and a deteriorating economic position, and if it is increasing debt like a drunken sailor, it will come under pressure. The Opposition will scrutinise the mini-budget to see whether the Government is starting to sell assets to fund the recurrent black hole. We will be watching every line of the mini-budget to ensure that the Government does not resort to asset sales to fund recurrent bad discipline, which is such a hallmark of this Government.

Mr JOHN AQUILINA (Riverstone—Leader of the House) [11.03 p.m.]: I move:

That the question be now put.

The House divided.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Question—That the motion be agreed to—proposed.

Mr BARRY O'FARRELL (Ku-ring-gai—Leader of the Opposition) [11.20 p.m.], in reply: If ever we needed evidence that this is not a new Labor Government, but the same old Labor Government, it was the gag motion moved by the same old, tired, incompetent Leader of the House. The same old Labor hacks hate being held accountable even to the very Chamber in which it forms government. For 13½ years this Government's major problem has been its refusal to be held accountable to anyone, including the public of New South Wales. That is why this evening, while nine members of the Opposition spoke, every single member on this side of the House was determined for their communities to tell the lie that this is a new Labor Government.

It is remarkable, though, that in the most significant debate this Parliament can have, the Premier himself has failed to come into the Chamber, again, in the traditions of Bob Carr and Morris Iemma, refusing to hold himself accountable to the Chamber that is meant to make him Premier. Of course, Nathan Rees was not made Premier by a vote of this place or by a vote of the people of New South Wales; Nathan Rees was made Premier by the machinations of the Labor's backroom operators. It reminds me of that joke: What is the difference between a pit bull terrier and Labor's factional backroom operators? Pit bull terriers have more compassion.

It is not surprising that we saw only three Labor members support the Government on this issue. That is not surprising given the bitterness that exists within the Labor Party, bitterness in part because at least there are a few Labor members opposite whose moral compasses are telling them that they are in with the wrong crowd. For 13 years Labor has promised to do better. For 13 years it has promised, year in year out, to put the public interest to the fore. Yet, year in, year out, under three different Premiers, Labor has failed to deliver, failed to fix the problems faced by families, failed to secure the State's future by capitalising on the record decade of national economic growth and revenues.

While familles and businesses have worked hard to get ahead, Labor has idled, incompetently managed, and only ever exerted itself to keep its jobs. It is a tired Labor Government that is out of touch and arrogant, and has lost the respect and trust of the community. It is a Government that repeatedly promised fiscal responsibility but has wasted record revenues and blown the State's credit card. It has repeatedly failed to deliver the services the community and industry need—and deserve—so they can get on with their lives and conduct their business. It has repeatedly refused to deal honestly with the public over everything from hospital waiting lists to the current state of New South Wales finances. It has repeatedly pledged to lift its standards—to apply the merit principle to decision making and appointments—but has over 13 years constantly given politics, cronyism and self-interest a greater priority than the needs of the public; and it has repeatedly failed to provide the State's families with the services, living standards and futures they deserve from any government doing its job.

By its very nature a no-confidence motion implies a change in the status quo, a shift from the current regime to a new one. Tonight, in this place, the New South Wales Liberal-Nationals Coalition has prosecuted the case on behalf of the people of New South Wales that enough is enough. Indeed, whether we are talking from the perspective of the Macquarie Shopping Centre or Macquarie Fields, enough is well and truly enough—be it the lack of simple decency of this moribund and maladministered Labor Government; be it Labor's ineptitude and incompetence; be it Labor's manipulation and the sordid trails of donor money. Perhaps never before—and hopefully never again—has the public and political life of New South Wales reached such a sad and sorry state.

To that end, we have prosecuted our case tonight so that Labor members of good conscience—perhaps those who have resisted the gravitational pull that is party interest alone—will stand up for what we all come into this place for. When all is said and done, most of us come here because we seek to serve. We see that public life and government can have its sacred purpose. Put simply—and regardless of the compasses that are our principles and ideologies—we want to make a contribution to our local communities and to this State. We want to make at least some difference in people's lives. We hope that in some way—be it small or large—we leave behind us something better than we found at the start, that our legacy for future generations is one that enriches and emboldens them, rather than enslaves and encumbers them.

To that end, I stand before this place not only beseeching the better angels of our nature—as Abraham Lincoln said—in those courageous and conscientious Labor members. I not only ask them to return to the roots of their vocation and support this motion—a motion where we have clearly set out the many ways that the community has been let down and lost faith in this Government. Indeed, I stand before this place imbued with a great and compelling sense of responsibility. As never before, my colleagues and I tonight share with the citizens and community of New South Wales not just our frustrations but also our aspirations. Not just our fears for the future under Labor, but our hopes that the very sacred purpose of public life in New South Wales can be restored.

Restored how? Through purpose and principle. As a British Prime Minister once said, "The secret of success is constancy of purpose." Our purpose—the purpose of the Liberal-Nationals Coalition in this place, the purpose of the future O'Farrell-Stoner Government—in our ongoing relationship with the people of New South Wales is clear. First and foremost, we will put the people of New South Wales first. We will seek on their behalf to put New South Wales back on track. With their mandate, a mandate that can start tonight and here, we will strive to provide the people of New South Wales with the world's best quality of life. Why should that not be our goal? Why should we not be aiming to foster, as servants of the hardworking and decent community of New South Wales, a world-class quality of life? Why should we not rise above the morass—the politics of the lowest common denominator—that our opponents have regrettably come to personify? Why should we be dumbed down in a way that modern political technique—the technique perfected by the not-so faceless men of Sussex Street—allegedly dictates? Why should we be ruled by the tyranny of the sound bite rather than the test of public interest?

We mark in this place, and at this very late hour—virtually beyond the view of our friends in the fourth estate—what is important and true rather than urgent and convenient. That is this: The Liberal-Nationals Coalition will strive on behalf of the people of New South Wales to restore the basic services that they not only deserve, but actually pay for with their earnest work. We will strive to fix the State's financial mess and responsibly manage the State's budget. We will do all in our power to create opportunity for the people of New South Wales through economic growth, community wellbeing and environmental care. We will run an honest and accountable government. We will take a commonsense, practical approach where decisions are made on merit and not on politics. We will make sure the people of New South Wales have a genuine stake—a real say—in the policies that affect their everyday lives. We will secure a future for New South Wales that builds on our people's diversity and talents, our history and our traditions. Ultimately, the New South Wales Liberal-Nationals Coalition will form a government that sees its purpose—its reason for being—not reflected in a mirror but reflected in improved outcomes for the people who elect us to this place. Let us get on and make a start this evening.

Question—That the motion be agreed to—put.

The House divided.

Mr Amery Ms Andrews Mr Aquilina Ms Beamer Mr Borger Mr Brown Ms Burney Mr Campbell Mr Collier Mr Coombs Mr Corrigan Mr Costa Mr Daley Ms D'Amore Mr Draper Mrs Fardell Ms Firth

Ms Gadiel Mr Greene Mr Harris Ms Hay Mr Hickey Ms Hornery Ms Keneally Mr Khoshaba Mr Koperberg Mr Lynch Mr McBride Dr McDonald Ms McKay Mr McLeay Ms McMahon Ms Megarrity Ms Moore

Mr Morris Mrs Paluzzano Mr Pearce Mrs Perry Mr Piper Mr Sartor Mr Shearan Mr Stewart Ms Tebbutt Mr Terenzini Mr Tripodi Mr West Mr Whan Tellers, Mr Ashton Mr Martin

Question resolved in the negative.

Motion negatived.