General Purpose Standing Committee No. 2

Debate resumed from 5 March.

The Hon. ROBYN PARKER [3.06 p.m.]: Having already tabled the Budget Estimates General Purpose Standing Committee No. 2 report, I will make a number of comments. I first thank Hansard, the committee staff and the participants for the way in which the committee's inquiries were conducted. They can often be quite stressful experiences. However, at the end of the day we were all there to get answers about expenditure during the four public hearings on the portfolios of Fair Trading, Youth and Volunteering, Ageing and Disability Services, Education and Training, Industrial Relations, Finance, the Central Coast and Health.

Where Ministers gave the committee more time and opportunity for questions, the hearings were fruitful. Where Ministers and their departmental officers were prepared to give honest answers there were greater benefits and outcomes for everyone concerned. Those Ministers who played games with long introductions and lengthy Dorothy Dixers do not do themselves any favours and certainly do not add anything to the process.

During the hearings on Fair Trading and Youth and Volunteering members asked questions about financial counselling services, and particularly financial counselling on the North Coast. That was the subject of further committee inquiries and letters to the Minister to verify some of the comments that she made about financial counselling and the drought, and to follow up concerns the counselling services raised about those comments. They felt they were somewhat misleading. The committee undertook that work and got a result on behalf of the counselling services on the North Coast. It was not necessarily a result in terms of increased funding—which is what they really need to do the job—but the committee did get some answers.

The committee also reviewed the Residential Tenancies Act and asked questions about housing affordability, the Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal, consumer protection for residential home building, product safety laws, car rebirthing, the "Breaking the Silence: Creating the Future" report, World Youth Day, the Youth Advisory Council and the Volunteer of the Year Award. From my perspective, given my role as Opposition Parliamentary Secretary for Aboriginal Affairs, it was very disappointing that during the hearing process the Minister was unable to provide any concrete figures or information about the "Breaking the Silence: Creating the Future" report, particularly in reference to her Youth portfolio.

Even though the report recommends a whole-of-government response to the sexual abuse of Aboriginal children in New South Wales and the Government's own response talked about its whole-of-government approach, the Minister and the Director General of the Department of Community Services said the whole-of-government response was being led by the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs had a different view when his time came to present the budget estimates. I found this to be extremely disappointing.

Even though we are talking about helping Aboriginal youth in the State, the Minister for Youth was unable to provide any concrete answers or figures about what her portfolio was doing other than to say that questions should be directed to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. The Minister for Fair Trading has also failed consumers and motorists in this State on the issue of rising fuel prices. The New South Wales Liberals and Nationals introduced a policy to review fuel pricing, but the Minister for Fair Trading on 20 March made comments that these policies and ideas were shambolic. I wonder whether the Minister has changed her tune now. New South Wales consumers are at the forefront of the portfolio, so it was a good opportunity to ask the Minister some searching questions on their behalf. I am not sure we got the answers we need but we got the answers we expected.

The next hearing was on the ageing and disability services portfolio, which covered the issues of the Stronger Together and Better Together programs; issues associated with respite care and services, including length of stay in respite care; and availability of beds and flexibility of respite packages. The hearing also covered the prevalence and incidence of abuse allegations and the role of independent consultants, the nature of allegations and the cost of back filling the positions of those under investigation. It also covered the disability audit in Parliament House; remuneration for carers, services and families of children with disabilities; waiting lists for therapy places; the response to recommendations of the New South Wales Ombudsman's 2004 children's report; meeting Aboriginal disability needs and the provision of culturally appropriate disability services. In the interests of time I will not go through every issue we discussed but certainly one issue was the provision of public dental services for older people and the Commonwealth-State-Territory disability agreements funding.

A number of issues were raised, and particularly during this hearing respite services and the availability of beds were major issues. The shadow Minister for Disability Services has noted the plight of carers. The Minister's answer in response to questions about respite places was that there were more than ever before and the number of blocked beds was at a lower point than at any time in a decade. It was evident that 15 per cent of the 238 beds operated by the department were blocked, and the Minister refused to confirm the number of blocked beds in the funded centre-based respite services in the sector. A year since the last budget, we look with interest to see what this budget delivers to respite care services and aged services, but carers needing respite did not get the sort of comfort they deserved from the last budget.

Our third hearing related to the education and training, industrial relations and the assistant finance and Central Coast portfolios. It looked at a range of issues including the distribution of political material at schools, the protection of the independence of schools from partisan politics; fees and rebates for apprentices and trainees at TAFE, together with the current funding arrangements for TAFE; reform of the New South Wales school curriculum; the quality of teaching and teacher training in New South Wales; and issues in relation to particular schools. Time was spent on the closure of Macquarie Boys High School and the impact of the proposed sand mine at Somersby on Somersby Public School. Questions were asked about the number of school counsellors and speech pathologists available and the training required. Questions were asked about the industrial relations portfolio, WorkCover and the lifetime care and support scheme. Particular questions were also asked about vocational and educational training and costs passed on to non-government schools and the non-government school students participating in that scheme, and the feedback was passed on to those students.

There were some disappointing responses from the Minister, particularly in relation to the Investing in Our Schools Program. He commented that it did nothing to improve the delivery of quality education. However, it was highlighted that the maintenance backlog in schools was something in the order of $82 million and the money was going to a number of schools to fix up basic infrastructure and maintenance repairs. Issues relating to politicisation in schools were pertinent because of advertising on fences and protesting during the Federal election. It seemed as though the director general was powerless to stop teachers, who were wearing industrial related T-shirts with industrial messages on them. There were banners and posters on schools, and children were asked to participate in political debate.

The fourth and final hearing was on the health portfolio. We had only one day's hearing on this topic and, of course, one cannot cover such a huge portfolio in the time we had available. We looked at the North Sydney Central Coast Area Health Service, the Australian Medical Association report on hospitals in New South Wales, the resource distribution formula, dental waiting lists and the budget process for appliances for disabled people.

Another budget was delivered yesterday, another year since the last budget, and clearly, health is not doing well for this Government. Some of the questions we asked have not been resolved and it was disappointing to see that some of the issues raised have been ongoing problems, such as those experienced at Royal North Shore Hospital. In the interim, the Garling inquiry has been established to look into health. Need I go on? There have been health issues right across the board. We could have spent a much longer time examining the health budget but in the time we had we asked some good questions and got responses that certainly lead to a conclusion that this portfolio needs a great deal of attention. I cannot speak for all committee members but there was a clear understanding that greater resources need to go into the portfolio, and better management would not hurt.

On behalf of the committee I thank everyone who participated in the estimates process. I hope this year our estimates process timetable is such that are able to meet at a time when we are not encumbered with parliamentary sitting days, that we are not diverted by the time of day at which we are meeting, and that we have a full and frank opportunity to ask questions and have the budget examined in a way that we can get results for the people of New South Wales. I thank all Ministers who presented to the General Purpose Spending Committee No. 2 estimates inquiry and their departments. I thank all committee members, Hansard and parliamentary staff, and I ask honourable members to take note of the conclusions of the report.

Question—That the House take note of the report—put and resolved in the affirmative.

Motion agreed to.