Friday, 15th November, 1991
______
Mr Speaker (The Hon. Kevin Richard Rozzoli) took the chair at 9 a.m.
Mr Speaker offered the Prayer.
TOBACCO ADVERTISING PROHIBITION BILL
Bill introduced and read a first time.
Second Reading
Dr REFSHAUGE (Marrickville), Deputy Leader of the Opposition [9.5]: I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Today we have a chance to bring in milestone legislation that will benefit hundreds of thousands of children for years to come. The proposed legislation, which is supported by non-Government members and a significant majority of Government members both in this House and in another place, will become law by Christmas. It will give a clear message to the people of New South Wales that tobacco promotion is not on. Tobacco promotion will be banned from 1st November, 1995. After that date no further promotion will be permitted of this most addictive poison that is causing havoc to individuals and putting enormous pressure on our most important hospital system. At the moment an enormous disinformation fight is being conducted in the media. The tobacco lobby is making a powerful fight back with one interest in mind - the making of profits. On the other hand, the community and the vast majority of politicians in this House, in the other place and throughout Australia believe that kids and their future must come first. It is a simple debate: it is about profits for a company or a series of companies that make an addictive poison. It is about profits from poison, or a future for our kids: money or kids? I pay tribute to the former Minister for Health, the present Attorney General, Minister for Consumer Affairs and Minister for Arts, for his courageous stand through the years to try to introduce similar legislation. Every time he had a go he received complete support from this side of the House. He had the guts to take the issue to his own Cabinet. On several occasions he received the support of senior Government Ministers.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is far too much audible conversation in the Chamber.
Dr REFSHAUGE: Due to the power of the tobacco lobby, the Premier put his kibosh on this most important measure that should have been introduced years ago. The bill should have been brought in by us years ago - and certainly should have been introduced by the Government years ago - but it will now be passed by this Fiftieth Parliament of New South Wales so that the kids of New South Wales will be given a chance. The enormous disinformation campaign by the tobacco lobby has been
Page 4766
horrendous. The fact is that the tobacco lobby has briefed a number of members of the Parliament and has spent $50 million a year on advertising in New South Wales. Any industry that spends that amount of money on advertising each year expects it to pay off. No one advertises a product without expecting increased sales. No advertising agency would approach a potential client and seek payment - in this case $50 million from the tobacco industry - for advertising that does not influence anyone to buy the client's products.
The tobacco lobby tell caucus members and any other member who wants to listen - probably plenty on the Government benches as well - that it spends $7.5 million on direct grants to sporting and cultural organisations and another $5.5 million on ancillary sponsorship activities. Ancillary sponsorship activities provide for signage, but also for getting nice little boxes so that sponsors' mates can watch the footy or the cricket, bringing in selected people to be part of the lobby, to enjoy the caviar in front of the footy. I enjoy a can of beer in front of the footy, as many others do. I enjoy watching a great game, but I do not want millions of dollars trying to duchess me, to buy me off, so that I will support a company that makes products containing an addictive poison and tries to hook kids - its future customers - on this most pernicious, addictive substance. I have more respect for the kids of New South Wales than to allow the tobacco lobby to continue to promote this most addictive, offensive poison. It is not just the individuals who get hurt. Tobacco has long-term effects on the community.
Before smoking in any form became popular among women, lung cancer among women was almost unheard of. But since the tobacco lobby realised that it had a market and could influence women's decisions and get them to start smoking - which it did successfully - by producing tailormade cigarettes especially designed for women to hook them on this addictive habit, lung cancer in women became prevalent for the first time. It has grown to such a degree now that lung cancer kills more women each year than breast cancer does. There is bipartisan support for breast cancer screening. We take that as a serious issue. The Chief Secretary and Minister for Administrative Services, the honourable member for Badgerys Creek, beats the drum about better women's health services. But where is she today? Why is she not saying that the Parliament should do something for the women of New South Wales by stopping the purveyors of an addictive poison trying to hook more women on to this disgusting and insidious habit that leads to more lung cancer deaths among women than to breast cancer?
An enormous amount of rot is talked about whether tobacco advertising makes any difference. Would any company spend $50 million advertising its product with the expectation that it makes no difference to sales, no difference for new customers? To me, that is an absolute lie. Back in 1984 when many States in Australia still allowed sponsorship of major sporting events by the tobacco industry, surveys showed that the new smokers - young 14-year-old kids, I am not talking about adults - were choosing the brand most heavily advertised. Of course sponsorship makes a difference. It is just another form of advertising. Press releases from the cancer council reported in today's newspapers reveal that Winfield is reducing as the popular cigarette brand among adults, but it is increasing as the popular brand among children. The argument that children only buy the cigarettes that their dads and mums smoke is absolute rot. Every time one watches high-class sporting events popular among adolescents - such as rugby league which is, indeed, popular among all of us - one sees the Winfield logo. I remain unconvinced that that does not influence the kids. The tobacco lobby says that banning advertising will not lead to a reduction in cigarette smoking. The facts are against that.
In preparing a report entitled "Health or Tobacco" the toxic substances board of New Zealand looked throughout the world at the influence that banning advertising and sponsorship had had on the uptake of cigarettes and on those who were already smoking
Page 4767
and continued to smoke. The board found that tobacco consumption and smoking would permanently decrease as a result of banning advertising and sponsorship. It found a decrease among smokers of 7 per cent. Those of us who are already addicted to this most pernicious toxic substance are influenced. Almost 90 per cent of that fall occurred within the first five months after the cessation of advertising and sponsorship. The board found that the percentage of teenagers who smoke would tend to decrease and that the falling off that has to some degree been occurring in teenage smoking was accelerated by the fact that tobacco was no longer promoted. I say to the rugby league and to other sporting bodies who take out advertisements against the legislation, "Why do you want to put forward your sport as a promotional tool for drugs?"
The rugby league has a good attitude to illegal drugs - tobacco is illegal to kids under 18 - to heroin, speed and those sorts of drugs. Why does it not see that what they are doing is using sport to promote drugs and to promote drug abuse? That is the question that not only rugby league managers need to ask of themselves. Every sports person who gets conned or is seduced by the tobacco lobby to come out in favour of saying, "No, we want the tobacco company to sponsor us", should be asking why they are putting themselves up there, holding hands, arm in arm with a lobby whose major reason for existence is to make profits from an addictive poison. Sport is a major icon of Australian life. The rugby league managers should ask themselves why they want sport and drugs holding hands. Surely it can think of a better way of doing it. Victoria has found a better way of sponsoring sport. The Aussie Rules players are not sponsored by tobacco companies. They have found other people to sponsor their sport.
Aussie Rules, which attracts greater crowds to watch the game than rugby league, says, "That is fair enough. We don't want to have our sport tarnished by an addictive poison". They are happy to find something that will not influence the kids to take up one of the most pernicious, insidious habits, which causes premature death. The rugby league used Frank Small and Associates to conduct a survey. John Quayle was the client. The rugby league selectively released some figures. It showed that 67 per cent of the top rugby league players wanted the Winfield Cup. They did not say much else. The first question was, "How do you feel about the Winfield Cup as a sponsor for sport or football?" - a positive or negative response. It was not, "How do you feel about Winfield as a sponsor of the cup?" but "How do you feel about the Winfield Cup as a sponsor?" to which 67 per cent said, "That is a pretty good idea". That is not surprising. That is where they are at the moment. The next question, which was not reported, was, "How do you personally feel about the idea of sport, football, being sponsored by a tobacco company?" That is what the first graders were asked - "How do you feel about a tobacco company sponsoring sport?" The result was a positive response of 35 per cent - not 67 per cent.
I am not saying that rugby league footballers do not understand that Winfield is a tobacco company. I am saying the research was totally bodgie, as was any of the research being done by the tobacco companies. The research reveals that only 35 per cent of the top players believe that the tobacco company should be sponsoring sport. Another question was asked, "How do you feel personally about the idea of an independent body sponsoring football?" That is a body that would receive funds from a small 2 per cent to 5 per cent tax on cigarettes. What was the response to that question? Forty-eight per cent said they would prefer a body such as a health promotion foundation to sponsor the sport and 35 per cent said they would prefer a tobacco company. That sort of research shows clearly the lengths to which the tobacco companies will go. They will commission a shoddy survey and select bits of it to support their case. I am prepared to table the report so that all honourable members can read it. It is about time
Page 4768
the rugby league and the tobacco companies realised what the footballers are saying, because it is very different to what is claimed in the press release.
I want to place the bill in context. New South Wales is not the first State to try to introduce legislation such as this. We are lagging behind. Similar legislation has been introduced already in Western Australia, Victoria and South Australia. It has been talked about in Tasmania. Why is the fight by the tobacco lobby so vicious in New South Wales? It is because New South Wales has the biggest population and if this bill is passed, the tobacco companies will have lost the battle in Australia. This is the final crunch. It is like the whites in South Africa. This is the tobacco companies' last ditch stand. This is where they will fight and fight hard. I warn all members that the tobacco companies have tons of dough to spend. They will spend it and spend it and spend it. In 1983 when Western Australia introduced similar legislation, over four months the tobacco lobby spent $6 million to combat it. They will not take this legislation lying down. I ask all honourable members to be prepared for an onslaught from the tobacco companies.
I am delighted that the tobacco companies picked John Singleton to run their campaign. The Labor Party experienced his abilities in 1988. I am sure that if he continues his present advertising campaign, support for the legislation will increase. The first important provision of the bill is that there will be an absolute cut-off as at 1st November, 1995. We believe that between now and then those who are directly involved in the manufacture of tobacco and the attempts to get kids hooked should have a phase-in period to try to restructure their organisations and to try to make the changeover less traumatic. Existing cultural sponsorships by tobacco companies that was undertaken before 1st November this year will be allowed to run their course until the final cut-off on 1st November, 1995. That will allow a phased introduction of the banning of the sponsorships. It will allow those organisations that still rely on tobacco sponsorship to find other organisations prepared to take up that sponsorship. If the Government has the guts to put some money into a health promotion foundation, that foundation will be able to buy out the sponsorships.
I do not believe it will be difficult for those organisations to find other sponsors. I have spoken to representatives of a number of companies from geographical areas associated with football clubs. Those companies are desperate to have their signs around the edges of the football grounds. They cannot have their signs there because the Winfield signs are there. They want to promote local industries. The Winfield company is stopping local industries promoting themselves, receiving local support and increasing business. We will allow that to happen. We will work in conjunction with the outdoor advertisers. They have a legitimate concern. If there is a sudden death cut-off and all of the billboards and taxi advertisements have to come down, there will be much economic hardship and many people's jobs will be threatened. The phasing in period was suggested by the Outdoor Advertising Association of Australia. It will be modelled on the agreement that association has with the Western Australia Government. In fact we have been a bit more generous. We have given them a lead time until 1st July, 1992, to develop a register of the location of such signs. The legislation provides for the establishment of a committee. That committee will comprise representatives of the Outdoor Advertising Association of Australia and the Department of Health. The committee will compile the register and develop a phasing out process for the advertisements.
In the year from July 1992 to July 1993 25 per cent of those outdoor advertisements will come down. In the following year another 25 per cent will come down, and in the subsequent 15 months the remaining 50 per cent will come down. The industry suggested that is the way we should go about it. I will not pretend that the
Page 4769
industry lobbied me to introduce this bill, but it understood the intention of the legislation. It has seen similar legislation before and is happy to work with the Government to minimise trauma to the industry. The industry is concerned about its workers' jobs. That is reasonable enough. The tobacco industry has talked an enormous amount of rubbish about point of sale advertising. Point of sale advertising will be banned as of 1st July, 1993. They will have 18 months to get their shops in order. Banning point of sale advertising does not mean an individual cannot say he is a tobacconist. When John Singleton writes his next set of advertisements, let us hope he stops telling lies about this legislation.
The legislation will allow a tobacconist to advertise that he is a tobacconist. Cigarettes will not have to be under the counter; it will be permitted to display them. The legislation does not prohibit the display of price, for example on a blackboard, of each brand of cigarettes. However, ancillary advertisements near the tobacco or anywhere else in the shop or on the front of the shop will be banned. That does not mean that shops will have to be remodelled. Signs on display cases can be covered up. It will not be necessary to get the carpenters in to destroy the shop. I do not know how stupid the tobacco lobby is, but there is no doubt it is trying to find every possible way to scaremonger about this legislation. The phasing in process recognises that the proposed changes will cause serious problems for a number of industries. We are working with those industries to minimise those problems, to minimise job losses and to allow those industries to diversify.
I received a lobbying letter from an advertising company which had been reading the misinformation from the tobacco lobby. The letter said, "We understand what you are trying to do, but could you not have given us at least two years to restructure and get other clients?" These people are asking for only two years, but I am giving them four years. This misinformation has been pushed around by these purveyors of a noxious, addictive, child abusing substance. They need to get their lines right. The tobacco lobby says that banning makes no difference: the same number of people will smoke. On the other hand, it says we will lose thousands of jobs. It should get its argument right. Does it make a difference or does it make no difference? I have the facts that show that it does make a difference. The tobacco lobby cannot have it both ways. Its line is just a confused mess of disinformation to confuse the public and to try to influence honourable members so that tobacco companies can continue to make profits from getting kids hooked on an addictive substance that will kill them earlier than would otherwise be the case.
Let us look at the economic costs. If this Government were concerned about health costs it would start doing something to modify the impact that illness is having on our health system. Everybody knows the adage that a penny of prevention is worth a pound of cure - a cent of prevention is worth a dollar of cure. Where are we putting anything into prevention? This bill, by its influence on tobacco promotion, will do an enormous amount in the way of preventive health measures. Two respected health economists have recently reported that the cost to the nation of cigarette smoking is $6.8 billion every year. A 1 per cent reduction in the existing incidence of smoking would save $68 million a year. The experience I referred to from the Toxic Substances Board of New Zealand suggests that what is proposed would result in a 7 per cent reduction, most of which would be in the first five months. That would save the nation $400 million a year. This Minister and his Premier and his supportive tobacco lobby are not prepared to save this nation $400 million a year by bringing in effective preventive measures. This is irrespective of the toll on individuals who are dying from this addictive poison.
Not many honourable members have had the experience that I have of working
Page 4770
in hospitals and treating patients with emphysema. There is almost no other cause of emphysema apart from smoking. Patients suffering from emphysema have to sit up in bed because they cannot lie down. They are blue in the face desperately trying to get a breath. They spend their lives trying to breathe. When one sees this one can understand the destruction that occurs to individuals and the trauma that occurs to families. The toes of patients whose arteries clog up so that blood cannot pass through them because of the effects of smoking go gangrenous, and the only treatment is amputation. Their feet may then go gangrenous, and they slowly die from their arteries being clogged by this poison as the only treatment is amputation. The gangrene continues. After seeing this one realises that we must do something. I point out that lung cancer pretty much did not exist among women before they took up smoking. Doctors see the shock, horror and pain not only in people diagnosed with lung cancer but also of their families. Chest x-rays show the expanding cancer eating up their lungs, spreading to their bones and spreading to their brains. People who see this know that they must do something about it.
People in their prime die from heart attacks for a whole range of reasons, but they are accelerated by tobacco smoking. When we hear health Ministers saying that the banning of tobacco advertising will not make any difference we know that they are lying, because they know that it will make a difference. I do not want to go into the politics of the changes in the hospital system at the moment, but we desperately need more cardiac surgery units. People are having heart attacks because their arteries are clogging up as a result of cigarette smoking. We realise the cost of this addictive poison not only to the individuals and their families but throughout the whole community. The health care system cannot cope with the burden that has been put upon it by this pernicious drug that has been purveyed by the tobacco companies, which have seduced - or maybe addicted - sections of the sporting lobby to go hand in hand with it. The sportsman is now put beside the drug seller. We must act. We must pass this legislation.
Government members in the other place have decided to filibuster. They have decided to talk and talk and talk. We have seen in the newspapers today reports that many Government backbenchers are saying: "We have had enough. We are going to cross the floor. We are prepared to vote for this legislation because we care about the kids and we want to do something about it. We are not going to be beholden to the Premier, who is holding hands with the tobacco lobby. We are prepared to say that the kids of this State mean more to us than the profits of a tobacco company that is trying to get kids addicted at an early age, following that addictive poison from the cradle to the grave and putting profits into the hands of those companies". I congratulate those Government members who are considering voting for this bill. I encourage them to join with us. I guarantee that we will not target them. We will not make fun of the Government because of the fact that Government members are prepared to vote on conscience for something of such importance. Our intention is not to play politics; our intention is to do something for the kids and the families of New South Wales. We want to do some real preventive medicine so that the health care system does not crumble under the weight of the tobacco company push to get more and more people hooked on this most addictive poison.
This legislation will be passed before Christmas in my belief because we will not tolerate the Government trying to filibuster to hold this legislation up. We will make sure that Parliament sits until this legislation is passed. If that means that we have to sit all night and day, week in and week out so that all members can have their say, so be it. This legislation will be passed, it will be law and it will make a major difference and give hope not only to the kids of this State but to everybody who cares about them and our health care system. I recommend this bill to the House. I am sure the vast majority of
Page 4771
members of Parliament believe in it. I ask Government members to go back to the Premier and say: "Enough is enough. You have been in the pockets of the tobacco lobby for too long. It is about time we stood up for the kids of New South Wales and gave them a real chance".
Debate adjourned on motion by Mr Phillips.
METHADONE CLINICS (RESIDENTIAL AREAS) BILL
Bill introduced and read a first time.
Second Reading
Mr GRAHAM (The Entrance) [9.40]: I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I believe the law should be changed so as to protect other communities from the problems that have been inflicted on the Long Jetty area of my electorate following the establishment there of a methadone clinic in 1987. I praise the previous Labor Government for recognising the need for the establishment of a methadone clinic on the Central Coast. Prior to 1987 methadone clinics were situated in either Sydney or Newcastle only. In areas where methadone clinics were not operating local doctors would dispense methadone through local chemist shops. When the need to establish a methadone clinic on the Central Coast was suggested to the area health board it refused to provide this service through the hospital system. Consequently a private methadone clinic was established. However, private methadone clinics, such as the one operating at Long Jetty, are given what amounts to a lifetime contract to operate. I believe the relevant Act should be amended to enable the Minister responsible to intervene by ordering the closure of a methadone clinic without compensation. In the interests of the local community such a safeguard should be available where clinics are located in or close to residential areas.
I speak from the bitter experience of local residents in the Long Jetty area. Before the clinic was forced on the area by the former Labor Government, Long Jetty was a quiet, suburban coastal retreat. The establishment of the clinic brought immense changes to the life of residents in Long Jetty - changes that the local residents hate but which they are powerless to reverse. That lack of power to right what is manifestly a gross social injustice flows from the way the law relating to the methadone clinics operates. When contracts are drawn up to establish a new methadone clinic, there is no review mechanism - no sunset clause. This has resulted in clinics that were established in the past, when less thought was given to what effect they might have on local communities, being virtually impossible to close down. Local residents can complain until they are blue in the face - the authorities will not budge. I propose that a new system be introduced that would allow local communities to have a say in what goes on in their communities. After all, that is what democracy is all about - the Government listening to the people it represents.
A sunset clause should be inserted into all new contracts for the establishment of methadone clinics. Clinics should be given approval to operate for a period of five years. At the end of that time the views of local people would be taken into account. If the operations of a clinic and its clients caused major disruptions to the local community, it could be relocated elsewhere. My argument is not against methadone programs, or the dedicated doctors and staff who run methadone clinics. I emphasise that
Page 4772
medical authorities have found little to criticise in the way that the clinic at Long Jetty is administered. When problems have arisen the staff of the clinic have done their best to rectify those problems. They have tried to improve relations with the local community, shopkeepers and police. My concern is not that the operators of the clinic have done any wrong - it is the nature of the beast. There are many problems associated with treating heroin addicts. There is overwhelming consensus in my electorate that Long Jetty is not an ideal location for a methadone clinic, and it must be moved. In 1987 only a handful of patients attended the clinic. It is estimated that now between 200 and 240 addicts attend the Long Jetty methadone clinic each day to have administered this legal drug. This group of addicts and their families, many of whom are battling with huge problems, have placed an enormous strain on the patience and good will of the local community. By May 1989 the howls of protest from residents were so loud that a special team of experts from the Department of Health visited Long Jetty to assess the situation. In their report they stated:
A number of local residents and shop keepers were approached concerning their views on the (methadone) unit. These were essentially negative and reflected concerns over theft, violence, urinating and defecating in public by the clients, and frequent visits to the centre by police.
After speaking to one of the doctors administering the clinic, Dr Orgias, the experts noted:
. . . it quickly became apparent that he shared the same concerns as the locals over the behaviour of some of the program's clients. He cited domestic violence, knife fights and shoplifting as activities he was attempting to stamp out.
Police were also alarmed about the number of crimes involving addicts who attended the methadone clinic and associates of those addicts. Several people were arrested and charged with serious criminal offences. In October 1989 a public meeting about the clinic was held at The Entrance. The honourable member for Peats addressed that meeting and said that the former Labor Government had originally planned to establish the clinic at Gosford in 1985. He said that the funds had been allocated for that purpose. However, the Central Coast Area Health Board voted against the clinic's establishment and the Labor Government buckled at the knees and gave in. Rather than establishing the clinic at Gosford Hospital the Labor Government looked for a softer target. Long Jetty got it. Thanks to the former Labor Government we got it in the neck. The changes that the clinic has brought to the area have been immense. The effects on the local community have been catastrophic. Before the clinic was established there were a few drug addicts living in the area but no more than the number living in most other quiet coastal areas of New South Wales. The clinic acted like a magnet. Addicts came from everywhere, particularly Sydney, once they learnt they could easily obtain methadone at Long Jetty. Long Jetty is not situated on any major transport link. Tuggerah has the nearest railway station. Those addicts who chose to be on the methadone program had no choice but to live near the source of their supply. By May 1989 local welfare agencies were expressing alarm about the number of addicts who had settled in the Long Jetty area. The co-ordinator of The Entrance Neighbourhood Centre, Lindy Wright, wrote:
Most of the people we have seen at the centre have come from Sydney, either referred by doctors or by word of mouth. The latter far outweighs the first. The reason that they are coming here is that there is a 3 to 4 months wait for methadone in Sydney. When they come to the Long Jetty clinic they can get on the program straight away from consultation with the clinic doctor.
The newly arrived addicts swamped the welfare system in the area.
Page 4773
Lindy Wright further reported:
. . . we are seeing a lot of people who are on the methadone program at Long Jetty. They are coming to the centre for help with food and payment for their methadone . . .
A local doctor associated with the methadone clinic at the time, Dr Bob Bramley,confirmed in April 1989 that large numbers of addicts had moved to the area to be near the clinic. About two years after the clinic opened Dr Bramley wrote to me in the following terms:
You will see that 77 of them live in the Long Jetty-Entrance area . . . Within 5 kilometres there are now 115 patients being treated.
The doctor wrote to me not to complain about the fact that addicts were moving into the area but to plead for compassion for them. He asked me to help pacify local shopkeepers who were opposed to the establishment of the clinic. He said the clinic was "doing a good job of treating many of your constituents for the terrible affliction of drug addiction". There is no doubt that there have been problems with the operation of the clinic at Long Jetty. A string of protests have been received from local residents, shopkeepers, an hotelier, police, Neighbourhood Watch organisers, senior citizens and people employed at the Entrance Neighbourhood Centre. Not that long ago I presented to Parliament a petition signed by about 150 local residents expressing concern about the clinic's location at Long Jetty and seeking its removal. But what has happened in the meantime? Nothing. The clinic continues to operate seven days a week. The local people who oppose the location of the clinic are becoming increasingly desperate because their voices are not being heard. I speak for them today. My purpose in raising this matter is not to indulge in druggie bashing. Indeed, most of my constituents would agree that something has to be done to help people addicted to heroin, which is one of the greatest scourges of modern Australian society. Obviously it is far better that addicts are treated in controlled rehabilitation programs than to be out on the street bashing and robbing people for money to support their habits. A difficulty arises so far as decisions relating to the location of methadone clinics are concerned.
The previous Labor Government made a big mistake when it decided to locate this particular clinic at Long Jetty. I am sure that Labor Party members of this House regret that decision now. The clinic was placed in an area close to houses and a social club for the elderly. The Long Jetty Senior Citizens Club is located just down the road. A hotel is situated just a few doors away. It would not be possible today to locate a new clinic in the same building. The regulations would not permit it. They state that methadone clinics should be located in business, industrial or hospital zones, not in residential areas. Under the new rules covering the location of methadone clinics, which were introduced by the Hon. P. E. J. Collins when he was Minister for Health, it would be impossible to place a new methadone clinic at Long Jetty. Such an application would not be approved under the rules.
The problem confronting my constituents at Long Jetty is that they are stuck with this clinic because as the law stands there is nothing they can do to rid themselves of it. Obviously the law is an ass and it must be changed. How did such a situation come to pass? What was the basis of the decision taken by the previous Labor Government that Long Jetty was the perfect location for a new methadone clinic? The answer is obvious. It was easier for that government to locate the clinic in the heart of a traditional Labor Party seat than have to argue to have the clinic located where everyone knew it should have been located - at Gosford Hospital. Honourable members should not just take my word for it. I have the evidence here with me in black and white from no less an expert than the honourable member for Peats, Tony Doyle.
Page 4774
In an effort to limit the adverse impact that the addicts have on the local community, police are regularly patrolling the area around the clinic at times when methadone is being handed out. There should be no doubt about the depth of feeling in my electorate against this methadone clinic. I have a thick file of complaints from ordinary people, organisations, and local business people about the impact the clinic has had and is having on the community. Neville Budd, who manages the Long Jetty hotel, has complained that some of his patrons have been approached by patients from the clinic and asked whether they want to buy methadone. Like many others in the area Mr Budd has sought my support for the relocation of the clinic. These problems exist because of the decision of the previous Labor Government to inflict the methadone clinic upon our community. To all those members of the Labor Party who played a part in that decision I say thanks a million. The constituents of The Entrance will never forget; they will not rest until the damage has been undone and the clinic moved to a more suitable location - a location that complies with present regulations - away from residential areas, on an industrial or hospital site.
A methadone clinic is now under construction at Gosford Hospital. It is expected to open before the end of the year. I hope that that new clinic will take some of the pressure off the Long Jetty clinic. Authorities must realise, however, that the addicts who have settled at Long Jetty cannot be forced to move to Gosford. I suspect that most will not move while methadone is freely available at the Long Jetty clinic. Residents of the area will be satisfied with nothing less than the closure of the clinic. It should never have been located there. It is time for it to go. On behalf of the residents of Long Jetty I ask the Parliament to note these genuine concerns and to answer our pleas for help. I ask honourable members to support my private member's bill, which will enable the clinic to be relocated. An injustice has been done and I ask that it be rectified. I commend the bill and ask all honourable members to support it.
Debate adjourned on motion by Mr Phillips.
FAMILY RELIEF BILL
Bill introduced and read a first time.
Second Reading
Mr CARR (Maroubra), Leader of the Opposition [9.54]: I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This is the bill that won the Labor Party of New South Wales the majority of votes and the majority of seats at the last State election. This Government was saved only by the ticks and crosses rort. A majority of votes and seats were won because of this fundamental concern - the increases in household charges that this Government has inflicted on the families of New South Wales. My bill is designed to serve one purpose: to ease the financial burden of families in this State. It will do so by prohibiting New South Wales household charges from increasing by more than the latest increase each year in the consumer price index. Families in New South Wales are hurting. During the past three years they have been forced to endure an unending cycle of increased taxes and charges. Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that since the Greiner-Murray Government came to office taxes and charges have increased in this State by at least 50 per cent more than they have anywhere else. In Sydney, State taxes and charges have increased by 28.5 per cent, compared with the eight capital city average of only
Page 4775
18.6 per cent. This legislation is an answer to the endless increases in charges and the broken promises of the Greiner-Murray Government.
When the coalition was in opposition the Premier made the following promise: no charge would rise by more than the consumer price index in any one year. However, in July 1988, just two months after the election of the Liberal Party-National Party Government, the Premier broke that promise for the first time. Electricity bills increased by 9.8 per cent, or an average of $50 a year. In the country, increases of up to 30 per cent occurred following reductions in rural subsidies. Water rates increased by $37 a year, or 12.5 per cent. Hospital bed charges rose by $20 a day, or 15 per cent. The increases in rail, bus and ferry fares have added up to $185 a year to family bills. A new technical and further education tax of between $100 and $263 a student was introduced. The following year the Premier broke his promise to the electorate once again. Once more there was a round of increases in taxes and charges well beyond the consumer price index. In 1989 third-party premiums rose by $110; water rates increased a further 30 per cent; public transport fares added an additional $100 a year to the cost of travel in this State. The cost of using a ferry, for some passengers, increased by a staggering 87.5 per cent. The third year of the Greiner Government administration was every bit as bleak. It was another year of broken promises and another year of increased government charges.
TAFE administration charges increased by up to 52 per cent, or $400; third-party insurance rates for Newcastle district motorists rose by $31 a year, or 9.9 per cent; public transport fares increased by up to 10 per cent for buses and 8.4 per cent for rail; Sydney water rates increased by 8.4 per cent. All the increases were over and above the consumer price index and represented broken promises on the part of this Government. All these extraordinary increases were imposed upon the usual round of electricity, drivers licence and weight tax increases. The list goes on. For that reason the average family of this State is $1,300 a year worse off than it was in 1988. That was the issue fought by the Opposition at the last State election - an election that all the experts said we had no chance of winning. The Opposition went to the election committed to the introduction of a family relief bill. The Opposition went to the electorate and said, "Greiner cares nothing for your living standards. The Greiner Government only offers you more of the same". We produced our legislation that called on the Government to live within its means and produce savings to ease the burden of taxes and charges on long-suffering families. In the last election that became an issue that people understood because of their experience in grappling with the bills loaded on them by the Government. Even after the election this Premier learnt nothing. From 1st July this year the average family in New South Wales is now paying up to $1,400 per year more than in 1988.
Debate adjourned on motion by Mr Carr.
NATTAI NATIONAL PARK BILL
Second Reading
Debate resumed from 30th October.
Mr MOORE (Gordon), Minister for the Environment [10.2]: On behalf of the Government, when I first discussed a detailed response to the Nattai National Park Bill with the honourable member for Davidson, I indicated to him, as he and I have known each other well for many years, that the Government proposed to reject his bill on the
Page 4776
grounds that it was not big enough. In the discussions I have had with my ministerial colleagues, the Minister for Conservation and Land Management and the Minister for Natural Resources, I have indicated the Government has come to the conclusion in assessing the issues raised in the bill of the honourable member for Davidson that a proposal first advanced by me to the predecessor of the present Minister for Natural Resources, now the Agent-General in London, that an area of about 90,000 hectares - in lieu of the 75,000 hectares advocated by the honourable member for Davidson - should be added to various conservation zonings in the area proposed in this bill and adjacent to it. Rather than endeavouring to deal with the bill clause by clause, the most appropriate method for me to deal with a response on behalf of the Government to the measure is to describe the areas of response in topographic terms.
I wish to indicate at the commencement of my remarks that in very broad terms, as is acknowledged in the honourable member's bill, there is a need for survey boundaries, in terms of metes and bounds, rather than the descriptive survey or outlines currently provided in the bill. The National Parks and Wildlife Service
advises me that in the map of the honourable member for Davidson in the area around Yerranderie, the honourable member's boundaries may not accurately reflect the current differential boundary between Water Board catchment and Blue Mountains National Park. Some adjustment may be necessary so that we will not be adding to conserved estate that which is already conserved as national park. In the overall framework of things, they are comparatively small matters. It is a great personal pleasure for me to indicate the Government's support for the conservation of the Nattai area and the area to the east of the Burragorang Lake up to the escarpment running down through the eastern edge of the Burragorang Valley, where the additional -
Mr Harrison: You said "I will not oppose that".
Mr MOORE: I did not want to give the honourable member for Kiama a lesson in semantics but I am more than happy to do so. He should realise that there is a difference between not opposing, which is purely a passive position, and supporting, which is a pro-active position.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Kiama to order. If he wishes to contribute to the debate he may do so later.
Mr MOORE: I am more than happy to inform the honourable member for Kiama, if he will only listen, that the Government is supporting and not not opposing the measures before the House. He might be helped in his deliberations if he learnt the difference, and that might add to the quality of debate in this Chamber on future occasions. The areas that are under consideration essentially fall into three philosophic categories. First, the area that is proposed to be a wilderness - under the legislative framework of the Parliament, which was supported by all honourable members except one at the time it was introduced - is the most sacrosanct, in terms of intrusion into the area so that intrusion and disturbance are minimised or eliminated so far as possible. The wilderness area identified by the National Parks and Wildlife Service in the assessment report made available to me approximately 10 days ago - which I will be making public later this week or early next week - coincides with the area identified by the honourable member for Davidson in his map. In very general terms, in places the shapes and curves in his map are marginally different from the shapes and curves drawn by the National Parks and Wildlife Service; but they are no more than 15 or 20 metres of nip and tuck here and there. Those boundaries are accepted by the Government.
Page 4777
I give a commitment on behalf of the Government that as part of the process I intend to outline later in this debate the wilderness area identified as the Nattai wilderness area will be declared as part of the package of measures under the National Parks and Wildlife Service Act and the Wilderness Act. Within the boundaries of that wilderness area there are six separate freehold inholdings at present within the Water Board catchment. I am sure honourable members would acknowledge on any rational assessment that during the period I was the Minister administering the Water Board I used my ministerial powers to ensure that unsympathetic proposals for development in those areas would be rejected on the basis that they were incompatible with the catchment protection measures necessitous for the management of the area for Water Board catchment.
Obviously, it would have been inappropriate and improper for me to seek to use powers under Water Board legislation to protect wilderness values. The community and the Minister at the time were fortunate that wilderness values and Water Board catchment protection values have a one to one correspondence so that, for reasons of management of Sydney's water supply, the wilderness values were able to be preserved. I consider it undesirable that programs for land acquisition from freehold owners be dealt with by any sort of ministerial or political imperative; and as a matter of social equity it is desirable for me to put on record that the National Parks and Wildlife Service is more than happy to discuss with any of the owners of the six freehold portions within those wilderness boundaries the question of acquisition and terms and method of acquisition by the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Even though in reality many people such as the honourable member for Tamworth might think that "sterilisation" of private property rights is happening by the measures that we are discussing today, the reality is that those private property rights have in fact been "sterilised" since the declaration of the area as a protected catchment.
Within the priorities of the National Parks and Wildlife Service I should now indicate that the parks service is prepared to discuss these lands, but that is not a commitment to purchase, because that is in the statewide conservation context. I understand that it is probable that the landholders are unlikely to offer the lands for sale, as in the past the Water Board has discussed with at least some of the landholders the question of acquisition and they have indicated an unwillingness to sell. The fact that there will now be a second layer of proscription on activity above the Water Board's proscription on activity may accelerate the stimulus to sell. It is desirable, without making a definite commitment and without wishing to intrude at all into the National Parks and Wildlife Service's setting of land acquisition priorities, that I put that acknowledgment this morning on the record for those freehold landholders. The National Parks and Wildlife Service carried out an assessment of the areas that surround the wilderness areas about whose boundaries we are in agreement. With respect to the area south and east of the Wollondilly River the National Parks and Wildlife Service has made minor amendments on a nip and tuck basis to the boundaries of some areas proposed by the honourable member for Davidson.
In the area around Thirlmere, for example, the parks service boundary goes out further into the Crown land and catchment area than proposed by the honourable member for Davidson. In some areas near the Jellore State Forest the boundary does not go so far, and certainly to the west there is a small island block south of Jooriland Creek that is not picked up at all. I have indicated to the honourable member for Davidson that I have not sought to alter or intrude on the professional assessment boundaries of the National Parks and Wildlife Service in this regard, even though we are talking about vacant Crown land or Water Board freehold land. I am prepared to discuss further with
Page 4778
the parks service the question why those areas have been excluded, but I am sure the honourable member for Davidson would not want me to go back and discuss with them why some areas have been included that otherwise would have been excluded from the boundaries.
Dr Metherell: I have been advised that the portion around Thirlmere is -
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member for Davidson well knows that he does not have the right to conduct a conversation across the Chamber. The Minister has the call.
Mr MOORE: It is entirely possible that that is the case, but the service has not advised me why that inclusion is there. I turn now to the areas that I have discussed with the honourable member for Davidson where there is a significant variation from the broad proposal, not on a boundary basis but on a conservation tenure basis. Travelling round the map in a clockwise direction from the northwest, the first area that I would address is the area that I would describe as generally to the north and west of the Wollondilly River in the parish of The Peaks. Essentially the area contains what the Department of Mineral Resources described as the Bindook-Porphry complex and is the area adjacent to, in very broad terms, both the Blue Mountains National Park southern boundaries and the Yerranderie historic mining village. No detailed assessment of this area has been provided to the Government at this time because it was the preliminary view of the National Parks and Wildlife Service that if the area were to be conserved, and the National Parks and Wildlife Service believed that it would be appropriate for it to be conserved, it should be managed through the Blue Mountains district of the National Parks and Wildlife Service as part of the Blue Mountains National Park, using the Wollondilly River as the natural boundary between the conserved areas.
As the parks service had excluded that area from the assessment provided to the Government, the Government, therefore, does not have at this time any comment or assessment on the values of that Bindook-Porphry reserve - whatever they might be - nor does it have any formal assessment of the area to the north and east of that Porphry reserve between the boundary of the Blue Mountains National Park, the boundary created by the Wollondilly River and the southeastern end of that particular arm of Lake Burragorang. I have indicated that the Government intends to declare that area, using the technique that was used by the Australian Labor Party for Garawarra State Recreation Area and things of that nature, for the time being a state recreation area so that its conservation values and conservation designation are acknowledged and the title of the land becomes land vested in the Minister administering the National Parks and Wildlife Act, with my giving an undertaking to provide a further response to the House - probably no later than the middle of next year - about how much of that area can be lifted from being State recreation area and added to the Blue Mountains National Park, as we are now doing with Davidson State Recreation Area by adding it to Garigal National Park. The honourable member for Davidson, the honourable member for Manly and I have discussed - as I have discussed with my ministerial colleagues the Minister for Conservation and Land Management and the Minister for Natural Resources - the question of alternative forms of conservation tenure of State recreation areas.
In my view, an entirely erroneous assumption is created in the minds of those visiting them where they are conserved as a lesser subsurface tenure compared with the recreation expectations that are legitimately created for places like Grabine State Recreation Area, whose only real nature conservation, in the broadest and lowest use of the word, is the very attractive flowering pattern when about 300 hectares of St John's
Page 4779
Wort are in flower. They provide a magnificent floral pattern. As my friend and colleague the Minister for Conservation and Land Management indicates, if Patterson's Curse or Salvation Jane, as it is sometimes known, is in flower, the only people who would be attracted to it would be the supporters of the mighty Eels because the whole of Grabine would have noxious weeds flowering in the colours of the Parramatta rugby league team. The area above the area known as the Valley Mines complex is an area of coal mineralisation currently held under lease by Clutha. I indicate that the Government is not prepared to alter the boundaries of the wilderness area so as to accommodate the existing boundaries of the mining lease, nor is it prepared to alter a reasonable buffer - somewhere of the order of two kilometres, subject to survey, on natural management boundaries like creeks or ridge lines or things of that nature - surrounding the wilderness area. Having said that, I should say that it is the Government's intention to dedicate the area I have shown on a map to my ministerial colleagues and to the honourable members for the electorates of South Coast, Manly and Davidson a State recreation area. We would wish to present it to the Parliament next year as an alternative form of land tenure as a State conservation park or State conservation area statutory framework.
I envisage that in that statutory framework a timetable will be set within which the Director of the National Parks and Wildlife Service will be obliged to inform the Minister and the government of the day on a regular basis, if the issues cannot be resolved, of the impediments to upgrading the area to a higher conservation status - in this case obviously to a national park but in other cases perhaps to a nature reserve. It is clear that the area to the north and east of Lake Burragorang, which is the 14,000 or so hectares that the Government does not think the honourable member for Davidson added in the first place - and that was why I was able to joke to him that the Government had rejected his proposal because it did not go far enough - will need to be held as a State recreation area for a considerable time for the same reasons that Munmorah, Garawarra and the Illawarra Escarpment are so held, unless it is given an alternative form of tenure such as a State conservation area or a State conservation park. That area encompasses the Burragorang mines, which support the communities of Oakdale, The Oaks and Thirlmere, and are of great importance to my friend and colleague the honourable member for Camden, with whom I and my ministerial colleagues have had discussions. She has pressed us vigorously as to the need for those areas to have a conservation designation, but has urged us to designate the area as we have done elsewhere, so as not to threaten the livelihoods of the decent and honest working men and women of those communities.
The Government has therefore determined that an area known as the Burragorang State Recreation Area will be created along the eastern foreshore of Lake Burragorang and added to the conservation estate. The area to which I adverted immediately before I referred to the proposed Burragorang State Recreation Area is over the Valley Mines complex. The Government intends to initially name that area the Nattai State Recreation Area. The Government proposes to call the area to the west and north of the Wollondilly River the Yerranderie State Recreation Area as an interim or holding title while the area is further assessed. The fourth area to which I wish to refer is an area to the southeast of the proposed area in, as best I am able to read the map in front of me, the parish of Cumbertine, generally speaking to the east and slightly to the northeast of a large hammer-shaped inholding within the national park proposal but outside the boundaries of the wilderness area. It is proposed that this area - still having described, when we do the detailed survey of the area, a buffer zone of that one and a half to two kilometres, but adjusted to follow natural features where it is appropriate to do so for management reasons - would be retained in the conservation zoning of a State recreation area. When we consider the State conservation park or State conservation area
Page 4780
proposal next year, some impetus will be put on a review of those areas, and areas of that nature, so that the people with interests in the area will have time to advise the Government. Obviously the Government will wish to establish the resource values of the area and the methods of exploitation of them.
Coal extraction from seams underneath and methane gas extraction from within the seams underneath, seem to be the two options for the area. Coal could be extracted by mining under the area rather than down through the surface area. Although I have no particular technical knowledge, I understand that it is likely that methane gas can be extracted by lateral rather than vertical drilling. From information provided to me - and, I understand, to the honourable member for Davidson, and certainly provided to the Opposition through the honourable member for East Hills - seismic work is currently being undertaken in the area over the coal seams by the Australian Gas Light Company. I have explained the boundaries the Government proposes to adopt to the Australian Gas Light Company. It is fair to say that the company was not wildly enthusiastic about the Government's decision. I indicated that any variation was highly unlikely. I will believe the assessment of the Australian Labor Party of the boundaries when I see them in writing from the Leader of the Opposition. As at 10 o'clock this morning AGL was unable to tell me what it thought may be the views of the Australian Labor Party and hence I intuit that the honourable member for Blacktown has prevailed over the honourable member for East Hills in any internal discussions on the issue. The Government is therefore proceeding on the basis that I have described to the company and have outlined to the House.
[Interruption]
Mr MOORE: In late 1989 I had great pleasure in introducing into the Parliament legislation banning mining in national parks, save by Act of Parliament, and exploration except with the consent of the Minister. As I recall, it has to be laid before both Houses of Parliament and may only be carried out by the Geological Survey of New South Wales. So far as I am concerned, there will be no mining in or under the national park, which will include the wilderness area. That is prohibited by statute and I would consider it improper to even address a submission on exploration in a wilderness area. The final matter to which I wish to turn relates to Jellore State Forest and is a matter in relation to which I wish to thank my colleague the Minister for Conservation and Land Management, with whom I had discussions last evening. Officers of the National Parks and Wildlife Service have informed me that they have given preliminary consideration to the Jellore State Forest.
The Minister and I agree that a rare and endangered plant species exists in that forest which it is entirely proper to conserve. We have agreed that officers of our departments will between them define a reasonable and agreed upon boundary for a flora reserve under the Forestry Act, which will provide statutory protection incapable of erosion without Act or regulation of this Parliament. We believe that for management purposes at the present time it is desirable as a preliminary assessment to have that area retained by the Forestry Commission in a conservation zoning. On a number of occasions the Minister for Conservation and Land Management and I have discussed the important philosophical issue of giving the Forestry Commission intellectual and psychological ownership of some conservation areas and conservation values where it is appropriate within a management context that they remain. We believe that if we strip all of those values from the Forestry Commission, many of the things that the Minister for Conservation and Land Management and his predecessor, the now Minister for Natural Resources, have been doing to try to change some of the culture of the Forestry Commission will be lost.
Page 4781
There is absolutely no point in the National Parks and Wildlife Service taking over, for example, some of the areas in the southeast of the State where there are very small floral reserves managed quite sympathetically and soundly by the Forestry Commission, remote from park areas, turning them into small nature reserves and having the Forestry Commission stripped back to those activities that I, affectionately I might add, describe as its raping and pillaging activities. If we do that, the cultural change which is very important for that organisation will be lost. Last week I had the privilege of visiting the Forest Research Institute of New Zealand, which is an establishment of tertiary institution level doing magnificent environmental work from a forestry point of view. Its environmental work has significant public benefit. For example, the work that it is doing on scientifically measuring under artificial conditions the greenhouse alteration effects on species growth or the work that it is doing on effluent disposal to forest areas and things of that nature is probably at world class level. It is very important in an environmental and economically sustainable forest management sense. Having said all of that, and having described the Government's response to these measures, I felt -
Dr Metherell: Do you have the name for that State recreation area?
Mr MOORE: The State recreation area in the southeast we intend to call for the time being the Bargo State Recreation Area. I wish to address two quite broad issues relating to the values of the area and one issue relating to its management. As the honourable member for Davidson is already aware because the letter is addressed to him, I put on record that the State Aboriginal Land Council has written to the honourable member for Davidson asking that these measures be deferred because there are areas of Aboriginal concern and high Aboriginal cultural value within the area that is designated for the national parks and the various State recreation areas. To endeavour to assuage the concerns of the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council I state that the legislation dealing with Aboriginal ownership of national parks will be able, over time, to address these issues. It is entirely appropriate that we do so in this context, particularly in light of the range of further amendments that I outlined to the House last night.
Earlier I discussed another matter with the honourable member for Davidson, in another context, when he proposed to me the concept of a Manly-Warringah national park in his electorate. I suggested to him that an Aboriginal name would be more appropriate. We discussed alternatives, such as Cameraigal and finally, I settled, after consultation with the land council - I think it was the Metropolitan Land Council on that occasion - on the name Garigal because that was the name of the clan of the Ku-ring-gai tribe that had lived in that area in times past. In the very short time that I have had the detailed assessment report to look at I have been unable to establish the derivation of the name Nattai. It may be that it is a perfectly adequate Aboriginal-derived name for the area. It is my desire that areas of park that have significant Aboriginal values should have that acknowledged in the flavour of the name rather than Eurocentric names being imposed on such areas. I put on the record that each of the named areas that I have proposed in my response today is to be regarded as an interim name only until we have the opportunity to assess what would be proper Aboriginal names for the areas. Given that the Government proposes after the speech of the honourable member for Blacktown to move that the debate on this bill be adjourned for a fortnight, I indicate that within that period I expect to have had gazetted and signed by His Excellency the matters that are raised in my response to the proposals by the honourable member for Davidson.
His legislation gives me a series of statutory requirements or instructions to exercise discretions that are vested in me under current legislation. If I already exercise those discretions, it will be nugatory for the Parliament to pass an Act instructing me to
Page 4782
so exercise those discretions. I had hoped to be able to announce them this morning but it has not been possible to do it in that short period. I hope to be able to have those dealt with in the proper processes by the time the Parliament resumes on 2nd December, making it unnecessary to proceed further with the bill. I turn to the management of the area and how the Sydney Water Board will interact with the National Parks and Wildlife Service in this regard. It is fair to say that the Sydney Water Board's management of its catchments, through the ranger staff who work in the catchments to the senior managers in the Water Board who have been in positions of catchment management over the years, has been jealous of preserving the integrity of those catchment areas to protect the Sydney water supplies and because they have loved and wished to cherish the natural values of these areas. The work done by an officer of the Water Board - unfortunately his name escapes me; I would like to give him the credit he deserves - has written in his own time and with his own efforts a magnificent book about the plants that exist in some of the rainforest microclimates throughout the Warragamba catchment and in the Blue Mountains. He did that because of his love of the values in the area.
The works that have been done by the rangers of the Sydney Water Board in koala conservation in parts of the catchment have been of good scientific quality and have been done because the people cared about the issues, not because it was part of a public sector duty statement to do it. It is the Government's view that for the blend of those reasons - both catchment management and the natural values of the area - the Sydney Water Board should have the continuing detailed management of the area in the same fashion it has now. There is no point in our spending a lot of public money in creating a buddy system, with a national parks ranger in the cabin with a Water Board ranger, performing similar duties. The area is virtually an exclusion zone except for limited people who meet the test of recreation among the solitudes of the area - self-reliant recreation, the tests that are created in the Wilderness Act. It is the intention of the Government to leave the management with the Sydney Water Board in the very broad form it has now but not to do that in a totally unconstrained and unsupervised fashion, because that would defeat the intention of the creation of the park and conservation designations that we are talking about. Therefore, the Government has determined to create an additional position of a senior ranger within the National Parks and Wildlife Service who will effectively be the senior ranger for this suite of conservation areas, whose responsibility it will be to create a management plan for the area within two years of being hired. This will be done in conjunction with the Sydney Water Board, with the plan of management finally being signed by me after consultation with the Minister administering the Sydney Water Board.
It is not a reflection on the co-operation I receive from my ministerial colleague the Minister for Housing to say that it was much easier to do so in the past because, in the last term of the Parliament when I needed to consult the Minister administering the Sydney Water Board about conservation issues, it did not take very long to do so. I can remember on one occasion when I was in Newcastle for a land exchange - the Hunter Water Board was dedicating areas of the Glenrock State Recreation Area - I had to hand the certificate of title from one hand to the other to take possession of it. It is important that we have that continuing concern and involvement of the Sydney Water Board in these issues. I might add that if the Sydney Water Board becomes corporatised in the fullness of time, the Sydney Water Board will have what one might describe as the unintended economic benefit of not having to pay land tax because the land will be in the title of the National Parks and Wildlife Service. I am reminded that the name of the Water Board officer who wrote that magnificent book on rainforests was Mr David Thomas. That book impressed me greatly. I record my tribute for the work he has done, mainly in a voluntary capacity.
Page 4783
I turn now to the philosophy that underpins what the Government sees as State conservation parks or State conservation areas as an alternative to State recreation areas. Despite the fact that there was a good deal of media hype suggesting that the Minister for Conservation and Land Management and I had daggers drawn for many months over State recreation areas - when in reality there was only one that we really had a fight about - there was a clear understanding by the Minister for Conservation and Land Management and I late last year that when the concept of transferring all State recreation areas that then existed from the Department of Lands to the National Parks and Wildlife Service went through, it would be done as a block transfer. There was absolutely no consideration of the comparative merits of any of the areas. Earlier in my remarks I described the state of the Grabine State Recreation Area. Clearly a number of inland dams exist as State recreation areas. I do not want to go into great detail because a variety of honourable members have a kaleidoscope of legislation foreshadowed on this point and if I deal with it at great length we will have tedious repetition, or, as the Minister for Local Government and Minister for Cooperatives described it, a turgid diatribe on the subject.
Clearly, the Garawarra State Recreation Area is a logical extension of the Royal National Park. The only thing that stops it so being is that the Metropolitan Colliery exists underneath it. The Illawarra escarpment has some of the most magnificent rainforest areas of its vegetation pattern. Designating that as a State recreation area serves only to create public expectation quite at variance to the conservation imperatives of those areas, and it is wrong. What we have endeavoured to do, for there may be some argument about whether the Minister for Conservation and Land Management and I have right of division of the areas - though I believe we have the right - is to come to an agreement on what the areas are. There is no reason that the National Parks and Wildlife Service should be running Lake Keepit, which has a commercial gliding airstrip, commercial caravan or camping areas, a commercial power boating club, sailing club and kiosk, when only one small stand, perhaps 2 per cent of the land area, has conservation value that can be protected by a conservation covenant, and the rest run for recreation purposes.
We propose to advocate next year - and it will stand or fall obviously on its merits in the Parliament - the concept of State conservation parks. These will provide more protection than there is for State recreation areas. At present a State recreation area can be revoked or varied by the Minister. If the Minister does that during the period when the Parliament is in recess or has prorogued, a development can be allowed to occur in a State recreation area without any assessment or control by the Parliament. It is the intention of the Government that the State conservation park proposal would require an Act of Parliament to alter or derogate from the park boundaries. Second, as I have discussed with my ministerial colleagues and with the honourable member for Davidson, it is clearly desirable that there be written into the statute dealing with such areas a requirement that there is a regular review of their status. I feel it was the intention of the Unsworth Government, which created the Garawarra State Recreation Area, that when the Metropolitan Colliery's life ran out the Garawarra State Recreation Area would become part of the Royal National Park.
It would be certainly the intention of this Government that if the mining activities under the Lake Munmorah State Recreation Area, which come from a colliery located at Catherine Hill Bay, were to cease, that area would warrant declaration as a national park because of the coastal heathland values it has. It is an area of about 95 per cent conservation and 5 per cent recreation. There ought to be a continual process of looking at raising these areas to proper conservation status. Therefore, we would foreshadow that
Page 4784
in any legislative proposals that came before the House for State conservation parks there will be a statutory requirement for regular review and report to the Parliament about whether they can be uplifted to the more permanent and inviolate conservation status and, if not, why not. The Government has not given any particular consideration to what period those reviews should be. The honourable member for Davidson has advocated that they might be in the three- to five-year range; they might be longer. It would depend on the nature of the area. The Government has not determined a view on the time frame, but certainly there needs to be a time frame for that process to go through.
With respect to at least one of these areas, that which I foreshadowed would be called the Nattai State Recreation Area, the reserves have been approved: the question remaining is whether the company involved, Clutha Mining Company, will insist on future access, exploitation and things of that nature. I would expect that in the area I foreshadowed as the proposed Bargo State Recreation Area, the assessment for methane and coal extraction is likely to be completed within the next several years. When we draw up the legislative framework the frequency and basis of that statutory review will be considered; undoubtedly there is a need to have a statutory review built into that process. That brings me to the end of the detailed technical land issues that I wish to deal with as a result of the introduction by the honourable member for Davidson of his bill and the proposal by the Government in response to it. I have joked several times that the Government's response was to reject the measure because it did not go far enough. I hope that the honourable member for Davidson would acknowledge that his measure has lifted a little the speed of what has occurred, although we could argue about the degree -
Mr Gaudry: He actually started the engine and got it moving.
Mr MOORE: The honourable member for Newcastle fails to understand the statutory obligations imposed on the Director of the National Parks and Wildlife Services by the Wilderness Act and fails to understand that the Government had announced publicly that it was going to get that assessment completed by the end of this year in any event. It is churlish of the honourable member for Newcastle when the Government is providing a positive response to these measures, which in some instances goes considerably further than what the honourable member for Davidson has proposed, not to acknowledge that this Government had commenced this process and was working to a timetable in relation to it. I have been gracious enough to acknowledge to the honourable member for Davidson that he has provided a stimulus to the timing of these matters. I hope that if the honourable member for Newcastle is a member of this Parliament for long enough, he will acknowledge that the vast majority of matters that are dealt with in this Parliament are dealt with on a consensual basis. The Government has provided a response necessarily earlier than otherwise might have been the case as a result of the stimulus provided by the legislation introduced by the honourable member for Davidson. As I have said publicly at some cost to me in my own branch of the Liberal Party, the honourable member for Davidson and I are friends, and I am proud to regard him as a friend. The differences we have across the Chamber as a result of his recent actions are political matters that we will deal with and I hope they will not affect our personal relationship.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Minister should confine his remarks to the bill.
Mr MOORE: There is quite powerful personal symbolism for this proposal between the honourable member for Davidson and me. I have before me a photograph
Page 4785
taken by the honourable member for Davidson of my twin daughters carrying backpacks in the Kosciusko National Park. They were having their first bush walk very many years ago. It was at the foot of Starlight's Trail in the Nattai that my daughters had their first overnight camp as children of about eight years of age. I am sure the honourable member for Davidson would acknowledge, even if members of the Opposition who are being churlish will not, that I know and love this area. I readily accept, and have done for a long period, that this area warrants the conservation status that it is being given. There is more than enough glory for everyone - the honourable member for Davidson, the Opposition and the Government.
Dr Metherell: And the conservationists.
Mr MOORE: And those people in the early days about whom the honourable member for Davidson spoke in his contribution - the days of Milo Dunphy and others. I am delighted that Alex Colley of the Colong Foundation is in the gallery. I am sorry that he arrived in the midst of my earlier remarks. It is certainly my pleasure to say to him that this matter is progressing in a manner that will conserve 89,000 hectares rather than 75,000 hectares. Some time ago Australian Broadcasting Corporation television screened a magnificent oral history program of the original pioneers, Mr Colley and his colleagues. Early bushwalkers, men and women, were described as the cloth toe brigade because when they walked barefoot they stubbed their toes and their big toes were tied with rag. They have given us this measure. It is a damnation of governments of all persuasions, prior to this Government, given that the first reservations of primitive areas in the Blue Mountains were contemplated 60 or 70 years ago, that it has taken almost three-quarters of a century for this to come to pass. But come to pass it has, and I inform the House that I would expect that the dedications I have outlined today will come back by report to the Parliament within the next fortnight - certainly before the House rises at the end of the year.
I have informed the honourable member for Davidson that after the honourable member for Blacktown has had the opportunity to speak on the bill from the perspective of her party the appropriate method of dealing with it would be for the Government Whip to adjourn the debate. If the Government does not deliver on the commitments I have made today, the bill will return to the House as a result of its Friday procedures, which I am pleased have worked effectively. I am also pleased, as I am sure the honourable member for Bligh is, that despite my best endeavours to do so I was unable to perform a Government act of bastardry to stop the Deputy Leader of the Opposition speaking earlier today. If the Government does not deliver on the commitments I have given, it will advance adequate and rational reasons why it needs more time to do so. I doubt that that will be necessary. Then the bill will come on for debate and determination. The House should regard itself as having given me in spirit the instructions in the form that I have outlined to the House today. I trust it will not be necessary for the House to give me those instructions in writing. I commend the spirit of the bill and the detail of my contribution to the House for consideration.
Ms ALLAN (Blacktown) [10.56]: I am pleased to speak on the Nattai National Park Bill which was presented to the Parliament by the honourable member for Davidson. After three and a half years in Government it is cruel testimony to the power of the Minister for the Environment that the bill has been brought on by an Independent member of the Chamber and not by the coalition Government. The Opposition supports the bill. It is consistent with Labor's national parks policy, which not only pledges to create 20 new national parks in New South Wales in the first term of a Labor government, but also identifies the creation of the Nattai National Park as a high priority among those 20
Page 4786
national parks. For the benefit of members on the Government side of the House I am more than happy to distribute among them copies of that policy as an indicator of that longstanding commitment. The area covered by the legislation is vast and magnificent. A wilderness quality gorge system located north of Mittagong, the Nattai area is a deeply dissected sandstone valley through which the Nattai River flows to the Wollondilly and Lake Burragorang. The park will complete the protection of the Blue Mountains parks complex and provide a new wilderness area under Labor's historic 1987 Wilderness Act. The reason that the Labor Party decided to develop a policy of support for the Nattai National Park is manifold. I am pleased that the Minister for the Environment and the honourable member for Davidson spoke at length about the natural qualities of the area. Indeed, primarily, that is the reason the Labor Party brought its policy forward.
Of equal importance, however - and this has not been highlighted so far in debate - is the benefit that this national park will bring to the people of Sydney. Whether the national park extends 60,000 hectares or 75,000 hectares, it is no accident that this national park will be in close proximity to the fastest growing region in the Sydney metropolitan area, the southwestern suburbs of Sydney. At present the area has a population growth rate of 5 per cent a year. I was particularly disappointed that the Minister for the Environment did not link the relationship between the creation of this national park with the daily needs of people living in Sydney. The Minister dwelt for some time on the history of the proposal, the extent of his own commitment to it, and the proposal itself; but he has not promoted that most important aspect of the proposed legislation. The Minister also has not explained why he has taken so long to introduce in Parliament a specific proposal to create a Nattai national park. He has not admitted that he has been unable to create this national park because of opposition by his National Party colleagues within State Cabinet and also a former colleague, Neil Pickard, the former Minister for Mineral Resources, now the Agent-General in London, who received passing mention during the Minister's speech. It is only because of the new numbers on the floor of this House that the Minister has plucked up courage to take a firm position in Cabinet. His Cabinet colleagues, including the Premier, have not been able to say no because they did not want to suffer the embarrassment of a defeat on this issue.
The Minister has had a long involvement with the proposal. He mentioned his own family's involvement in the many visits he has made to the area. The Minister has not highlighted the actions he has taken over the years following the National Parks and Wildlife Service recommending the proposal to him. It is even more embarrassing for the Minister that he was responsible for the Water Board concurrent with being Minister for Environment prior to the last State election. One of the reasons the Colong Foundation and other environmentalists became so confident about the proposal coming to fruition not long after the coalition Government came to government in 1988 was that the present Minister then shared two important portfolios: Minister responsible for the Water Board and Minister responsible for the environment. Unfortunately, despite having both those important responsibilities, the Minister was unable to bring forward this proposal which had been recommended by the National Parks and Wildlife Service. The Minister referred to its document, of which I also have a copy of it. I listened with great interest to the comments of the Minister for the Environment. If the Minister wants to have further conversation, he should do me the courtesy of leaving the Chamber or at least lowering his voice.
Mr Hatton: Mr Speaker, I apologise, it is my fault that the Minister is engaged in conversation.
Page 4787
Mr SPEAKER: Order! Many times I have said that if members wish to converse they should do so outside the Chamber. It is discourteous to do so in the Chamber. On occasions quiet conversation is both permissible and necessary but I ask all honourable members to keep their voices down when a member has the call.
Mr Moore: Mr Speaker, I would like to apologise and indicate that it is unfortunately the custom of the House that the Minister should remain. I am not free to leave the Chamber, attractive though that option may be.
Ms ALLAN: The National Parks and Wildlife Service recommended to the Minister, in a most comprehensive document that it made available to him last year, that the Nattai area be declared a wilderness area. Before that time many documents were in circulation. The Minister for the Environment understood the numbers in State Cabinet, so he told the service that it should to go back to the drawing board. He emphasised to the service that as it had probably not considered the needs or concerns of local landholders it should go back and talk to those people more fully. The Minister, in an attempt to get the proposal off the agenda, went through the political process of sidelining that important recommendation. The proposal for a Nattai national park and a Nattai park, as it has been referred to historically, has been around for many years. The honourable member for Davidson recounted the history of the proposal. He said it was first proposed as a park by the National Parks and Primitive Areas Council in 1934. Since then the establishment of a national park in that area has been proposed by the National Trust, by the National Parks Association and by the Total Environment Centre. The proposal for a national park with a wilderness core gained the support of the Nature Conservation Council of New South Wales in 1987. That council has 85 member societies in New South Wales. The Nattai national park proposal, by decision of the 1987 Nature Conservation Council conference, became a major policy reflecting the will of the whole of the State's conservation movement.
I must pay tribute, as have other members who have spoken in this debate, to the consistent work of the Colong Foundation as one conservation group that has made this proposal its absolute priority. The Colong Foundation, under many leaders over many years, has brought this issue forward and lobbied actively for the adoption of this proposal. I acknowledge that the Colong Foundation, soon after I became the Opposition's spokesperson on the environment, contacted me. The Colong Foundation was the earliest environmental lobby group and has probably been the most active since I have been shadow minister for the environment. The Colong Foundation's priority expressed to me has been the proposal for a Nattai national park. As a result of the foundation's interest in talking with me and showing me the Nattai area, in August 1989 I had the great pleasure of visiting the area at the invitation of the Colong Foundation. I and some of my colleagues, including the honourable member for Moorebank, visited the area at the behest of the Colong Foundation and the Berrima branch of the National Parks Association. On the weekend of 5th and 6th August, 1989, we circumnavigated the proposed Nattai park area. We did some walks and spent a long time driving around the proposed park area to ensure that we had the opportunity to examine the proposal.
At that time we also visited the site proposed for the establishment of a hard rock quarry by the Readymix group of companies at Mount Flora, which proposal has not received much attention in this debate. Since that August 1989 visit to the Mount Flora proposed rock quarry site and subsequent court battles over the proposal in respect of that area the Colong Foundation and the New South Wales environmental movement have expressed great concern about it. In August 1989 I had the pleasure of staying at the home of Rosyln Badgery at Wanganderry Station. I and the other members of that party
Page 4788
enjoyed and appreciated her hospitality. That August 1989 visit gave me an opportunity to examine the Colong Foundation's proposal for a Nattai national park and put in train a series of processes within the Labor Party which, with the strong support of the Leader of the Opposition, eventuated in an announcement in July last year to establish a Nattai national park once Labor is returned to government in this State. During the lead-up to the election campaign and in the election campaign itself the support of the Labor Party for a Nattai national park was one of the most satisfying expressions of political commitment by the Labor Party. The Colong Foundation has not only hosted visits to the proposed Nattai national park by members of the Opposition but has also been active in lobbying members opposite, when in opposition or now in government. It is to the credit of the present Minister for the Environment that one of his first trips after becoming Minister for the Environment was a visit to the Nattai area. The Minister in fact made headlines in the November 1988 bulletin of the Colong Foundation:
The Minister for the Environment, the Hon. Tim Moore, accompanied by his twin daughters Ruth and Lucy aged eight, visited the Nattai River Valley with TEC and the Colong Foundation during the October long weekend.
Accompanying the Minister on that visit were a number of people who have been associated with trying to have established a Nattai national park. Unfortunately, the Minister did not have very good news for the Colong Foundation and the others in the party at that time. At the camp site during the visit the Minister said that he was concerned that objections of the Department of Mineral Resources - led by his then colleague the Hon. Neil Pickard - to the park proposal due to underlying coal resources may interfere with the dedication of the Nattai national park. For the past hour honourable members have heard a very lucid explanation of what the Government intends to do. I have not doubt that the Government will carry out its proposal because of the pressure being applied to it in this Parliament. But it is entirely hypocritical for the Minister for the Environment not to feel a little defensive about the role he has played. Despite his great love for this area, which he has explained this morning to honourable members, a greater love intervened in the whole process of creating the Nattai national park. That greater love was his love for the Government of this State and the love for his position as Minister for the Environment. He has not pressed the Premier and his colleagues as strongly as he could on this issue, despite the visits he has made over a number of years to the area and despite the sympathies he has expressed to the park proposal.
It may not be appropriate for the honourable member for Davidson, who is a former colleague of the Minister for the Environment, and obviously a close friend, to make that point, but it is entirely appropriate for the Opposition to do so. That is why I am doing it. One of the interesting things that the Minister for the Environment said at the time was that his colleagues the Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Further Education, Training and Employment and the Minister for Planning and Minister for Energy, at that time the National Party member for Goulburn, supported the proposal. It is disappointing that not only the Minister for the Environment but also some of his other colleagues, particularly those who have close geographical links with and have represented the area, have previously made commitments that they have not been able to deliver. The conservation movement in this State, the honourable member for Davidson and, I believe appropriately, the Opposition have delivered.
I should like to take a moment to mention particularly the role of the Leader of the Opposition in this debate. The Minister for the Environment in his contribution to the debate made only one reference to my parliamentary leader. I shall talk about that
Page 4789
reference a little later. However, it was a negative reference, which in this debate is entirely unjustified. I say that because for many years the honourable member for Davidson and the Minister for the Environment have visited the area, walked through it and appreciated its beauty. A third member of this Parliament has done that also, and that is the Leader of the Opposition, my parliamentary leader. Without the support of the Leader of the Opposition for a Nattai national park, I do not believe that the Opposition would have the enthusiasm for the proposal that it has at present. For example, as recently as last December-January the Leader of the Opposition visited Mount Dangar and spent an interesting weekend with members of the Colong Foundation, including Alex Colley, who the Minister for the Environment has mentioned is in the gallery today.
The Leader of the Opposition was visiting the then Kanangra Boyd National Park, the particular area of Thurat Tops. It was one of many visits he has made to the area with members of the Colong Foundation. At that time he was highlighting the fact that the Kanangra Boyd wilderness is one of five wilderness areas also nominated by the Colong Foundation since December 1987. At the time that the Colong Bulletin went press none of those wilderness nominations had been considered by the Greiner Government. Though the Opposition welcomes the announcement, or the prediction, by the Minister for the Environment today that the current Nattai national park proposal will contain a wilderness nomination, I highlight the fact that it is only one of five nominations that have been put on the agenda by the Colong Foundation to be declared. Now that the Minister has taken the enormous leap of nominating that wilderness area as part of this proposal, I suggest he go back to the drawing board and look at the other four nominations that have been highlighted by the Colong Foundation. Once he has looked at those four proposals, perhaps he could look at others that are under consideration and high on the agenda of other organisations within the environmental movement.
I wish to talk further about the specific package that the Minister outlined today in his speech and which he is committed to bringing forward over the next fortnight. On behalf of certain groups, some of which the Minister has talked about, I wish also to mention a number of issues of concern that relate to the proposal. There are significant difference between the bill proposed by the honourable member for Davidson and the Colong Foundation and the proposal that has come forward from the Government. This has been the first opportunity for the Minister to outline in detail publicly his proposal. The Opposition will wait enthusiastically to see the letter of the proposal. But already concerns are being expressed at least by the conservation movement. I want to itemise those concerns and talk to some of them. The Minister has already mentioned one, about which I shall talk later, namely, the proposal in respect of State conservation areas, or parks. There is also the proposal to reduce the size of State recreation areas by about 15,000 hectares, down from 75,000 to 60,000 hectares, though the environmental movement, I must say, is most appreciative of the addition of a new State recreation area of 30,000 hectares. The whole issue of the status of the State recreation areas and the Government's proposal to replace areas of national park, as proposed in the honourable member for Davidson's bill, is a matter of concern for the environmentalists and the Opposition. I want to talk about that matter as well.
I wish to start with the State conservation parks. The Opposition is not sure why the Minister is putting forward this proposal. It is not sure that the proposal will ever hit the light of day. Certainly the Minister is talking up the proposal. If he has not been made aware of it already - and I am sure he has been - the conservation movement is extremely nervous about the proposal in respect of State conservation areas, or State conservation parks. Even at this early stage it has said that it rejects the concept. It may
Page 4790
be that after the Minister gives greater detail and the conservation movement gives the proposal greater consideration there may not be the current impasse. But I believe the concerns of the conservation movement are entirely justified. At this stage it is calling the proposal totally unacceptable and unworkable. That is a direct quote from Colong Foundation representatives on the Government's proposal.
If the Minister wants to get the proposal up and running, he must start reassuring people that, first, it is something that this State needs and, second, that it will work. He certainly has to reassure the Opposition that he is not doing this just as some sort of knee jerk reaction to the present power battle going on in State Cabinet between the Minister for Conservation and Land Management and himself over the future of State recreation areas in this State. It is not appropriate for the Minister, when he suffers political defeats in Cabinet and loses vast areas of his own portfolio, to come back to the Parliament in an attempt to reinvent the wheel and create for himself a new area within the framework of national parks just so that he can keep a little more power for himself. That is just redefining the equation; it is not doing anything to improve conservation in this State. I am pleased the Minister for Conservation and Land Management is in the Chamber to listen to the debate. I assure him that as time goes on there is no way he will increase the powers he has already managed to win from the Minister for the Environment. He should not become too excited about the possibility of getting his hands on the State conservation parks because that will not happen.
Mr West: I do not want the State conservation parks.
Ms ALLAN: They have not even been created yet. When they are, the Minister might want them. You are a greedy, greedy Minister. The conservation movement has numerous reasons for expressing concerns about State conservation parks. Mining a resource in a geologically complex area such as Nattai is impossible without a detailed survey of the coal seams, the mineral deposits and the gas reservoirs. Though mining companies such as Clutha may have some information about the seams below its valley mines, that information may be inadequate. Little is known about the proposed explorational mining in the State recreation area to the southeast of the area covered by the Government's current proposal. The uncertainty is thus increased. To suggest that a mining company can enter a difficult area without a good survey is contrary to common sense. Mining equipment worth millions of dollars is not easy to locate underground if an unknown fault or igneous intrusion is encountered. It is not good enough for the Minister to talk about this proposal without knowing the fine detail and without dealing with the fact that the mining companies are probably arguing with us at the present time and bringing forward proposals based on a lack of information.
The conservation movement believes that inadequate surveys will be a problem in the creation of State conservation areas and to the concept of the State conservation zone. The conservation movement, the Opposition and, I am sure, the honourable member for Davidson do not want greater disturbance in these areas while the Government grapples with the problem of naming them. Another concern of the environmental movement is that in order to work through these proposals the relationship between the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Water Board will have to be redefined. Though I may have had some confidence in the proposal if the Minister for the Environment had responsibility also for the Water Board, I have to be persuaded that the Minister for Housing will have the same enthusiasm for the proposal as those in the Chamber. The conservation movement doubts that the objectives outlined by the Minister will be achieved by the action he has promised, and I refer particularly to gazettal in the next fortnight without resort to the Parliament. The conservation movement believes that
Page 4791
the whole proposal may have to be returned to Parliament because of constraints imposed by legislation. Boundaries are another concern. I express this concern particularly on behalf of the Wilderness Society of New South Wales but also on behalf of other members of the conservation movement who are interested in this proposal. The present package seeks to exclude the Jellore State Forest. That may be another reason why the Minister responsible for forests is in the Chamber at the present time.
Mr West: I was here to listen to my colleague's speech as well.
Ms ALLAN: He is here to listen and to make sure that his colleague the Minister for the Environment does not give away the Jellore State Forest in the heat of the moment. The Jellore State Forest is made up of 1,400 hectares of dry country, unproductive stringbark forest and the scenic backdrop to Mount Jellore. In relation to Mount Jellore I should like to read something that I am sure the Minister for Conservation and Land Management has not heard. Milo Dunphy, the head of the Total Environment Centre, was able to provide the honourable member for Davidson for his second reading speech with a number of historic documents that had obviously been passed on to Milo by his father, particularly the journals that he wrote about his bush walks in the Nattai. Milo Dunphy was pleased to pass on to me a journal of a walking trip led by Myles Dunphy in the Nattai in March 1929. The honourable member for Davidson has a similar journal but not the identical journal. I should like to read this extract because the Minister for Conservation and Land Management will certainly not have heard this before. According to Milo Dunphy, this is one of the best descriptions of the area and it is taken from that March 1929 journal. At that time Myles Dunphy wrote:
That is the prospect of the valley:
- was a wide one over the great canyon of the Nattai River and its branches.
The Minister for Conservation and Land Management should listen carefully to this. The journal continued:
The outstanding feature in the landscape was the conical mountain named Mount Jellore . . . which stood up a little south of west on the opposite plateau. Obviously not sandstone it seemed to be somewhat out of place on a sandstone tableland.
I emphasise that Mount Jellore was the outstanding feature of the landscape. Yet it is excluded from the present Government proposal. I urge the Minister for the Environment during the next fortnight, as he busies himself putting this package into a form in which it can be gazetted, to go back to the drawing-board and look again at including Mount Jellore. Also removed from the proposal is the area to the south along the Nattai River. This area contains the historic Boxvale Track, which was developed along an old rail link for a nineteenth century coalmine, and the upper Nattai gorge, which is useless for anything other than a national park. Why is it excluded? These areas, like those around the Blue Mountains townships, will become degraded unless they are included in a national park. Unless these areas are included in a national park, the downstream environment will become weed infested and degraded. Furthermore, the bushland backdrop to Mittagong will be lost to Crown land fragmentation and building development. The Government needs to reconsider the exclusion from the package of a number of areas. I refer particularly to the Jellore State Forest, which is not a high-
Page 4792
grade forest needed by the Forestry Commission at this time. According to information I have received, the only things that come from that forest are fenceposts for local use. The Forestry Commission has great difficulty giving up anything it currently owns, but it should be prepared to add the jewel of Mount Jellore to the Nattai national park proposal.
The conservation movement is concerned also about the management of State recreation areas. The Minister has referred to that matter. The State recreation area over the Bindook-Porphyry complex is unnecessary because the area is not prospective. As Milo Dunphy reported, and I am sure he would have passed these concerns on to the Minister, the last time that area was explored was about 15 years ago when underground mines were being pumped out. At that time the Yerranderie mines discharged anaerobic and toxic arsenic-rich water into the adjoining pristine steams causing substantial pollution to Lake Burragarang. That is what could happen if too much time is spent playing with the area rather than protecting it fully as a national park. If there was a silver resource in the Bindook-Porphyry area, the prospect of a lead and silver mine in the inner catchment of Sydney's main water supply is ludicrous. If the Bindook-Prophyry complex is to be retained as a State recreation area, such options should not be entertained. That is the danger of maintaining the State recreation area nomination. The environmental movement wants that State recreation area and the other areas added to the national park. That is, of course, Labor Party policy.
The State recreation area over the valley mines held by Clutha need to be incorporated into the national park. This area and the proposed Bindook State Recreation Area are part of or immediately adjoin the three kilometre exclusion zone around the Warragamba Dam impoundment. The present Water Board management excludes these activities. However, under the provisions of the Act, such uses are encouraged. As the Minister would be aware, a State recreation area is declared under the provision of section 47B(1) of the National Parks and Wildlife Service Act for the purpose of public recreation and enjoyment. To the great annoyance and concern of the Water Board and the National Parks and Wildlife Service, individuals riding horses and trailbikes will probably gain access to the Nattai Valley wilderness. That has already occurred to a limited degree. That was one of the concerns expressed by the Colong Foundation to me in 1988-89 and probably to the Minister for the Environment when he visited the same area in 1988.
This issue has been highlighted for many years. We cannot afford to increase the opportunity for four-wheel drive access or trail bike access into the first wilderness area declared under the Wilderness Act by this Government. The wilderness will be damaged. What will the Water Board and the National Parks and Wildlife Service be doing with their much depleted resources? They will be spending time trying to correct the damage which is totally unnecessary. Increased access to the Burragorang Valley could result. Off road vehicles could have increased access not only to the Nattai wilderness but also to the Kanangra Boyd wilderness. The solution to this problem is not to introduce another category of park, a soft option - words we well know are favoured by the coalition government - and to allow mining. This area would be much more appropriately managed as a national park. The chance of any coal seam being mined in this area is far more remote than the chance of erosion of catchment protection by overuse. The Minister is being politically naive - I have highlighted this before - if he believes that simply calling an area a State conservation park will allow it to fend off the challenge from the honourable member for Orange, who is so committed to -
Mr West: Keep going; you are enjoying this, aren't you?
Page 4793
Ms ALLAN: I enjoy it always, and you enjoy it even more. It is true. For 20 years the Colong Foundation for Wilderness has campaigned for the inner catchment of Lake Burragorang to be ringed by a wilderness national park system. The introduction of the two State recreation areas into this land use framework along the lake's foreshores will be very damaging both to wilderness and to catchment protection. Increased access will lead to more fires and of course pollution of the water supply from nutrient rich sediments from the fires as well as from very close development. Development so close to the area is one of the reasons for creation of the national park; but it is also one of its greatest threats if we allow the weaker State recreation zones to be included and do not give the area the full protection of being a national park. The 30,000 hectare proposal mentioned by the Minister this morning, which he is so proud of, has a great deal of merit and the conservation movement is very happy to have that addition. Conservationists do not believe that it is a substitute for a national park but they are aware that the area is subject to active mining, and it is entirely appropriate for it to be a State recreation area.
I turn to some other concerns that have been expressed about the proposal for a Nattai national park. Since the honourable member for Davidson introduced his bill several weeks ago all members of this Chamber have been inundated with active concerns, particularly of the mining industry, about this bill. I put on record the Opposition's position on this issue. I hope that my colleague the honourable member for East Hills will also have a similar opportunity in this debate. The Opposition's position is not the position that was outlined by the Minister for the Environment in his speech this morning. He attempted to verbal the Opposition yet again. He made the outrageous claim that he had been poised at 10 a.m. to hear the official position of the Leader of the Opposition on this issue. Across the Chamber I said, "You are talking to the wrong person". I have since found that nobody has spoken or written to the Leader of the Opposition on this issue. He has not received a communication from the Minister for the Environment asking for the Opposition's official position. That has not occurred.
Mr Moore: I did not say that; I said that the Australian Gas Light Company was talking to you.
Ms ALLAN: Now we hear this hysterical interjection from across the Chamber about the Australian Gas Light Company. The Minister verballed the Opposition yesterday to Bill MacLaughlin from the Australian Gas Light Company. I met representatives of the company yesterday in the foyer of the Chamber. They had just come from a meeting with the Minister. He told them that it was not up to the Government to say whether methane gas deposits would be allowed adequate exploration in the current park proposal; it was up to the Opposition: the Opposition would tell the Government whether it could be done. The Minister should not only enjoy the satisfaction and the approbation of the environmental movement on this proposal; if necessary, he has to wear the criticism of the mining industry . He should not try to flick past this issue to us. He is the Minister for the Environment: he and his colleagues should wear the consequences if they are going to dud the mining industry. The Labor Party has already gone through a process of weighing the concerns of the mining industry. We did that in the lead-up to the last State election. We came out with the courageous decision that this area should be a national park. The Minister should front up to the Australia Gas Light Company and tell it that it will not have access to those methane reserves.
The Government is prepared to accommodate the needs of the mining industries, in particular Clutha, by creating this third system of State recreation areas plus another
Page 4794
imaginary State conservation park proposal. It is not prepared to do it for the Australia Gas Light Company. The Minister has told that company that it is the Opposition's responsibility. It is the Minister's responsibility. Given the concerns that all members share about the greenhouse effect, it is even more reprehensible that the Minister could not give a more intelligent response than saying: "Go and talk to Bob Carr and Pam Allan. It is up to them". That is just rubbish. I hope my colleague the honourable member for East Hills will explain why we have chosen the national park proposal rather than the proposal which would allow methane gas exploration in what will be the first wilderness area in this State to be declared by the Government. The Minister referred to a letter from the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council asking the honourable member for Davidson not to proceed with the bill. The Labor Party does not support that request. But there are ways that this matter could be discussed sensibly with organisations such as the Aboriginal land councils. They are concerned about the various important sites and their relationship with the area once it becomes a national park. The Minister this morning has not given us and the Aboriginal movement satisfactory reassurances that that dialogue will occur.
I note that yesterday this House set up the legislation committee on the National Parks and Wildlife (Aboriginal Ownership) Amendment Bill and cognate bills. The committee has been established to examine concerns about national parks in this State, national parks which at this stage do not include the Nattai. In fact, they are all remote national parks. The committee will not deal with a number of other parks in this State about which there are equal concerns in the Aboriginal community. It is not good enough just to acknowledge the concerns; we must have meaningful dialogue about them if we are to keep the Aboriginal movement on side in creating these national parks. If we deal with the concerns of these people, there may be improvements to the legislation. One of the agenda items of the committee should be Nattai. That may be one way of dealing with the concerns. I reiterate the support we are giving to the honourable member for Davidson and to the Government, which in the next few weeks will come forward with a package of proposals. This may well become one of the best environmental decisions of the current Government. The conservation movement has made the point that it is not before time. The Minister for the Environment loves relating politics to bodily functions. The whole debate on the Nattai National Park has been a painful birthing process. It has gone on for many years, since about 1934. The final chapter has been fairly rapid.
The honourable member for Davidson took the initiative of resigning from the Government for very good reasons. He is concerned about environmental matters. One of the important aspects of this legislation is that it shows what can be achieved by someone like the honourable member for Davidson, who has a great personal commitment to the environment. The Government frustrated this proposal for years, particularly at the behest of the former Minister for Minerals and Energy.
Since the honourable member for Davidson resigned as a member of the Government he has been able to work closely with the environmental movement and the Opposition to bring the proposal back before the Parliament. Victory is almost achieved, because his current friend and former ministerial colleague has been given the go-ahead from the Premier and his colleagues to announce a package of proposals. Though they do not meet all the expectations of the Colong Foundation, the Opposition and the community generally, they do meet the bulk of them. However, honourable members should not assume from the Minister's speech this morning that that is the end of the story. The honourable member for Davidson and the Opposition will not withdraw the legislation yet because we want to see the letter of the proposal. Also, for the period of time that this Government remains in office we request that the Minister for the
Page 4795
Environment have the chief responsibility for the implementation of the Nattai National Park, whether it be the State recreation area as proposed, the national park itself or potentially the State conservation zones. The Opposition enthusiastically supports the proposal and looks forward to its detail within the next fortnight.
Mr WEST (Orange), Minister for Conservation and Land Management [11.43]: I take this opportunity to say a few words about the legislation proposed by the honourable member for Davidson. I wish to place on record the co-operative way in which the Minister for the Environment has responded to the honourable member's proposal and the requests of environmental groups over a period of time. I categorically state that since I have held this portfolio there has never been any dispute between the Minister for the Environment and me in respect of this particular proposal. Obviously there have been concerns about the sterilisation of minerals in the area, but I wish to assure honourable members that there has not been any barrier from a State forestry point of view to this proposal proceeding. That is better reflected in the decision and agreement announced this morning by the Minister for the Environment that both the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Forestry Commission will agree to boundaries to protect identified endangered and rare flora from any damage through harvesting operations or any other type of activity in the area. It is important to dedicate those flora reserves, which the Government has been doing for a considerable period, and it is important to continue in that direction.
During the debate the Minister for the Environment made the important point that it would be a travesty to take these sorts of conservation areas out of the hands of the Forestry Commission and just let it deal with harvesting operations only. It is important for the Forestry Commission to have a balancing operation within its own broad parameters in order to demonstrate to the community that in any State forest conservation values must be applied seriously. In recent years the Forestry Commission has taken that approach in most of its harvesting operations. It recognises the significance of soil erosion, and the importance of the flora and fauna. The modern practice of providing wildlife corridors is important. Many people are of the view that the Forestry Commission approves contractors to go into a State forest and literally knock over every tree in the area. Since the late 1960s or early 1970s there has not been a clear felling operation anywhere in this State. That is an indication of the direction taken by the Forestry Commission. It is a recognition that we must be responsible for the visual landscape, and the effect that such clearing has had in the past on native flora and fauna. The main reason I speak in this debate today is that the Minister for the Environment has announced the intention to create a State conservation park zone. The honourable member for Blacktown spoke about the concerns of the Opposition and the environmental groups relating to these conservation zones. Let me give some of the background to this matter.
Contrary to all the hype and rantings from members of the Opposition and some environmental groups, the Minister for the Environment and I have a very close working relationship. That relationship was established when we served as our respective party whips when members of the coalition Opposition. That close working relationship has enabled us to work together to try to develop answers to the problems that we inherited.
The State recreation area system was implemented by the former Minister for Lands, Tom Lewis, in a former Liberal Party-Country Party Government. It was a convenient conservation or recreation zoning whereby areas with recreation principles and values could be identified and protected from large-scale development. Those areas were to be set aside for people to enjoy and commune with nature, be it an inland water
Page 4796
storage area or other area that had been set aside. In 1986 the Minister for the Environment at that time was the present Leader of the Opposition. I have been accused of land grabbing, but it was during the administration of the previous Labor Government that land grabs occurred. At that time the Minister responsible for national parks stated that all State recreation areas must come under the administration of the National Parks and Wildlife Service. From that day on, rather than making a conscious decision to try to distinguish why some areas had strong conservation values and why some areas had strong recreational values, and making an appropriate definition, the former Labor Government said, no, we want this land grab; let us go ahead.
Unfortunately, a worse decision could not have been made. The Government is proceeding with a definitive program of resource allocation, first with regard to inland State recreation areas. The Government acknowledges that the principal value of land that surrounds inland water storage areas is that of recreation. It has a conservation value, but its principal value is that of recreation. Prior to the last State election it was agreed that responsibility for such land should be transferred to the Department of Lands and subsequently to the Department of Conservation and Land Management. It was agreed also that such areas would be better managed by that department. As a result, the management structure of the National Parks and Wildlife Service could concentrate on areas of our national estate that require protection. That is what the service is good at, where its expertise lies. It is unfortunate that its efforts are hampered by having to struggle to deal with areas with a recreational component. In that regard the Minister for the Environment and I will be able to administer our respective programs for the benefit of the State.
A number of areas have high conservation values. This legislation deals with those types of areas. The vacant Crown land within the proposed area should be given the protection afforded conservation parks, which is a different level of protection. The Minister for the Environment and I will be able to focus our time and attention on our respective roles. No conflict exists with regard to resources that are being applied. A better control of conservation assets within the Nattai National Park proposal will be achieved as a result of this legislation and the commitments given today by the Minister for the Environment. The Leader of the Opposition has said that the legislation will not be withdrawn yet but he wants to see the Government's credentials with regard to this matter. In fairness, the Minister for the Environment has not said that he wants the legislation withdrawn. He has informed the House of the objectives of the Government and has requested some additional time, a fortnight, to allow the Government to show to the Parliament that it has been able to achieve certain things. The Minister deserves the support of the honourable member for Davidson and other Independent members in that regard. The Minister should be given time to prove the credentials and credibility of the Government.
As parliamentarians we must decide on the way in which resources should be allocated now and in the future. That has not happened in any State of Australia. The Federal Government has acknowledged that it has failed in that respect. There has not been a proper land and resources assessment and allocation of land and resources. By so doing, the needs of the environmental movement in New South Wales will receive just recognition. The areas of highest conservation value will be identified, to which resources, protection and status will be allocated. By heading in that direction we can ensure that the areas that will be included in this new proposal will have only recreation value. Conservation management agreements will be entered into in respect of those areas that have some conservation value. It is important that the status of such land be increased by the creation of the proposed conservation zonings. This is probably one of
Page 4797
the most important initiatives since the formation of State recreation areas when Tom Lewis was the responsible Minister. Since that time the differences have been recognised.
I support fully the direction proposed by the Minister for the Environment. I assure him and the honourable member for Davidson that a flora reserve will be established in the Jellor State Forest. That will enhance the value of the proposed national park and ensure the protection of flora in the region. It will also protect the livelihoods of the families that work the low intensity logging operations in that forest. During times of recession we must be careful not to push too hard with policies that will put people out of work. Reasonable compromises can be reached, and I regard the proposal advanced today by the Minister for the Environment as such a compromise. I commend him for the way he has responded on behalf of the Government to this legislation. I inform him that he will have my continued support and co-operation.
Ms MOORE (Bligh) [11.57]: This morning's events have been historic. Government and non-Government members alike have delivered second reading speeches on private members' bills on matters ranging from family relief, methadone clinics in residential areas, and restrictions on tobacco advertising. This bill will be a first of its type to be dealt with in all its stages by the House. It is a significant environmental bill. As a result of this initiative taken by an individual member of Parliament the Government is taking some action. As the Minister for the Environment said in his contribution, it has been a stimulus to the Government. the Legislation had been contemplated by the Government in the past. The honourable member for Blacktown said that it had been the policy of the Opposition for a long time. I congratulate the honourable member for Davidson for commencing this action. We are dealing here with a Greater Blue Mountains National Park stretching from Wallomai to Nattai. Alex Colley from the Colong Foundation said:
The proposed park is a magnificent natural area, just beyond the Sydney urban fringe, which despite any plan of management, remains mostly undeveloped. It is a vital link in a nearly complete green belt of parkland on the outskirts of the city which is a replacement for the original green belt which fell to development interests.
The original proposal of the honourable member for Davidson was for an area of approximately 75,000 hectares. That area has been increased by the Minister for the Environment to 89,000 hectares of rugged bushland which will be part of a State recreation area. It will comprise 60,000 hectares of national park and 25,000 hectares of wilderness. It will consist of vegetation ranging from woodlands of Sydney peppermint, angophora and scribbly gums to cypress pines, river oak and eucalypt. Involved will be 17 rare and interesting plants, 14 mammal species, possibly koalas, certainly squirrel gliders, and more than 80 different and unusual species of bird such as the red-chested button-quail. The Nattai area has 40 Aboriginal archaeological and traditional sites of significance. Dedication of the Nattai as a national park will ensure water conservation and sound management of natural resources in that part of the Warragamba Dam catchment area.
I support the honourable member for Davidson saying in his concluding remarks in the previous debate that the Parliament and Government have an historic opportunity to achieve a unique public good, to service the highest public interest by endowing future generations of Australians with the greatest of all gifts - the direct experience with the wonder of nature's rich diversity and the personal peace and harmony that that experience inspires. I am proud to support the bill and to be part of a process to redress the wrong
Page 4798
that we have done to this country over the past 200 years of European settlement that has destroyed two-thirds of our forests. I am proud to be part of a process that is proactively redressing this imbalance. The Government has said that it supports the thrust of the bill and will introduce a package to implement the proposal during the next two weeks. The Opposition said the measure has been part of its policy and that it supports the bill. I know that the Independent members also support the bill. The proposal to establish a Nattai national park is an indication of what can be achieved when the Parliament works together with the community in the interests of the environment of this State.
Mr PHOTIOS (Ermington) [12.2]: I am truly delighted to join with colleagues in this House, as has been sincerely and succinctly expressed by the honourable member for Bligh, in a most momentous occasion for the Parliament. I join with my colleagues the Minister for the Environment and the Minister for Conservation and Land Management, the honourable member for Port Macquarie and other honourable members who will contribute to this debate, in congratulating the honourable member for Davidson on this initiative. From time to time governments of all political persuasions need fresh stimuli. I am pleased in particular that the Government has been able, through the great work and effort generated on this project through the Minister's office, to bring the proposal for Nattai national park to fruition in concert with the Nattai National Park Bill that has been tabled by the honourable member for Davidson. I am particularly pleased that the Minister for the Environment has demonstrated to the Parliament the Government's commitment not only to the establishment of a Nattai national park but to a determination to make that park real and substantial in the greater Blue Mountains National Park area by broadening, expanding and working up the initial proposal beyond 75,000 hectares to about 89,000 hectares. The additional 14,000 hectares are to be found on the eastern foreshores of the lake. The proposal in the bill is more comprehensive than any similar proposal since 1934. I note that the previous Labor Government, like the present Government, whilst recognising a need and supporting a proposal for Nattai national park, had never been able to bring such a measure to fruition. That history ought to be put into context for honourable members.
The Greiner Government, through the proposal by the Minister for the Environment, has brought to fruition this exciting and challenging green initiative. The creation of the Nattai National Park will include about 29,000 hectares of priceless conservation wilderness and 60,000 acres of national park. This will be developed under the State conservation park concept announced by the Minister today. This concept will provide a tier of protection that cannot be removed without Act of Parliament. The measure will give not only lifelong but perpetual protection to an extraordinarily important area of heritage of this State and nation. In that context I am especially pleased and honoured, as chairman of the Government's envm committee, to have been involved in negotiations with industry and environmental groups and the Minister's office on the development of this proposal. I place on the public record my appreciation for the material that has been forwarded to me from the honourable member for Davidson and for his generally co-operative approach to this entire issue. The honourable member initiated the measure in a legislative sense and now the Greiner Government is able to demonstrate once again its green credentials by establishing this park somewhat in advance of the honourable member's bill. I am pleased also that the initiative has prompted the Government and the bureaucracy to develop a new strategy for developing protection for areas that may otherwise fall outside national park status but which deserve far more protection than is normally accorded a State recreation area.
I join with other members in recognising the importance of the Nattai area with its woodlands on the lower tablelands, cypress pines and river oaks in the Nattai park.
Page 4799
The broad wilderness areas in the proposed park harbour many varieties of plants and trees that are a veritable environmental panacea of great significance. The 14 mammals to be found in that area, the 17 rare and endangered species, in particular the Rudder's Box, which previously was known only in the Megalong Valley but more recently in the Nattai region, demonstrate the importance of protecting an area which has not been accorded such protection by previous Liberal or Labor governments since the concept was first dreamed of in the early 1930s. This exciting initiative to provide 60,000 hectares for national parks and 29,000 hectares for State conservation areas will tie in with the special protection that will result from negotiations during the past 24 hours with the Minister for Conservation and Land Management on that area which fell outside the Government's proposal but which was recognised in the proposal by the honourable member for Davidson. This will provide protection for endangered species in the area in which the forestry industry operates. The Government quickly and smartly decided to work closely and co-operatively to bring the Nattai National Park into being. This landmark bill, which is gaining recognition even as we speak, has been introduced to Parliament through initiatives developed and worked up by the Minister for Conservation and Land Management and the Minister for the Environment.
I turn to areas that fall within the interest of the Minister for Housing, who has recognised the important responsibilities of the Water Board in the park's inner catchment area. Under section 159 of the proposed legislation these will be managed largely, and as is appropriate, in co-operation with the Minister for the Environment and the National Parks and Wildlife Service. The Minister for the Environment has spoken to the bill and we are now joined by the Minister for Housing. Together they will work on and develop the traditional role of the Water Board in controlling access by rangers, and by restrictions, in concert with the National Parks and Wildlife Service. In that way this most important area in the Warragamba Dam catchment will be given the real protection that it deserves from experts in the field. By and large the wider community agrees with and understands the need to isolate these areas to ensure the highest possible water quality. That is the determination of the Minister for Housing. From the perspective of the Water Board the wilderness scheme proposed for the Nattai is satisfactory and does not compromise the responsibility and ability of the Water Board to provide safe and secure drinking water for the people of Sydney.
Honourable members should recognise that that dam and catchment area provide 98 per cent of the drinking water needs of the greater Sydney metropolitan area. The role of the Water Board in acting as it has in recent times as a vehicle for environmental protection and enhancement and as it continues to act in the charge of the Minister for Housing is demonstrating once more, building on some exciting initiatives announced in recent years, co-operation, support and enthusiasm by working with its partner, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, in protecting this 89,000-hectare national park and State conservation park area. It is vital that the normal wilderness and national park restrictions be enforced to preserve the intrinsic values of the Nattai, but also there must be provision for the Water Board to undertake its normal catchment management activities. That, of course, provides for the addition to its mains gauges of equipment to record flood levels and flood rates. It will necessitate special access conditions and minor construction arrangements. These can continue, as they have been pursued in the past, with complete and absolute regard for the import of the environmental significance of the area, and that will be done on a continuing basis, as I have noted earlier, with the co-operation of the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
The Water Board and the quality of Sydney's drinking water will benefit from the scheme. This, in itself, is of fundamental importance. It is appropriate that
Page 4800
honourable members recognise that the scheme is not just one that ought to be developed in partnership with the Water Board because of the importance of the environmental heritage of the area; equally it will have a real and substantial benefit to the Water Board itself as it works to clear up the waterways and the drinking water of New South Wales, and particularly of the Sydney greater metropolitan area. We, as a community, have overreached ourselves in polluting and damaging our waterways. The arrangement for full consultation between the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Water Board in the development and management of these areas is of great importance. The Water Board is pleased indeed to co-operate in the scheme. That is recognised by the presence in the Chamber today of both the Minister for the Environment and the Minister for Housing. Those Ministers have liaised closely and reached an agreement that will ensure protection and consider the needs of the Water Board. There has been no substantial disagreement at any time between the Minister for the Environment, the Minister for Conservation and Land Management and the Minister for Housing on this proposal.
Mr Rogan: Why did the Government not do it earlier?
Mr PHOTIOS: I am delighted to say that they look forward to continuing to work closely on bringing to fruition a park proposal of 89,000 hectares that the former Labor Government promised for 12 years but never acted upon. I am loath to do so but it is appropriate that I put the fundamental park proposal in context as I have been prompted to do by the honourable member for East Hills. The Government has bipartisan agreement, with the Government providing the initiative and bringing the proposal to fruition. The Labor Party talked and talked about the proposal, as it has talked and talked about many of the 20 national parks it promised the people of New South Wales but never acted upon. The facts speak for themselves. The substance is not in the rhetoric; it is in the real action. This Government and the Minister for the Environment, with his colleagues the Minister for Housing and the Minister for Conservation and Land Management, brought the proposal to fruition in a co-operative, speedy fashion. I congratulate the Colong Foundation for Wilderness and the environmental movement, together with the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the Water Board, the Department of Conservation and Land Management, forestry interests, coal interests and, last but not least, the honourable member for Davidson on getting together and developing this exciting proposal. The Government is particularly pleased that the Opposition has seen fit, despite its inaction and inertia on the issue during 12 years in office, to come together with the broad coalition of interests, stretching, if I might say, from the honourable member for Davidson to the Minister for the Environment. It is fair to say that they come from disparate quarters in this Parliament these days but an interesting co-operative relationship has been born today through this private member's legislation and the exciting national park proposal. It has brought together the Colong Foundation, which is one of the most enthusiastic environmental groups in its support for the Government. It works closely with the Minister for the Environment, and its newsletters from time to time mention the Minister, as they do the Leader of the Opposition. The Government is pleased that it has been able to bring this exciting initiative in a co-operative sense not just to fruition but to go further. The honourable member for Davidson proposed a modest area of 75,000 hectares. The Government was not quite sure whether that was satisfactory or significant enough, so in the spirit of the green agenda of this Government it decided to add another 14,000 hectares from the eastern foreshore adjacent to Lake Burragorang - and I am particularly delighted that the Government has been able to participate in broadening the proposal of the honourable member for Davidson and giving it some extra flavour.
Mr Schipp: Twenty per cent more.
Page 4801
Mr PHOTIOS: A 20 per cent increase, as the Minister for Housing rightly points out, being congratulated as he is by the honourable member for Campbelltown, whom I am sure later this day when other matters come before the House will be keen to support the Minister.
Mr HATTON (South Coast) [12.16]: I am pleased to indicate not only my support for the bill but the support of all the Independents for the bill. That means that with the Opposition there is a belt and braces approach to the whole matter. It is significant that a number of members who have spoken to the bill have been influenced by their experiences in the area of the proposed Nattai national park. I do not have as many experiences as most, but I do have fond memories as a scout of camping on the Nattai River. I made a number of visits to the old village of Yerranderie and as a teenager working as an offsider on a large coal truck with my brother-in-law, Jim Renahan, on the interminable slow climb out of the Burragorang Valley, now filled with water and blocked by the Warragamba Dam. Recently it was of great interest to me to look over the lake and contemplate what had been flooded. I wish to join with my colleagues in congratulating the honourable member for Davidson on the introduction of this bill. It is marvellous to see this sweet sanity prevail under the new sessional orders. There is a new era of consultation between not just Independent and Government members but between Opposition and Government members. I hope that new era will continue and that the Government realises that simply because it cannot dominate the Parliament the world does not come to an end.
The peak conservation groups obviously do not want mining to occur under wilderness areas or national parks. I strongly support that. They are concerned about the concept of State conservation parks, which will have a second-class national park status and will allow mining underneath them. There is proper concern that the designation will be used as an excuse instead of designating the area a national park. I prefer to regard it as a sensible stage to allow an area to move from an active State recreation area, which can be interfered with by the Minister, to a higher conservation classification which cannot and would need the action of the Parliament. I understand the pristine concept that means there can be no possibility of interference. One would need to consider the depth of the mining and, therefore, the subsidence and address the proper concerns of collapse of cliffs and alteration of the visual landscape. I believe that the State conservation park concept is supportable, provided proper guidelines are in place to protect the surface features and the flora and fauna, and there is a process of review so that those who are extracting the resources or who wish to extract resources not yet touched have to justify the area remaining as a conservation park and not as a national park. I think there is a case for mining if it can be done without surface disturbance. I do not go as far as the peak conservation groups in that regard. The Jellore State Forest is a second-grade forest on which a small number of people depend for their livelihood in harvesting small poles. I was delighted with the reaction of the Minister for Natural Resources and the Minister for the Environment in creating a flora reserve within that forest. That is another case of sweet reason. If the forest is intruded without justification and proper assessment by the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the Government will lose credibility. It is important that credibility be established on both sides of the debate. The Forestry Commission must show that it manages forests in a manner giving due regard to native flora and fauna, particularly rare and endangered species. I strongly support the introduction of rare and endangered species legislation. I have been misunderstood simply because I have stood back and watched events at Chaelundi. I have not immediately rushed in and said that the regulation should be disallowed. I was not prepared to do that unless I could see a belt and braces approach and the threat of serious problems occurring in the State forests. However, sweet reason
Page 4802
has prevailed. I believe Jellore State Forest should be reassessed so that at some future date it may be included. The regular review process is tremendously important, not only in relation to State conservation park areas or reserves, but also in relation to forests that may be added to national parks at a later date.
The Minister has given several assurances that I am pleased to accept: the immediate declaration of a wilderness area under the Wilderness Act 1987; the immediate declaration of a national park under the National Parks and Wildlife Service Act; no mining or resource extraction under those wilderness or national park areas - obviously that is fundamental to me and the conservation movement; no surface disturbance and only underground access to the State recreation areas; and a review of the Jellore State Forest. I am not sure whether the Minister has given such an undertaking, but I would like a review of all the land in the Colong Foundation's proposal for a future national park. I should like to congratulate the Water Board because I believe its management of the catchment in all areas over which it has control has made a significant contribution towards the preservation of wildlife. I should like to see joint management and recognition of the expertise of the National Parks and Wildlife Service so that the Water Board will not achieve dominance over the National Parks and Wildlife Service. There is no reason that a proper park and wilderness management plan containing proper guidelines and controls cannot be prepared to satisfy the needs of both those bodies. Such a plan would lead to co-operative management in those areas. To allow more members to speak in this debate, I shall conclude by saying that I strongly support this proposal. However, I would like the opportunity to say much more about the matters arising from the Chaelundi decision.
Mr JEFFERY (Oxley) [12.24]: I wish to speak briefly on the Nattai National Park Bill and to raise some concerns about its proposals. I am not known as the darkest green Government member but I believe I am pale green. The Minister for the Environment will realise that I believe, as a former farmer, the farmers of New South Wales are the true conservationists of this State. They know that looking after the land ensures their future farming viability. As for proposed national parks in New South Wales, I am concerned that deposits of coal or methane gas may be sterilised. Today all members of Parliament would have received a letter from Mr J. W. Brown, the general manager of operations of Clutha Coal Pty Limited. He makes some relevant points in that letter to which I should like the Minister to reply. The letter reads:
The drilling program identified an excess of 40 million tonnes of mineable coal in the lower seams within this area. Utilising modern coal preparation techniques, coal from these authorisations will prove invaluable in the enhancement of coal quality specification and ensure the continuity of the exporting of coal from the Burragorang area.
Mr Brown went on to say that the land can be used for both mining and leisure to the benefit of all. I agree with that because the New South Wales coal association said in relation to the Nattai area:
The true facts are that neither the conservation nor development arguments stack up very well for this particular piece of land, which possibly accounts for the lack of any concerted action one way or the other over the past 15 years.
The proposed national park is located within the Sydney Water Board catchment area and the Minister for Housing, who has responsibility for the Water Board, has ensured that the majority of the area has been retained in its natural and undisturbed stated. It has been claimed that there is little or no coal in the area but that may not be the case. There may be methane gas. With new technology we do not know what is in store for methane
Page 4803
gas. The areas to be excised under this proposal will mean that not enough exploration land will be available. In the next few years about $6 million will be spent on exploration for methane gas. In five years the production of methane gas could be worth $200 million to this State. Australian jobs are going down the gurgler as a result of the Federal Government induced recession.
[Interruption]
Mr JEFFERY: The honourable member for Campbelltown should realise that several years ago people were saying, "Let's not go down the Argentine path". People in Argentina are now saying, "Let's not go down the Australian path because there will not be any jobs left". At the present time there is no significant petroleum production in New South Wales. Some people say that there has been a decline in petroleum use and New South Wales does not need such an industry. But these are all reasons for encouraging the production of natural gas: the continuing low price of oil and gas, the perceived low sedimental basins in the State and also, in particular, the state of the economy and the lack of venture capital. I am pleased that the shadow minster for minerals and energy is in the Chamber. I hope he will agree that exploration for natural gas is a cause for great excitement. Natural gas is stored in the coal seams of the State coal basin. New technology called hydraulic fracturing has been used in America to drain the gas from the coal seams. Wells are drilled from the land surface to intersect the coal seam. The seam is fractured by the injection of water and sand. I understand that other additives are also used. The honourable member for East Hills would know more about that.
After that procedure is completed, the ground water is pumped from the seam and gas production commences. The wells can produce gas for as long as 10 or 15 years, and 80 per cent of the gas can be removed. Such a procedure will be of great benefit to the people who work underground extracting coal because dangers will be eliminated. Clause 6 relates to the dedication of State forests. I am not sure of the effect this will have on the livelihood of those affected. The honourable member for Blacktown said this would get rid of fencing operations and the like. I presume not many people would be affected. It does not matter whether it is one person, a family or 150 families; there is still an impact on those people. Will they be paid compensation because of actions taken under legislation such as this? I hope that there will be a commonsense approach towards the land to be excised. Responsible members of Parliament should raise any concerns they have, and they should be answered by the honourable member who has introduced the bill and also the Minister responsible for the introduction of it.
Mr Moore: I am not responsible for the introduction of it. Do not verbal me.
Mr JEFFERY: From what the Minister said today, he will have executive power and gazettal power. As well as thinking about the environment we must think about the productive workers of this State. Without them the wonderful State of New South Wales would not be leading Australia out of the current recession.
Mr ROGAN (East Hills) [12.31]: In the spirit of co-operation that exists today I shall speak for not too long so that as many speakers as possible may speak on the bill. I commend the honourable member for Davidson for taking the initiative. After his speech one cannot be but impressed with his feelings about the area. I have not bushwalked through the area but my parliamentary leader, the honourable member for Davidson and others have. Even on the periphery of the area one is impressed with its uniqueness, which was captured very well in the speech of the honourable member for
Page 4804
Davidson. He spoke of the rugged bushland and the impressions that Myles Dunphy, who is well known to all who have any interest in the natural environment, experienced in earlier years when he trekked through the area. It is very important that we preserve these areas not just for this generation but for future generations. We who occupy the important positions we are privileged to occupy in this Parliament have a duty to future generations as well as to the current generation to preserve these areas. From the bragging of the Minister for the Environment and the honourable one would think that the bill was a Government initiative. I should like to quote from a letter received today by the Leader of the Opposition from Milo Dunphy from the Total Environment Centre. I shall not read all of it because that would take up too much time. It reads:
Mr Moore's proposals and Cabinet's approval are a tribute to Labor's persistent support for national parks and in particular for your -
That is referring to the Leader of the Opposition:
- current electoral commitment to 20 new parks -
That includes Nattai. This letter was written by the son of the great person to whom tribute has been paid. The letter continues:
- in the first year of Labor's Government and a 50 per cent increase in the area of national parks in its first term of office.
This has already been spelled out by the Opposition. The letter continues:
Mr Moore's proposal would never have surfaced but for the initiative of Dr Metherell and the pressure of a number of Independent members of the Lower House and of Democrats in the Upper House.
I take no credit away from the honourable member for Davidson and the other Independent members who have been pushing for this development. Equally, the role of the Opposition should be recognised, as it has been by Milo Dunphy in his letter. So much for all the trumpeting on the other side for the sudden, newfound proclaimed interest in establishing this national park. Having made those comments, I think we should look at the matter in a bipartisan manner and in the spirit of co-operation that I hope will be a continuing feature of the operation of this Parliament. I would be remiss in my capacity as a shadow minister not to mention my concerns about the reserves of methane gas which could be locked up in certain areas. I have spoken to the honourable member for Davidson about this. He appears to have done his homework very well. The map in front of him is an indication that he has put in a lot of time on this matter. He has been sitting in the Chamber listening to all the speeches on the subject. He has listened to a whole range of people - the industry in particular, the unions and others who have understandable concerns relating to jobs and future energy sources such as coal and natural gas.
Dr Metherell: To be fair, so has the Minister.
Mr ROGAN: I will come to that in a minute. Without being too churlish, I have to refer to what the Minister said earlier. He said that he was waiting at 10 o'clock this morning almost poised by the phone for a call to come through from the Leader of the Opposition in response - he said that he was also waiting for a written response - to what he had put to the Opposition in respect of a submission.
Page 4805
Mr Moore: You are lying.
Mr ROGAN: The Minister should look at the Hansard. The Minister suggests that somehow the Opposition must carry the argument for AGL in this matter as though we have responsibility for carriage of the legislation. We do not have the resources of the Department of Mineral Resources with respect to the areas that could contain reserves of methane. It is the Minister's responsibility, not the Opposition's responsibility. The Minister is just opting out. I thought his comment was cowardly. I immediately checked with the Leader of the Opposition. I asked: "Was there any correspondence between you and the Minister for the Environment? Was there any discussion between you and him? Was there some expectation by the Minister that you would respond to him?" The Leader of the Opposition said, "No". The Minister has not spoken to me about the matter. I would be happy to speak to him about it, again in the spirit of co-operation that exists. The honourable member for Davidson, to his credit, acknowledges that there are genuine concerns and he has taken them into account.
Natural gas is a very important commodity in New South Wales for industry, commerce and domestic users. In the industrial market natural gas has replaced industrial fuel in many industrial processes with resultant economic benefits to the industry involved. Of particular significance in the operation of gas is that cogeneration technology, using gas turbines or gas engines and heat recovery equipment, will reduce the demand for the construction of further power stations in future years, and hence reduce greenhouse gases. As a transport fuel, natural gas has an important role to play. The natural gas industry has as its target a 10 per cent substitution of conventional transport fuels by the year 2001. Natural gas vehicles are currently in the development phase and, when elected a Labor government will support research and development of natural gas vehicles through the State Energy Research and Development Fund. New South Wales has a significant network of natural gas links, which are currently being expanded. The contractual commitment by the Cooper Basin gas suppliers to the New South Wales market will reduce by the end of this decade, and will cease by the year 2006, subject, of course, to renewal or renegotiation. Though gas exploration has been carried out in New South Wales, no major fields have been discovered. It would be fair to say that the prospect of finding major gas fields is small.
Of particular significance to New South Wales is the potential reserves of methane gas contained in the State's vast coal reserves. In recent times there has been speculation and conjecture as to the levels of available coal bed methane from coal seams in New South Wales. Though coal bed methane may form an important future source of gas, the level of recoverable reserves has not been proved, and is the subject of current research and development projects. Estimates of coal bed methane reserves - sometimes known as coal seam gas - are not particularly reliable because of limited investigative work to date. Recent speculation suggests that about 7,000 billion cubic metres - about 250,000 petajoules - exists in eastern Australia. Of this quantity 2,000 billion cubic metres, or about 70,000 petajoules, is estimated to be present in the Sydney basin coal seams. If it is assumed that 25 per cent of this gas is realistically accessible, 25 per cent recoverable, and 5 per cent saleable, it is possible that 4,000 petajoules of useful methane will be available for supply to the New South Wales market. The total purchase of natural gas by AGL Sydney for New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory customers in 1990-91 was 95 petajoules. On this basis, given current demand, coal bed methane may represent 40 to 45 years of energy supply to these markets.
It is for this reason that I ask the Minister and the Government that, when assessing the matter - I am not in a position to do so as I do not have access to the
Page 4806
technical data and maps of the area covered by the Nattai national park proposal - where possible they should excise some of those areas from the proposal. Surely the Government has a responsibility to do that. I say that because I know the environmental movement is concerned about the greenhouse effect, the warming of the earth's surface. One method of addressing that problem is the increased use of natural gas. As natural gas is not available in New South Wales, we must look to developing the methane that is locked up in those coal resources, particularly those in the southern part of New South Wales, because that coal is rich in methane. I join with the Opposition in supporting this proposal. However, I hope that a balance can be found between the necessity of preserving these areas of unique value for the State and extracting the methane for the New South Wales market, which will make a significant contribution to the environment by reducing greenhouse gases.
Dr KERNOHAN (Camden) [12.45]: Perhaps it was fate that about three weeks ago I organised a visit to Euranderie in my electorate, which is situated on the border of the proposed national park. It was only on Thursday of last week that I visited the area, which is accessed through the Warragamba catchment area. In that time I also looked at the mining operations of Clutha. The company still has coal leases in the area which are not due to expire for 20 years. These mining operations are very important to Camden. Honourable members who have spent time in Camden would know how important the mines are to the economy of our community. I am pleased to support the proposal. I hope that it will be possible to preserve this beautiful area without having to sterilise the minerals underground, so that we can have the best of both worlds: a beautiful national park and revenue from mining operations. This is the first time that I have seen workers and management of a coalmining company all joining together to ask for assistance. Reports have suggested that there is very little coal in the area. The original major Bulli seam was mined out in the eighties, but two other seams of high quality coal remain. This coal is needed by the mining industry to be mixed with lower quality coal to enable it to meet export quality standard. Modern mining techniques would permit mining to be carried out in the area without disturbing the earth's surface. Many people have said that mining has caused problems in the past, but those problems will no longer occur with the use of available modern technology. It is imperative that future generations are able not only to use our beautiful national parks and bushland but also to have the potential to earn a living from the wealth that is under the ground. I look forward to seeing the detail of the plan.
Debate adjourned on motion by Mr Downy.
STANDING COMMITTEE UPON PARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGE
Mr WHELAN (Ashfield) [12.50]: I move:
(1) That a Standing Committee upon Parliamentary Privilege be appointed to consider and report upon any matters relating to privilege which may be referred to it by the House.
(2) That such committee have leave to sit during the sittings or any adjournment of the House, and have power to take evidence and send for persons and papers.
(3) That such committee have power to confer with any committee appointed for similar purposes by the Legislative Council.
(4) That such committee consist of Ms Machin, Mr Packard, Mr Thompson, Mr Merton, Ms Nori and the mover.
Page 4807
It is not imperative that the committee comprise the members referred to in the motion. The thrust of the motion is that which appears in clause 1, namely, that a Standing Committee upon Parliamentary Privilege be appointed to consider and report upon any matters relating to privilege which may be referred to it by the House. This Parliament has been well served by the publication Parliamentary Privilege in New South Wales, which was prepared by a committee of members of this Parliament chaired by the Hon. R. M. Cavalier. The committee comprised the Hon. B. H. Vaughan, the Hon. M. F. Willis, the honourable member for Swansea, and the Minister for the Environment. To complete the class of 1976, the present Deputy Premier was also a member of the committee. That publication, which is used throughout Australia, will form the basis of any understanding with regard to the privileges of Parliament. We are fortunate that the majority of members of that committee are still members of Parliament. I shall not go into the detail of the academic matters referred to by the committee. It is argued that the Parliament of New South Wales, not having legislated generally in respect of privilege, has only such powers and privileges as are implied by reason of necessity - and they are referred to in the case Armstrong v. Budd; such privileges as were imported by the adoption of the Bill of Rights of 1688; such privileges as are conferred by the Defamation Act; and such privilege as is conferred by such other legislation as the Parliamentary Evidence Act 1901 and the Public Works Act 1912. I commend page 6 of the report to honourable members. Article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1688 provides:
That the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of the Parliament.
Should this motion be accepted in its present or slightly varied form, a Standing Committee upon Parliamentary Privilege will be appointed to consider matters referred to it by the House. I remind honourable members of an occasion when an attempt was made to intimidate the honourable member for Coogee, who was then the honourable member for Waverley. His role as a member of Parliament was criticised. The House noted the criticism but no action was taken. Those who attempt to intimidate members of Parliament deserve to have action taken against them similar to that which was taken in the matter involving the honourable member for Coogee. In that case the House confirmed the privilege of the member. I recall also recently a resident of Penrith seeking to serve process on the Speaker. It was served on the Clerk in the corridors of the Parliament. On one occasion a member of this House sought to serve a statement of claim for defamation on another member as part of the political nuance of parliamentary process and democracy. The summons was attempted to be served within the Parliament.
Yesterday a solicitor sought to serve process on one of my colleagues, who will remain nameless. These matters must be tidied up. The Parliament is sacrosanct, and its members do not lead sheltered lives. We may have to decide whether process can be served in Parliament. I do not believe it is necessary for members to go outside the Parliament to accept process. Another concern arises with regard to defamation. No doubt honourable members will recall when a former member for Peats, Mr O'Connell, wrote a confirmatory letter to a Minister enclosing a letter of his constituent which contained defamatory material. Regrettably, Mr O'Connell had to pay damages merely because he forwarded on a communication he received from a constituent. Many honourable members receive letters and forward them on to Ministers. To some extent members of Parliament are conduits to Ministers. Therefore, why should they suffer the indignity of a trial and an award of damages against them. Members of Parliament should not be intimidated. This Standing Committee upon Parliamentary Privilege will address that matter also. It will examine the powers and obligations that the Leader of the Government in this House and I have with regard to broadcasting proceedings.
Page 4808
I understand that the Attorney General is seeking to move amendments with regard to the Defamation Act. This committee may be called upon to consider and report upon matters involving the provisions of the Defamation Act. At the same time that uniform defamation laws are being considered it would be timely for the committee to consider the privileges of members of Parliament. Honourable members must consider the question of law enforcement and the role of law enforcement agencies. Should police be able to come on to the precincts of Parliament? When I first entered Parliament and was still practising as a solicitor I thought an immunity applied to members of Parliament until a smart policeman came to serve a summons on me. I said to him, "You cannot do it". He said, "Have you not heard of this case?" I said, "No" and he produced a document out of his hip pocket. The courts had decided that even a criminal process could be served within the precincts of the Parliament itself.
Debate adjourned on motion by Mr Whelan.
SELECT COMMITTEE UPON THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY SUPPLEMENTARY BUDGET ALLOCATION
Report
Mr IRWIN (Fairfield) [1.2]: I am pleased to contribute to debate on the report of the Select Committee upon the Legislative Assembly Supplementary Budget Allocation. As a member of that committee I am pleased with the report, which will be welcomed by all members of this House. Though time for deliberation has been short, the committee consulted with members by way of questionnaire. The report reflects the desires of most members of this House in regard to priorities for allocation of available resources. I note in particular the recommendation about expenditure of $495,000 for a one-off purchase of equipment for members. The priority needs expressed by members are mainly for improved communications and information processing equipment. Ongoing recurrent funding will be available from time to time for that purpose. A preference has been shown for the availability and establishment of networking communications and information processing equipment for the offices of members. Those expressed needs reflect the awareness of members not about a change in role but a change in the way members work in and through the Parliament.
In the time I have been a member significant upgrading of facilities has occurred. Word processors and other computer-based facilities in electorate offices have been a great boon to members. Those members who may have had reservations when that equipment was installed would be now most reluctant to give up those facilities. Imminent changes in technology will open up opportunities for members to work more efficiently and effectively and to maintain closer contact with constituents in the electorates and thus enhance their role as members of Parliament. I commend the recommendations of the report. The recommendations of the report, once implemented, will enhance the ability of members to fulfil their role and better serve their constituents. The people of New South Wales will be better served by the provisions outlined in the recommendations of the report.
Mr CHAPPELL (Northern Tablelands) [1.5]: I support the report of the Select Committee upon the Legislative Assembly Supplementary Budget Allocation. The report makes possible, for the first time since I became a member of Parliament, a degree of reasonable support for the conduct of the affairs of members of Parliament in their respective electorates. There is great diversity among members of this Chamber in the way they go about their tasks, not so much by personal choice but out of sheer necessity.
Page 4809
The smallest electorate in this State covers about seven square kilometres. One could not begin to calculate the number of square kilometres in an electorate the size of Broken Hill. Before the last election the electorate I represented comprised 23,500 square kilometres. The electorate that I now represent covers about 21,000 square kilometres. The manner in which members serve such disparate electorates varies significantly. Members receive an electorate allowance to defray costs in serving their electorates. Members have been given similar equipment, services and facilities. Many members in country electorates and in the metropolitan area experience considerable shortfalls, in servicing their constituents.
Recently I was sitting in the members' parliamentary dining room when the Premier walked past and I said to him: "Mr Premier, do you realise our need for mobile communications? I desperately need a car phone to enable me to serve my electorate". The Premier asked me, "Why would that be?" I was able to tell him that the following day I was going to spend seven hours during the day, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., in my car, mobile, and my staff and I would be disadvantaged in being able to do any constructive work. Driving for seven hours a day is not my idea of serving my electorate. With a mobile communications system, to wit a telephone, I would be able to communicate with my electorate secretary if she needed to contact me and with any government officer who needed urgent contact. I would also be able, as the need arose and in safe driving conditions, to communicate with my office and various constituents during a day on the road. A mobile telephone is of fundamental importance to me, but I realise that other members do not have that need.
Other members may need different pieces of equipment, a different service or facility. The committee has taken steps to respond to the specific needs expressed by members about the services and facilities they require. I support, as the report implies, that members of Parliament need additional research staff, library facilities and better electronic communication between electorate offices and parliamentary offices. In time we will become smarter in facilitating our roles as local members serving our electorates. The report is a most important first step in the process of equipping electorate offices and assisting individual members to best carry out their roles, not for their own satisfaction but for the service of their constituents. The report is ideal. I have enjoyed the opportunity to serve on the select committee. I commend the committee's report to the House. I look forward to fine tuning our resources, services and facilities as we go about serving the people of New South Wales.
Mr PRICE (Waratah) [1.10]: I shall be brief in my comments. I am delighted to support the report and the role of my fellow members on the Select Committee upon the Legislative Assembly Supplementary Budget Allocation. Most of the things that need to be said have been said. I wish to reinforce the comments of previous speakers about the recognition of the individual needs of a member in his or her electorate. The need varies significantly between the inner and outer metropolitan areas and the provincial and country areas of the State. The honourable member for Northern Tablelands has sung the praises of the opportunities he would have through access to a mobile telephone. No doubt a number of other committee recommendations will be seen by members as giving positive support to serve their communities better. Members of Parliament now have slightly larger electorates and more people to represent and therefore need quicker access, better communications and a greater ability to deal with problems quickly and fairly.
I congratulate the chairman on his conduct of the committee and my fellow committee members for their diligence during their deliberations on their report. The writing of the report was rushed, though perhaps at a later stage there may be an
Page 4810
opportunity to do further work on it. That decision will be made by others and translated to the Parliament in due course. I particularly wish to note the services of Mr Mark Swinson, made the committee move along at the pace that was necessary and allowed committee members to have the full benefit of hearing the evidence of the officers of the House. The committee had the benefit of his vast experience in preparing reports in an easily readable form. I draw the Government's attention to the recommendations, particularly those on page 7, and look forward to early application, through the Speaker's office, of the full recommendations.
Mr MOORE (Gordon), Minister for the Environment [1.12]: I wish to reply briefly and in a limited fashion to the report presented to the Parliament by the Select Committee upon the Legislative Assembly Supplementary Budget Allocation. As a member of the Executive Government, it is not appropriate for me to comment on the details of the recommendations about facilities for members, and I do not propose to do so. I propose to deal with the comments on page 7 of the report about the possible legal difficulties that honourable members face by virtue of having an electorate office lease that is not a Crown lease. That may place them in difficulties so far as holding an office of profit under the Crown. Though there may be some members of the Opposition who would be attracted to having the Premier and me removed and made the subject of a by-election as a result of a disqualification, using this as a trigger mechanism, I believe it is sufficiently ecumenical that the Parliament could lose up to 10 per cent to 15 per cent of the members of the Chamber as a result.
For five or six years the Premier and I shared a joint electoral office in a local shopping centre that acted as a centre for our electorate populations until the recent redistribution. It is clearly desirable that we look at the legal problems brought to the surface by the Solicitor General's advising and, if necessary, amend the statutes, particularly the Constitution Act, in regard to the provision of services by the Parliament or by the Government to members for the purposes of carrying out their duties as members of Parliament - and any ancillary and minor private use that might result from that. For example, honourable members have computers in their electorate offices. Occasionally, my daughters play a computer game on the computers. One would not want that minor ancillary private use to cause disqualification. Therefore, there will be a need to provide in any legislative adjustment for such ancillary private use to the mainstream purpose. The position, I am sure, would be well understood by honourable members.
I note the committee suggested that there will need to be an ongoing role. I have foreshadowed to the honourable member for Pittwater - and I am sure in this regard I will be enthusiastically supported by the honourable member for Ashfield - that the committee may need to be reappointed in the near future to supervise the ongoing process of funding. I think the present members of the committee would be suited for that purpose. It is also an important first tentative step for this Parliament to give members control over their own destiny in the budgetary and expenditure processes of the Parliament. I look forward to introducing in the first half of next year legislation on behalf of the Government, as discussed with Independent members, for the establishment of some sort of parliamentary commission for the management of the party. I thank honourable members for their participation in the committee.
Motion agreed to.
[Mr Acting-Speaker (Mr Tink) left the chair at 1.17 p.m. The House resumed at 2.15 p.m.]
Page 4811
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
______
PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT RESTRUCTURING
Mr CARR: My question without notice is directed to the Premier, Treasurer and Minister for Ethnic Affairs. Was he asked by a journalist at a press conference yesterday whether Cabinet had this week decided to restructure the Public Works Department and reduce staff? Did he reply, "No, for heaven's sake, don't be so stupid". Did the Deputy Premier an hour later tell a press conference that "final approval was given by Cabinet this week for restructuring of Public Works"?
Mr GREINER: The question concerns a reduction suggested by the honourable member for Drummoyne of 3,000 people in the Public Works Department, which only has about 3,000 staff. That would make it extraordinarily difficult to do. The fact is that Cabinet did not decide, did not decide, did not decide -
Ms Allan: Three times!
Mr GREINER: Have you got the message? Cabinet did not decide -
Ms Allan: Four times!
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Blacktown to order.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Premier has the call.
Mr GREINER: - to reduce the number of employees in the Public Works Department by any number. For the information of Cabinet I tabled a directive that I had issued after discussions some weeks back about the matter. There was no decision and there was no discussion of a reduction in numbers.
Mr Carr: Wal said there was.
Mr GREINER: Well, that is good, but what I am telling the House is absolutely right.
TAFE FEDERAL FUNDING
Mr JEFFERY: My question without notice is to the Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Further Education, Training and Employment. In view of the fact that the Federal Government has now accepted the Minister's argument that the Commonwealth is obliged to give greater support to TAFE during the recession, how is it proposed to spend the money allocated by the Prime Minister yesterday?
Mr FAHEY: As all honourable members know, in recent weeks I have been urging the Commonwealth to do something about the immediate needs of TAFE. The unprecedented demand on places in the TAFE system is a direct consequence of the Federal Government's induced recession. The recession, of course, has created massive unemployment in all States of Australia and has turned the unemployed towards TAFE to develop skills that may lead to jobs. There has been some talk in the media about an
Page 4812
additional $1 billion being made available by the Commonwealth Government to TAFE throughout Australia. On 18th October at a meeting in Melbourne the Federal Minister responsible for TAFE, Mr Dawkins, was cross-examined at some length not just by myself but by all of the State and Territory Ministers. Despite the fact that he had alleged in the media that $1 billion was available, not one dollar was offered by Mr Dawkins at that time. No conditions were suggested on any sum of money, if any sum was to be allocated. As I have stated, not one dollar was offered. The Commonwealth adopted its typical approach and we were told it was sympathetic to the demands being placed on the TAFE system.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is too much audible conversation, particularly on the benches at the rear of the Chamber.
Mr FAHEY: As I have said, the Commonwealth was sympathetic to the demands to be placed on the TAFE system from 1993 onwards. I made it abundantly clear that the problem of demand will be in 1992, in just a few short months. The demands were now, the problems were now and the need was now. That approach had the unanimous support of all State and Territory Ministers and, of course, as everyone knows, the bulk of those Ministers are Labor Ministers. At that meeting I moved a motion that the costs of TAFE for 1992 might be examined because of the immediate need. That was done. Last Friday in Melbourne the examination revealed that in order to provide an additional 50,000 places in TAFE next year, the TAFE system would need an injection of about $135 million. All honourable members would know that because of the recession New South Wales and the other States do not have that sort of money. It was clear that the Commonwealth had to perform and the Minister was given an unequivocal order in the strongest possible terms to return to Canberra and get some money into our TAFE system.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister made an employment statement. That employment statement means that an additional $34.2 million will be available for New South Wales TAFE next year. I welcome that assistance and I thank the Federal Minister for listening for the first time. It is rare, but he listened to the demands of the States and, as a result, approximately 15,000 additional places in TAFE will be provided in 1992. The conditions are that the grant is a one-off arrangement; the funds must flow directly into the TAFE system; the additional places must be new places, not simply existing places, and must be developed in a way to accommodate the maximum number of students in the most flexible ways; and, further, the States and Territories must indicate the areas in which they intend to achieve efficiency gains. I am sure all honourable members will recall that two days ago in this House I indicated that the New South Wales TAFE system was seeking efficiency from the recreational and leisure courses. That will be done in a sensitive way next year. TAFE has been directed by the Commonwealth that to receive this funding it must ensure that TAFE has a program of priorities. All honourable members would know and appreciate that the priority in TAFE at the present time is vocational education and training and second-chance education.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is too much audible conversation in the Chamber. If members wish to converse, will they please do it outside and not inside the Chamber.
Mr FAHEY: A condition that I am placing on the additional funding is that 50 per cent be provided for those 25 years and under. We know that school leavers are in
Page 4813
need of the funding that is available. We also know of the demand that will be there next year. We should address the areas of demand that will mean something for the future of this State and this country. It is interesting to note that the funding that New South Wales was given - this is one of the few occasions - was on a per capita basis; that is, the proportion of the population of New South Wales as compared with the population of Australia. If funding had been on the basis of the proportion of the population in TAFE colleges in New South Wales, which is more than 40 per cent of the national TAFE college population, we would have received $5.5 million extra. I made that point to Mr Dawkins. However, I am grateful for the assistance. It will not be the answer to all our problems; it will assist considerably. Because of the restructuring of TAFE by this Government we will be able to utilise this funding next year to assist the unemployed. The big winners from yesterday, as a result of considerable urging by me and the New South Wales Government, are the unemployed, who will get assistance.
TAFE FEDERAL FUNDING
Mr JEFFERY: I have a supplementary question. In view of what has been said by the Minister, how will part-time teachers be affected?
Mr FAHEY: I am grateful to the honourable member for Oxley for bringing my attention to a matter which has also been the subject of considerable stories, myths and lies circulating recently. It has been bandied about by honourable members opposite and those in the teacher movement who simply want to create mischief that there is a cut in TAFE funding. I am sure that all those members of this House who attended the estimates committee meetings - I did not notice too many of the faces in the audience opposite - the interested members who wanted to check on what the estimates committees were about, would recognise that this year's Budget did not lead to any cuts in TAFE funding. After a considerable time in the Industrial Commission a wages decision was delivered. It required all full-time teachers to work 20 hours a week instead of 18 in front of the class. It also said that the 1938 antiquated restrictive practice of daylight equivalent was abolished. As a result of those two factors 20 per cent more teaching hours are available from full-time teachers. That means that the backup from casuals is not required to the same degree as in previous years.
We are not setting about abolishing part-time teacher positions. I am very conscious of the fact that part-time teachers frequently bring into the teaching process the experience of industry because they work on other occasions in industry and can bring the latest methodology and developments to the classroom. Output is considerably enhanced by such a process. However, there will be fewer part-time teachers as a result of the decision by the Industrial Commission. I note the demonstration here yesterday by the graphic design students from the Randwick College of Technical and Further Education. I note also that they came from Randwick, which is one of the headquarters of the TAFE Teachers Association in this State. They wanted to find out what was occurring with the graphic design courses at Randwick next year. Their great white hope was the honourable member for Riverstone. He was to jump. He did not jump; he was asleep as usual. As a result, the students were pretty upset. They were put up in the top gallery to wait for an answer but unfortunately the question was not asked.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Drummoyne to order.
[Interruption]
Page 4814
Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is far too much audible conversation. With interjections as well it is very difficult for anyone to hear. I know that it has been a long and exhausting week but that is no excuse for dropping the standards of dignity and decorum of the House. I ask for everybody's co-operation in ensuring that question time is heard in silence.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Ashfield to order.
Mr FAHEY: I assure the graphic design students from Randwick TAFE, as I did earlier this week, that all re-enrolments will be accommodated. All courses for those currently in the system will be provided next year. All courses within the system will be repeated next year for those going into their second, third or fourth year. As far as the new intake is concerned, I am happy to say - yesterday's decision assists - the normal intake for graphic design will occur. That college is a centre of excellence in the area. That was recognised by this Government in developing the infrastructure. It has been operating in conditions which can be described only as less than optimal. The Enmore college, the former Enmore High School, with which the honourable member for Marrickville is fully familiar and which he supports fully, will commence graphic design courses and courses in many other areas of design in 1993. This Government will invest $12.5 million for this to occur. Yesterday's decision also means that there will be a demand for more part-time teachers than might otherwise have been the case. I want to finish on this point: people with no hope are seeking to get skills through the TAFE system because of the unemployment caused by the Federal Government's recession. If TAFE teachers of this State were serious about solving the problem, and if they were serious about skills development, and the problems of unemployment, they would consider increasing class sizes of 30 pupils or 15 pupils, depending on the type of course being undertaken. Those maximum class sizes may be relevant to schoolchildren but they are not relevant to or practised in universities. They are not relevant to adult student classes in TAFE colleges. If those class sizes were increased to 33 or 34 instead of 30 pupils per class, and 16, 17, or 18 instead of 15 pupils per class, it would assist enormously in coping with demand, whatever it might be, next year. Unfortunately they play their little game of maintaining the processes that were developed in the 1970s, which in itself is a major factor in not meeting the demand for student places in TAFE colleges, despite the problems being caused by the Federal Government's recession.
WATER BOARD CONSULTANCIES
Ms ALLAN: My question without notice is to the Minister for Housing. Did the Minister tell the House two weeks ago that the 1991 annual report of the Water Board listed expenditure on consultants at $18 million? Why did the Water Board last week recall that annual report from the printers to alter the section dealing with consultants? Why does the corrected copy of the annual report now include a new category of expenditure on consultants, showing a further $15.9 million - bringing the total to more than $34 million? Why did he mislead the House?
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Minister was asked the question. He has the call.
Mr SCHIPP: The honourable member for Blacktown makes the honourable member for Coogee seem like the epitome of credibility. Since the honourable member
Page 4815
for Blacktown was appointed as spokesperson for the Opposition, she has misled the people, the Parliament and this House.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Kogarah to order.
Mr SCHIPP: What is in the Water Board report is exactly what I said last week. The report shows expenditure on consultancies of $18.7 million, of which $950,000 is expended on other government departments and agencies. The report has been fully audited by the Office of Public Management. A statement has been issued on that aspect and the report is entirely within the guidelines. A couple of weeks ago in this House the honourable member for Blacktown could not even read accurately a detailed report. If she had added the date column and put a dollar sign in front of it, she would have been more credible. That would have had more bearing on the situation than what the honourable member for Blacktown said. Members of the media have told me that they will double-check, triple-check and then probably place in the waste paper basket anything that the honourable member for Blacktown issues, because her credibility is rock bottom, shot - and she knows it. Last week the honourable member for Blacktown went on about the tunnel project in the Blue Mountains but -
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Blue Mountains to order.
Mr SCHIPP: She was dead set wrong.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Blue Mountains to order for the second time.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Blacktown to order for the second time. As I said earlier, there is far too much interjection. It is disruptive of question time, it wastes time, and it precludes members from asking the maximum number of questions. I have been reasonably tolerant so far with members who have interrupted proceedings. I will now begin to call members to order for much lesser offences than I have so far. The Minister for Housing has the call.
Mr SCHIPP: We may get to the stage where the honourable member for Blacktown will do what she did a few years ago when she claimed there were toxins in Homebush Bay, and then said: "I am sorry I said there were dioxins at Haslams Creek. I can give no evidence that proves the claim". Her credibility compares with the honourable member for Heffron, who went to the Co-operative Housing Societies Association -
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Wallsend to order.
Mr SCHIPP: She thought her listing -
Page 4816
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Londonderry to order.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Ermington to order. I call the honourable member for Ballina to order.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! That outburst was unpardonable and without reason. It reflects badly upon this Chamber and I am sure it is a source of considerable concern to people in the public gallery.
[Interruption from gallery]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am happy for visitors in the gallery to accord with my views but I remind them that they have no right to participate. I warn members that if I have to discipline them, they run the risk of being named under Standing Order 387, which carries a possible penalty of a member being away from the House for two weeks. I take that measure only in view of the fact that members have not taken my advice to conduct themselves with decorum, and they leave me with no alternative other than to take an extreme course of action. I ask all members to co-operate.
Mr SCHIPP: The honourable member for Heffron attended the Co-operative Housing Societies Association's annual conference at Port Macquarie. She mistook the agenda. She thought she was on the entertainment bracket because she got up and made the most stupid speech I have ever heard; 35 points about the rent/buy scheme - every one of them wrong in either the assertion or the assumption of what it all meant. That has upset the co-operatives across New South Wales. If the people in the Water Board could get to the honourable member for Blacktown, she would be flushed out to sea, never to be seen again. That is what they think of her. The annual report of the Water Board will be brought down in the next week or so and we will see the veracity of what this member has said in this Parliament. I do not know what can be done about her numerical literacy, because she cannot add up; and she cannot read figures. The best material can be put in front of her and she does not know how to extract the information.
ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION AUTHORITY FORMAL LAUNCH
Dr REFSHAUGE: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for the Environment. Has the Minister sent invitations to industry representatives, inviting them to attend the formal launch of the Environment Protection Authority at the Regent Hotel on 6th December? Why is he requesting that payments to attend this $75 per head breakfast be made to his branch of the Liberal Party? Why are official launches of Greiner Government policies being used as Liberal Party fund raising events?
Mr MOORE: I am well aware that a variety of honourable members have arranged fund raising functions, including a number of notorious ones under the former President of the Legislative Council in his dining-room. I am aware of the honourable member for Blacktown having fund raising functions in the dining-room of this Parliament, inviting the Federal Minister for the Environment, the Hon. Ros Kelly - a decent and honourable woman - to launch Labor Party environmental policy issues. I understand that those invitations were issued on her letterhead. I understand that that is a practice that has been adopted by a variety of members on both sides of this House for
Page 4817
a long period of time. The fact that I have done so in my capacity as member for Gordon, on my member for Gordon letterhead, for a function organised by the Liberal Party is simply following the practice that a range of honourable members on both sides of this House have done for many years.
Later,
Mr MOORE: I wish to provide a supplementary answer to an answer I gave earlier this day to a question asked by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. At the commencement of this answer I wish to apologise to the honourable member for Tamworth, whom I had assumed until now was the person most likely to ask a question in this House on behalf of the New South Wales Farmers Association, because the New South Wales Farmers Association has been hawking round the question asked by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition of me today. I wish to indicate quite clearly, if I did not make it clear enough earlier, that the letter to which the Deputy Leader of the Opposition referred is written on my electorate office letterhead. It was signed by me in my capacity as the member for Gordon, and it appears in exactly the same fashion as that adopted by a variety of honourable members. I suggest to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that if he wants to get into bed with the New South Wales Farmers Association, he should consult Professor Penington before he does so. I lay on the table of the House copy of the letter for the information of honourable members.
FEDERAL ROADWORKS FUNDING
Mr COCHRAN: My question is directed to the Deputy Premier, Minister for Public Works and Minister for Roads. What effect will yesterday's economic statement by the Prime Minister have on the New South Wales roads program? Has the Deputy Premier been advised whether projects designated by the Federal Government are the most suitable for accelerated construction and job creation?
Mr W. T. J. MURRAY: The honourable member for Monaro would be as concerned as anyone that the main road link between Canberra and Queanbeyan, the Kings Highway, is not on the list. For many years he has laboured to ensure that this important but poorly maintained highway is improved. It would be churlish in the extreme to say other than that the New South Wales Government welcomes the action of the Federal Government in allocating $21 million to be spent on roads in 1992. We support any initiative designed to improve roads and to increase the level of Federal funding, which has been on a downward trend for the past three years. In fact, because of the withdrawal of Federal funds and the downturn in State revenue brought about by the Federally inspired recession, the Government has been forced to abandon any start on new works this year and concentrate on existing projects and maintenance. For that reason the availability of funding for roads is welcomed. Unfortunately, some of the projects nominated by the Federal Government are entirely inappropriate for accelerated construction. Today at my request the Premier sent a message to the Prime Minister that proposes an immediate start on the Glebe Island Bridge, which will create 250 jobs immediately and a total of 1,000 jobs within 18 months. Without spending one single extra dollar this year the Federal Government could create 1,000 jobs and get under way a vital link on Sydney's east-west transport spine.
The Glebe Island Bridge has great significance to the New South Wales bid for the year 2000 Olympic Games. It is estimated to cost $150 million, the preferred contractor has been chosen, and the Federal Government has approved initial funding of $65 million. I have requested such an agreement but it has not been forthcoming. I am steadfastly opposed to committing the New South Wales Government to a project that could founder as a consequence of the withdrawal of Federal funding at a future date.
Page 4818
As of yesterday it is clear that the Federal Government is prepared to commit funds far beyond 1993. The Premier has asked the Prime Minister to include the Glebe Island Bridge project specifically for guaranteed funding to its completion. By agreeing to commit the full amount to the project, and without actually spending any additional money this year, or next, work on the Glebe Island Bridge could start immediately. Instead, the Federal Government has listed a number of works, some of which are urgent and can be undertaken in the short-term but others are unnecessary or require commitment to the expenditure of much greater funds.
The New South Wales Government is not willing to make any commitments without irrevocable guarantees from the Federal Government that funds will be forthcoming. I refer specifically to the Yass bypass, for which the Federal Government has brought forward $2.5 million. The next stage of the project will be the letting of a contract for an estimated $34 million which could take place early in the new year. Expenditure against that contract of $5.8 million is readily achievable, but to spend that money without a formal Federal commitment to provide the entire $34 million is unacceptable. Similarly, the Mittagong bypass, for which the Federal Government has offered $2.5 million, is running well ahead and will be completed in August 1992. The last contract for that bypass has been let and throwing more money at it will achieve absolutely nothing. In fact, not only is the project ahead of schedule, it will also come in about $8 million under budget. I do not wish to denigrate the offer of the Federal Government to accelerate the funding of these projects but I have used these specific projects to demonstrate that the money being offered could be better used if the Federal Government agreed to guarantee the continued funding of the Glebe Island Bridge. I hope that the Prime Minister will see the merit of the proposal put to him today by the Premier and respond promptly.
PRISONER RAYMOND JOHN DENNING
Mr WHELAN: I direct a question without notice to the Minister for Justice. Why did the Minister fail to request the Offenders Review Board to report to him in terms of section 50(2)(a) of the Sentencing Act 1989 on the notorious criminal Raymond John Denning? Given the failure of the Minister to act in that regard, how can he justify the early release of Denning, knowing full well that compliance with the Sentencing Act by the Minister could have led to Denning's retention in prison?
Mr GRIFFITHS: I wonder when the honourable member for Ashfield will familiarise himself with the law. Though he studied it, he does not understand it. The Offenders Review Board was set up by this House in a bipartisan way. It is not answerable to the Minister. On 26th April, 1991, the Supreme Court decided that Raymond John Denning's life sentence would be for a period of 15 years and nine months for a most heinous crime committed by him in 1976 when he bashed a prison officer with a claw hammer. The officer subsequently died. There is only one avenue of appeal for the Director of Public Prosecutions from that decision of the Supreme Court. Though the director was as outraged about the crime as we all are he determined that the appeal would not stand. Therefore, Denning becomes eligible for release on 25 November, 1991. On 11th November the Offenders Review Board met and determined that Denning would be released on that date. There is nothing that I as Minister, or this Parliament or Government can do to change the decision of the Offenders Review Board.
Mr Whelan: Yes there is.
Mr GRIFFITHS: I disagree. The Offenders Review Board, under the provisions of the legislation, will determine when prisoners should be released. If the honourable member for Ashfield has additional evidence, I would be delighted to read and consider it.
Page 4819
FOOD AND PRODUCE IMPORTATION
Mr SMALL: I address a question without notice to Minister for Agriculture and Rural Affairs. For what reason is Australia importing large quantities of processed food and fresh produce at low prices at a time when New South Wales farmers are ploughing crops back into the ground? What can be done to address this serious issue of food dumping by overseas countries?
Mr ARMSTRONG: Last year Australia imported more than $2 billion worth of food. Every day we consume more than $5 million of imported food. Most of the types of food imported are also grown in Australia. This year Australia will consume an increasing quantity of imported food.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Smithfield to order and I warn him of my earlier ruling.
Mr ARMSTRONG: Included among that imported food will be $36 million of imported meat, $123 million of dairy products, $105 million of cereals and $61 million of sugar. Farmers in my electorate of Lachlan are casualties of such imports.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is far too much audible conversation in the Chamber.
Mr ARMSTRONG: In the past two years Australia has imported more than $55 million worth of tomatoes. A few months ago the Canned Food Information Service applied for dumping and countervailing duties on imported canned tomatoes from Italy, Thailand, China and Spain. Its report shows that importers now have more than 40 per cent of the Australian canned tomato market. If the trend continues, by 1997 there will be no canned tomato industry in Australia. It will be the end of tomato farming in Australia, especially in the Lachlan Valley. I hope the Anti-Dumping Authority will agree with the farmers and processors and the majority of the industry and grant a dumping duty so that Australian farmers can compete equally on what has often been called by the Federal Government a level playing field. The Federal Government has failed to create such a playing field in recent years. That was not the case in July when the powers that be in Canberra disallowed an application for duty on canned pears and peaches in what seemed to be a clear case of dumping. The Federal Government is undertaking a review of dumping procedures. The review, which is almost complete, is long overdue. It takes many months for food producers and processors to gather sufficient information to complete an application for a dumping case. When that is done the Anti-Dumping Authority can take almost a year to process it. During that time serious damage may be done to agricultural industries that are already on their knees because of the recession, falling commodity prices, and a seriously worsening drought. In October solicitors Freehill Hollingdale and Page released a report entitled "The Australian Anti-Dumping System - The Need for Radical Reform". The report written by partners in that firm of solicitors and senior lawyers with a depth of experience in anti-dumping, customs and trade, states:
The current 4-stage approach of investigation and decision-making in dumping matters is inefficient.
Page 4820
The report continues:
The . . . constraints on the system do not encourage confidence in it by those whose interests are dealt with by the authorities.
The report recommends reforms that will "centralise dumping investigations" and "reduce the overall time consumed by an anti-dumping investigation". Any measures that will simplify what is currently a very complex procedure have to be of great benefit to farmers and processors in New South Wales. At the moment the food industry has no confidence in the legislation or in the Anti-Dumping Authority to provide the mechanisms for fair and equitable competition. Despite the fact that applications for anti-dumping investigations are on the increase, agricultural produce does not figure very highly in the Anti-Dumping Authority's investigations. Since the ADA was set up in 1988 there have been two successful investigations into food dumping of evaporated milk and bulk brandy and one unsuccessful investigation involving pasta from Italy. In its first two years of operation the ADA processed a grand total of 27 cases. Little wonder that primary producer and processor confidence in the authority and legislation is at an all-time low. We are now in one of the most extreme droughts that New South Wales and Australia have suffered for more than a decade. It is time that our attitude towards giving assistance to the Australian food processing and producing industry came to reality. We are long overdue in realising that we have become a dumping ground for countries that are not playing fair. The Federal Government has neither the ability nor the intestinal fortitude to address in a proper and responsible fashion one of the greatest intrusions on free enterprise this country has ever seen, an invasion under many guises by overseas countries that is taking away our market share of our own productive capacity.
CONVEYANCING DEREGULATION
Mr AMERY: I direct my question without notice to the Attorney General, Minister for Consumer Affairs and Minister for Arts. Following the defeat of the Attorney General in Cabinet over the deregulation of the legal system, has he now received two applications from the Law Society to prosecute conveyancing companies? Can the Attorney General tell this House what action he intends to take with those applications?
Mr COLLINS: I thank the honourable member for his question. I do not know on what information the honourable member's question is based. It is correct that earlier in the year, two or three months ago, I received a proposal for prosecution of a conveyancing firm, which was in order. To the best of my knowledge that is the only one I have received. I do not know why he suggests I have received two today. In that particular instance the paper work put forward by the department on behalf of the Law Society was in order and the prosecution was authorised. I am unaware of any additional prosecutions which have been recommended since then, approximately two or three months ago.
ABORIGINAL LAND COUNCIL ELECTIONS
Mr FRASER: I direct my question without notice to the Premier, Treasurer and Minister for Ethnic Affairs. What action has the Government taken to ensure that Aboriginal people will be able to cast their vote in an informed and democratic manner in the forthcoming Aboriginal Land Council elections?
Page 4821
Mr GREINER: I thank the honourable member for his question. As the House knows, on 19th October last year Parliament passed unanimously the Aboriginal Land Rights Amendment Bill 1990 which, amongst other things, provided for members of local Aboriginal land councils to elect by popular vote 13 councillors in direct elections conducted by the Electoral Commission. The 13 councillors will form the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council and represent their regions for four years. For the first time these will be full-time positions and the councillors will be suitably remunerated. This is appropriate because the functions of the Land Council have been greatly expanded under the provisions of the 1990 Act. In particular, they now include, first, a greater role in overseeing compliance with financial and accounting provisions of the Act. The council is itself managing, for example, the operations of the uniform accounting system and has established an internal audit branch.
Second, although funding of a local Aboriginal land council must cease if that council fails to obtain a satisfactory audit, the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council may continue to make payments on behalf of that council so that the whole community does not suffer because of the failure of good administration. Third, the Act now provides for the sale of land that is not culturally significant so as to enable local land councils to make better economic use of their lands, including mortgaging lands to obtain loans for economic enterprises, provided certain requirements are met. I am sure all members of the House will be pleased to note that 90 Aboriginal people have nominated to stand for election as councillors for the 13 regional areas in the elections to be held tomorrow, Saturday, 16th November. About 13,000 members of local Aboriginal land councils are eligible to vote. This week, as Minister responsible, I wrote to all members of the 117 local land councils encouraging them to participate in the election to ensure that the best possible leadership is elected. I pointed out to the Aboriginal electors that the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council will become the most important Aboriginal body in New South Wales. The letter said:
It will have a large budget and important responsibilities. I will be looking to the council more and more for advice on all matters affecting the Aboriginal people of New South Wales.
In our efforts to make sure that the elections will proceed smoothly, a task force comprising officers from the Electoral Commission, the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council and the Office of Aboriginal Affairs has been formed to monitor the election processes, publicity and timing procedures. The New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council has so far organised information days in each of the 13 regions and provided appropriate publicity material. The office of Aboriginal Affairs has participated in the information processes and an amount of $400,000 is in the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council's budget for the conduct of the election. Also, the Office of Aboriginal Affairs has provided $486,000 towards the cost, specifically to acquaint local Aboriginal land councils with electoral information.
I look forward to the outcome of the election tomorrow and to working with the newly elected councillors for the betterment of Aboriginal people in the same spirit of co-operation that has been so clearly evident during the past year. I would like to pay tribute to the efforts of my assistant Minister, the honourable member for Strathfield, in bringing about this new partnership between the Government and the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council, and indeed to pay a compliment to Mr David Clark, the chairman of that council, for his contribution. I think that tomorrow's election, if it is run in the way that it appears it will be run and if it is implemented with the co-operation and substantial understanding and good will of Aboriginals in New South Wales, will be the largest step forward that Aboriginals in this State have made.
Page 4822TAFE TEACHERS DISCIPLINE
Mr J. H. MURRAY: I direct my question without notice to the Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Further Education, Training and Employment. Have three TAFE teachers recently received threats of disciplinary action as a result of their commenting on the Minister's media statements? Was the Minister responsible for initiating this action? Will the Minister take steps to overcome this attempted gagging of TAFE teachers' democratic rights?
Mr FAHEY: The answer to the first question is that I do not know. I am aware of one particular TAFE teacher who has been conducting a program in the Illawarra Mercury in relation to statements that he made. I understand he did receive a disciplinary notice in terms of the comments that he was making about the decision of the full bench of the Industrial Commission. I recognise it is the right of any individual to make any statement and I would never seek to suppress that freedom of being able to express oneself. In terms of that particular incident he has clearly identified himself as a TAFE teacher and has made statements which are not within the guidelines of the public sector generally. At the same time I recognise the sensitivity of such an issue. In terms of that or any other matter being dealt with by me, the simple answer is: no, I do not deal with such matters. It is dealt with by the management of TAFE as it is dealt with in all other departments in a similar fashion. I have no intention of becoming involved in the matters raised in the final part of the honourable member's question. Administration of that nature ought to be at arm's length from the Government and from any Minister. I shall continue to operate that way.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT RESOURCE AND EQUIPMENT MANAGEMENT
Mr TURNER: I address my question without notice to the Minister for Local Government and Minister for Cooperatives. In light of the current economic conditions, what action is the Government taking to help local councils manage their resources and equipment more effectively? In particular, is there scope for groups of councils to operate as co-operatives to provide services?
Mr PEACOCKE: Honourable members of this honourable House well know that the current recession has created a very real need for councils to effect greater efficiencies while maintaining the highest possible level of service to the ratepayers. As part of the overall review of the Local Government Act, the whole question of how to provide better services more cheaply has been given considerable attention. The key to lowering council costs is co-operation between councils. In effect, it boils down to sharing resources, which is an option pushed by this Government. The discussion paper covering the proposed new legislation, which I released about three months ago, will give councils for the first time the freedom to pool resources. Under the proposed local government legislation councils will have a broad variety of options under which they can share resources and pursue common interests. Councils will be able to enter into the widest possible range of contractual agreements with other councils, and other public or private bodies to carry out supply functions.
The legislation will also empower them to create joint councils; to establish co-operatives to undertake local authority supply functions; and to join associations, including regional organisations or associations of councils. The range of activities that can be undertaken jointly by councils will be limited only by the imagination and inventiveness of the councillors themselves. As people from neighbouring local government areas recognise that the benefits of co-operation far outweigh the illusory
Page 4823
independence of going it alone, there will be a growing push for carrying out an increasing variety of activities on a multicouncil basis. Indeed, I had talks with a council this morning on that very issue. Many councils are effectively wasting their ratepayers' money by undertaking certain functions on their own or purchasing capital equipment that is frequently left standing idle when it could be far more economically operated in co-operation with other councils. In practice, many informal and co-operative-type arrangements are already used by councils. These will continue as needed without unnecessary supervision by the State Government.
This Government wants councils to have the widest possible powers to make agreements with other councils or any other party to supply services to ratepayers at the most efficient and lowest cost possible. The new legislation will broaden the current county council system by allowing local councils to establish similar joint councils at district and regional levels. Councils will be able to delegate administrative and supply services to such county, district or regional councils. The types of functions that might be delegated would range from water supply and flood control to the eradication of noxious plants. Councils will also be able to form official co-operatives for the first time, which will have significant benefits to councils in that they have equal voting strength in such an organisation. These new structural and cost-saving possibilities are part of the Government's review of the local government legislation. They offer to councils a new era of efficiency, of managing resources much better than they have been able to manage them in the past, and I believe this will lead to great benefit to the ratepayers of New South Wales.
ABORIGINAL LAND CLAIMS
Mr WEST: I wish to give a supplementary answer to a question without notice asked yesterday by the honourable member for Keira in relation to Aboriginal land claims. I can advise the House that correspondence has been received by me from the Minister for Local Government and Minister for Cooperatives that refers specifically to two Aboriginal land claims lodged in respect of the site of the Department of School Education building in Bridge Street. The Minister expressed concern that where land had been occupied for many years for government purposes such claims may be unreasonable. This matter is currently subject to an appeal before the Land and Environment Court, and the Government will await the decision of that court.
______
BILL RETURNED
The following bill was returned from the Legislative Council without amendment:
Government Insurance Office (Privatisation) Bill
JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE UPON THE CONSTITUTION (FIXED TERM PARLIAMENTS) BILL
Message
Mr Speaker reported the receipt of the following message from the Legislative Council:
Page 4824
The Legislative Council desires to inform the Legislative Assembly that the following Members have been nominated to serve on the Joint Select Committee on the Fixed Term Parliaments Bills:
Government Members: Mr Bull, Mrs Evans, Mr Moppett, Mr Samios and Mrs Sham-Ho.
Opposition Members: Mr Egan, Mr Shaw and Mr Vaughan.
Non-Government Member: Mr Jones
Legislative Council Max Willis
15th November, 1991 President
COASTAL PROTECTION (AMENDMENT) BILL
Bill received and read a first time.
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Grievance Debate: Suspension of Standing and Sessional Orders
Mr MOORE (Gordon), Minister for the Environment [3.15], by leave: I move:
That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would preclude the reduction of the period of time available for ministerial responses in reply to grievances this afternoon being reduced from five to three minutes on each occasion.
Mr WHELAN (Ashfield) [3.16]: I acknowledge the motion moved by the Leader of the House and I thank him for it. However, people become confused in Parliament. Unfortunately, one of the motions moved on Wednesday evening, which was opposed by the Opposition and the Independent members, prohibited the moving of this type of motion on a Thursday.
Mr Moore: I have obtained the leave of the House.
Mr WHELAN: As the Minister moved the motion by leave, the Opposition is happy for this procedure to be adopted.
Motion agreed to.
PETITIONS
St Joseph's Hospital
Petitions praying that the Minister for Health Services Management intervene to save St Joseph's Hospital from closure and that the necessary funding and support staff be provided to allow it to continue to operate as a public hospital, received from Mr Davoren, Mr Nagle, Mr Scully, Mr Shedden, Mr Yeadon and Mr Ziolkowski.
Royal Hospital for Women
Petition praying that the House provide funding to the Royal Hospital for Women to ensure that it maintains its leadership role in women's health care, received from Ms Moore.
Page 4825
Lidcombe Hospital
Petitions praying that the House reject any proposals to close down or cut back services or staffing at Lidcombe Hospital but instead support an increase in services and staffing at the hospital, received from Mr Davoren, Mr Nagle, Mr Scully, Mr Yeadon and Mr Ziolkowski.
Sydney Hospital
Petition praying that the House reconsider the decision to downgrade Sydney Hospital but that the hospital be allowed to continue to provide the health services that are essential to the well-being of the residents and workers of the city of Sydney, received from Mr Moss.
Balmain Hospital
Petition praying that the Balmain Hospital remain as a district hospital service providing casualty, medical and surgical beds, received from Ms Nori.
Chaelundi State Forest
Petitions praying that the proposed logging of the Chaelundi State Forest not be proceeded with and that the area be declared an extension of the Guy Fawkes River National Park, received from Dr Macdonald and Ms Moore.
Woollahra Traffic
Petition praying that the House take all necessary steps to reduce the traffic volume in Ocean Street, Woollahra, and that Ocean Street be returned to a safe and pleasant street consistent with residential neighbourhood values, received from Ms Moore.
Royal Agricultural Society Showground
Petition praying that the House will prevent the sale by the Government of foreshore and public parklands, including the Royal Agricultural Society Showground, the E. S. Marks Athletic Field and part of Moore Park, and that residents be included on their administrative bodies, received from Ms Moore.
Walker Estates
Petition praying that the Government preserve the Walker estates, including Yaralla, for public use, received from Ms Moore.
Cooks River Pollution
Petition praying that the House take steps to restore the Cooks River to its original condition, received from Ms Moore.
Sydney Harbour Foreshores
Petition praying that the House stop the sale of publicly owned land on the foreshores of Port Jackson and its waterways, including that currently leased from the Maritime Services Board, and retain such land in public ownership; acquire for the public
Page 4826
foreshore land whenever the opportunity arises; and optimise public access to the foreshore, received from Ms Moore.
Microchip Implants in Dogs
Petition praying that because of concern at the cost of microchip implantation for dogs and the long-term health problems that may develop in dogs from such a procedure, the House should not alter the Dog Act to make microchip implants in dogs compulsory, received from Mr Hunter.
Reef Beach
Petition praying that the nudist classification for Reef Beach be revoked and that the beach be returned to general public usage, received from Dr Macdonald.
Adoption Information Act
Petition praying that the Government take urgent action to prevent the damage that will be done by the Adoption Information Act becoming effective in its present form, received from Dr Macdonald.
Health Services
Petition praying that funding cuts to health services and hospitals cease and that funding be provided to ensure that waiting lists for hospitals and operations are eliminated, received from Mr Gaudry.
Water Rate Payments at Post Offices
Petitions praying that for the convenience of customers, particularly the elderly and those without private transport, the Minister for Housing reappraise the facilities available for the payment of water rates to include post offices, received from Mr Rumble and Mr Sullivan.
Unanderra Police Station
Petition praying that the Government and Minister for Police and Emergency Services reappraise the staffing formula for Unanderra police station and upgrade the staffing-manning level to at least six officers, received from Mr Rumble.
Seniors Card
Petition praying that the Government act immediately to adopt a seniors card similar to that used in other States of Australia, received from Mr Irwin.
Citizen-Initiated Referendums
Petition praying that because of public concern that elected governments are not obeying the will of God, the House will support the private member's bill entitled the Constitution (Citizen-Initiated Referendums) Amendment Bill, received from Mr Petch.
GRIEVANCE DEBATE
Mr SPEAKER: The question is, That grievances be noted.
Page 4827
MUNGO NATIONAL PARK
Mr SMALL (Murray) [3.22]: I take the opportunity during the grievance debate to raise the issue of Mungo National Park, which is a World Heritage site of great significance. The Hon. T. J. Moore, the Minister for the Environment, has responsibility for the National Parks and Wildlife Service. The site is being considered for handing over to the Aboriginal community or an Aboriginal land council. People living in the area and landholders adjacent to the site have strong objections to the proposals. I have raised strong objections myself. The Minister's attitude has been fair and he has stated that the proposal will lay on the table for some time so that full consultation can take place. The Minister has visited Lake Mungo and I understand that he will go there again in the next week to speak to landholders in the area. Last Saturday His Excellency Rear Admiral Peter Sinclair and Mrs Sinclair visited Mungo National Park with George Townsend, the regional officer of the National Parks and Wildlife Service. I invited the landholders neighbouring the national park to attend at the site and we met last Saturday morning. It appears that originally no land council applied for the handing over of the area but now a number of land councils have proposed that the area be handed over to them. In the presence of His Excellency, his wife and myself a number of landholders expressed concern regarding the western lands properties that they lease.
Most of the area is used for sheep grazing and they are experiencing difficulties because of competition from the kangaroo and rabbit populations. If any site of significance, such as one containing Aboriginal bones or a historic site, is found on their property they may not be able to farm the area, reducing their holdings. In these difficult times that is significant. I ask the Minister, when he speaks to the neighbouring landholders, to consider their views on the handing over of Mungo to an Aboriginal land council. All the people I have met have the strong view that it is part of Australia and should be owned by all Australians. There is no objection to members of the Aboriginal community being able to work on Lake Mungo. They have a positive role. The neighbouring landholders should be allowed to manage their farming operations successfully without the National Parks and Wildlife Service creating difficulties. The farmers have improved the properties. Kangaroos and rabbits from the national park area enter the farming properties and the landholders have difficulty controlling the vermin. I know that the National Parks and Wildlife Service people endeavour to do the best they can with limited funds to control the vermin. I hope the Minister will take on board the matters I have raised today. I have always found him to be very honest and positive and I thank him for visiting the area to deal with the concerns of the local people.
Mr MOORE (Gordon), Minister for the Environment [3.27]: I thank the honourable member for Murray for his contribution. It will be my very great pleasure at his request and at the request of the landholders adjacent to Mungo National Park to visit that national park for the second time in this half year to discuss the Government's proposals for Aboriginal national park areas which are of great cultural significance to the local Aboriginal people. As I said yesterday, the Government will meet the very strong concerns submitted by the honourable member for Murray that there should be a statutory right for at least two of the adjacent landholders to be on the management board of any parks which are rededicated back to the Aboriginal people. I also said yesterday - I am sure the honourable member for Murray is aware of this - that at present there is what could be described delicately as considerable factionalism amongst the Aboriginal communities in the local area.
I do not propose to deal with the Aboriginal communities in any of these areas unless they are united within themselves. From my understanding, I think that is unlikely
Page 4828
to occur in the near future. I expect the first of these agreements to be entered into for Mootwingee rather than for Lake Mungo. The statute will simply make it possible rather than imperative that Lake Mungo to go ahead. I think it is unlikely that Lake Mungo will be dealt with, even if the local Aboriginal community gets its act together, before the end of 1992 at the earliest. I hope that by then the surrounding landholders will be able to see a model at Mootwingee which will show that it is a non-threatening proposal. The honourable member for Murray and I are anxious not to cause any difficulties to them. As I joked to the House yesterday, I have told the Aboriginal communities in the area that I can get myself into quite enough difficulty dealing with white people's politics without getting involved in black people's politics.
YOUTH CRISIS ACCOMMODATION
Mr MOSS (Canterbury) [3.30]: On 26th July I received correspondence from the Minister for Housing advising me that the Canterbury housing committee had received funding under the crisis accommodation program for the purchase of suitable property for youth crisis accommodation. That funding was from the 1990-92 program. The crisis accommodation program was established through a joint Commonwealth-State housing agreement. I was pleased that an effort was being made to assist youth crisis accommodation within my region and this program specifically concentrates on homeless youth and youth at risk. My first reaction to the Minister's letter was to let out that now famous cliche, "Good on you, Joe". In the past five years my electorate has received assistance on only rare occasions. Therefore, when I do receive assistance from the Government it gives me cause to celebrate.
Mr Schipp: What about Leigh Place?
Mr MOSS: I will speak briefly about Leigh Place. If it were not for me Leigh Place would never have come about. The Minister does not know the full story. When I was mayor of Canterbury, Leigh Place consisted of excess Department of Education property, which Canterbury council had the option to buy. It bought that property and hived off one-third of the land for aged persons' accommodation. That was done at my instigation. If it were not for me, Leigh Place would not exist. I started the ball rolling.
Mr Schipp: Your successor told me quite a different story.
Mr MOSS: My successor had it wrong. I assure the Minister that it was at my instigation that the council acquired that land. The other two-thirds of the land were sold at a time when property values skyrocketed and the council stood to gain a considerable sum of money. Returning to the youth crisis accommodation, following the presentation of the Budget Papers I examined them to see whether the previous year's funding had been spent on housing accommodation. Lo and behold, nothing had eventuated. My first reaction was to suspect that perhaps the Government was withholding the funds, that the allocation had been shelved, as some weeks earlier the Government had announced that it was going to withdraw welfare programs from the Riverwood Community Centre. However, following considerable public protest the decision was made to allocate $93,000 towards that program. I must admit I was sceptical about anything eventuating with respect to youth housing accommodation.
The money is now available and a house is to be purchased, but there are delays. The delay rests with the department, which as I see it, is too slow in giving the green light to purchase a property. When the department finally approved of the purchase the property had been sold. I emphasise that the fault does not rest with the community
Page 4829
programs section of the department. I am reliably informed that that group is most diligent in assessing the suitability of available houses for this particular purpose. To give an example, some time ago a house in Dudley Street, Punchbowl, was considered suitable. It took the community program section two days to agree to the purchase. Unfortunately, it took the property branch of the department some four months to make a decision to purchase the property. That was not four months up to the exchange of contracts; it took four months merely to assess whether the purchase price was right and to go ahead with negotiations. I am told that it can take more than a week for the department to arrange for a valuer to value a property. As honourable members are aware, time is of the essence when purchasing a property.
In summary, the purchasing procedures of the department are too slow. The local committee can quote instances where it has taken the Government four weeks to achieve something that a solicitor could achieve in four days. The upshot is that the owner of the property receives a better offer in the meantime and the crisis accommodation program loses out. Another example of delay concerned a property in Hillard Street, Lakemba, which was considered to be a suitable house. The community program section agreed that it was suitable to the needs of crisis accommodation. It was submitted to the department for purchase but because of delay by the department the owner received a better offer. I am told that about five weeks ago a property in Ernest Street, Lakemba, was considered a desirable house for youth accommodation. The community programs section approved of its purchase. It was submitted to the properties branch of the department but for almost five weeks there has been no response from the department as to whether the price is appropriate or that the purchase should proceed. Once again the program could be jeopardised as a result of undue delay on the part of the department.
The team leader of the community program section is located at the southern metropolitan regional office. After he makes his recommendation he forwards it to the head office of the department and that is where everything seems to break down. I know that the Minister is interested in youth crisis accommodation. He issued a press release pointing out that it was an excellent program for homeless young people and for women who were subjected to domestic violence. The program aims to house those who are regarded are chronically homeless. It provides vital assistance to the homeless of this State. I ask the Minister to do all in his power to speed up the procedures within the department with respect to purchasing such properties. I ask him in particular to investigate the matter in the Canterbury region. I ask him to ensure that the current property located in Ernest Street, Lakemba, is purchased in the not too distant future.
Mr SCHIPP (Wagga Wagga), Minister for Housing [3.40]: I am tempted to reflect on the role of the honourable member for Canterbury as the mayor of Canterbury and the financial viability of his council at that time. If the Government were to follow the procedures enunciated by the honourable member for Canterbury, it would be buying properties blindfolded, without regard for value for money or available funds. For some time I have personally been concerned about community housing performances. I have attempted to increase the department's activity in that regard and its performance is improving. An ad hoc arrangement was inherited from the previous Labor Government in that properties were approved without any technical assessment or cost evaluation and funds were granted to applicants without regard for the suitability of accommodation. With regard to Canterbury youth housing, under the 1990-91 crisis accommodation program, funds have been approved for the provision of a three-bedroom or four-
Page 4830
bedroom cottage within the Canterbury municipality to provide for medium-term supported accommodation for people between the ages of 15 and 24. Funding of $220,000 was approved for the purchase of a suitable dwelling.
Factors that could cause a delay in the purchase of a suitable property include the group not being able to locate a suitable property; locating a dwelling within the approved price range; and negotiations taking place between the seller and the department to agree on a suitable price. In June 1991, following approval, a suitable property was identified in Lakemba. The department undertook assessments and valuations but the property was sold to another purchaser in August 1991. Further identified properties were inspected by departmental officers at Narwee, Roselands, Kingsgrove, Lakemba, Belmore and Punchbowl, but the vendors were all seeking in excess of the funding approval. During September, two seemingly suitable dwellings at Belmore and Lakemba were identified by the group. Following assessment the dwelling at Lakemba has been recommended for purchase. In view of the difficulty the group experiences identifying a suitable dwelling within the price range, additional funds were provided to enable the Lakemba dwelling to be considered for purchase. Negotiations with the owner are continuing. However, at this time a price acceptable to both parties has yet to be reached. The department is in a better position to assess properties and to get on with the process of purchase. Matters cannot proceed willy-nilly; things must be done according to the rules. I assure the honourable member that neither I or the department will interfere in the process. It is in the interests of the department to purchase properties and commence activities as quickly as possible. I am committed to the program and will provide assistance as and when it is required.
MARTIN STREET, ARMIDALE, CHEMICAL CONTAMINATION
Mr CHAPPELL (Northern Tablelands) [3.43]: On 15th January, 1990, during excavation activities for foundations for a building allotment in Martin Street, Armidale, a significant degree of creosote contamination was discovered. The allotment, indeed the entire subdivision, was the site of a former timber pole impregnation operation. Subsequent testing by Armidale City Council, the State Pollution Control Commission, and consultants to the council, Sinclair Knights and Partners, confirmed contamination of a number of hot spots with creosote, copper, chrome and arsenic residues. Obviously the residents and property-owners in the subdivision were immediately concerned, first, for the potential impact on their health and that of their children from exposure to the contamination, and, second, the impact of the contamination on the value of their properties. Many of the property-owners are young families who have purchased their first homes in which they have invested their life savings. In the intervening period - and I remind honourable members that the second anniversary of the discovery of the contamination is approaching - I have attended numerous meetings between the residents and property-owners with the Armidale City Council, the State Pollution Control Commission, Sinclair Knight and Partners, and, subsequently another firm of consultants, AGC Woodward-Clyde Pty Limited, regional health authorities, the Minister for the Environment, and the Premier.
The residents are awaiting anxiously any sign of movement towards resolution of the matter. Despite medical tests that show no significant results - and that was confirmed recently - residents continue to be concerned particularly for the health of their children, including those born in the intervening period. On each occasion a child presents with a blood nose, a rash, a series of loose bowel movements or other symptoms, parents quite rightly ask whether they are the result of exposure to contamination. Naturally enough parents are concerned, first and foremost, for the health
Page 4831
and safety of their children. They are concerned also that their children cannot play outdoors in the neighbourhood for fear of playing in contaminated soil or handling toxic substances. There is a great deal of anxiety, fear, stress and anger among that group of people. It is almost two years since the discovery but no real resolution to the problem is at hand. However, much has been done in that time. Two formal studies of the extent of the contamination have been conducted. The second of those studies was commissioned by the Government, though the advice of the Solicitor General is that the State carries no legal responsibility in the matter. Legal aid has been granted to a majority of the property-owners and residents, who have committed themselves to working towards a solution to the problem. The Premier offered to commit some State funds towards the cost of clean-up and restoration of the site if the parties to the problem were willing to do the same. Medical tests have been conducted on residents, and further testing is available to anyone who experiences any particular symptom. Recently the matter was before the Supreme Court and a request was made that all affected families join in the one legal action, which was initiated by one couple, Irene and Trevor Thompson. The matter currently stands adjourned.
During this lengthy process I have tried to get the parties around the negotiating table in an endeavour to achieve settlement of the matter. It is imperative from the point of view of the mental health of residents, let alone their physical health, that the matter not drag on through convoluted legal processes for as long as five years. The strain on families and the physical, emotional and financial burden on residents and property-owners has been immense and it must cease. Transfers and job promotions have had to be declined by residents because it has not been possible for them to sell up and move on. Primary issues of legal rights and protections cannot be ignored. I do not suggest that anyone can walk away from the legal issues. I am advised that the due process of the law will ultimately provide a legal solution to the problem. I am anxious, however, for a prompt and practical resolution. That will require reliance more upon fairness, common sense and compassion than upon legal principle and adversarial stands by various parties.
The Premier has stated that the Government is willing to participate in a speedy resolution of the problem. I wish the legal advisers and Armidale City Council and its insurers, C. E. Heath Casualty and General Insurance Limited were of a like mind. I appeal to all parties to meet to seek an early and equitable solution to the matter. It must be possible for a non-prejudicial meeting to be held, arbitrated if necessary, to ascertain whether urgent and practical action can be initiated in advance of legal resolution of the matter to get these concerned people off the hook. Many of the residents are seriously distressed at their predicament. They are calling on anyone - the council; the council's insurers; Boral Limited, the successor of the operator of the timber impregnation plant; the Government; anyone - to buy them out now so they can get on with their lives in peace and security. In all humanity I ask the Government, the council and its insurers, and the legal advisers to come to the aid of my constituents of Martin Street, Armidale. It is almost two years since the discovery of the contamination - two years of anxiety for the residents of that subdivision. I thank the Premier and the Minister for the Environment for their willingness to come to the party in seeking a speedy and adequate resolution of the matter. I reiterate that this matter has been extremely stressful for those involved. They make a plea through me today to the Government to take whatever action it can to persuade the parties involved to sit around the negotiating table to resolve the matter.
Mr Cochran: Hear, Hear!
Page 4832
Mr MOORE (Gordon), Minister for the Environment [3.53]: I am glad to hear the support of the honourable member for Monaro for the plea from the honourable member for Northern Tablelands on this matter. One of the amendments proposed in the package of amendments negotiated with Independent members to the legislation setting up the Environment Protection Authority in New South Wales is a statutory measure that may well provide future assistance to long-suffering residents of Martin Street, Armidale. It is a great pity that the honourable member for Monaro has not enthusiastically adopted the range of amendments that I am proposing for that legislation. As I indicated, it is the intention of the Government, as part of the package of amendments to the legislation establishing the Environment Protection Authority, to make it possible from July next year for moneys to be made available throughout New South Wales from the environmental restoration and rehabilitation trust fund, as I foreshadowed when the trust fund was to be established, for both capital grants for major environmental disasters, which the Martin Street incident might conceivably be categorised as, and recurring environmental restoration grants.
I do not wish to create an expectation in the residents of Martin Street that anything other than their ability to apply for such an independent trust grant will be created from July next year. The Government has stood willing on the assurances given by the Premier and by me on behalf of the Government to look sympathetically at a negotiated joint package involving a company that has operated a copper, chrome and arsenic treatment plant for a period of time and its successors in ownership, the Boral group, and Armidale City Council. Although I have great respect for Alderman Leitch, who was at the time and still is the mayor, it is to be regretted that Armidale City Council and particularly its insurers - because it may be a case of subjugated rights - have chosen to resist this measure and leave the ordinary decent working men and women of the Martin Street subdivision subject to the vagaries of legal processes. The present situation can only provide great and continuing financial benefit for the legal profession but, unfortunately, great and continuing stress for the residents of Martin Street. I am happy to indicate to the honourable member for Northern Tablelands that I am unable to join him to meet the residents on Monday when I am in that region, but I shall endeavour to find a mutually convenient time prior to Christmas when he and I will be able to meet representatives of the Martin Street residents.
EQUITY PLACE, CANLEY VALE, HOME UNIT SALES
Mr IRWIN (Fairfield) [3.56]: I wish to refer to a matter that was raised in this House yesterday by way of a question from the honourable member for Heffron to the Attorney General, Minister for Consumer Affairs and Minister for Arts. The issue relates to the financial circumstances of a number of unit purchasers in a development in Equity Place, Canley Vale. This matter first came to my attention in 1988 when the developer, Meriton Properties, had placed a building application before Fairfield City Council. At the time residents of the area raised complaints and concerns with me that Meriton wished to proceed with a development application submitted in 1972 and based on the old flat code. The Liberal-Independent Fairfield City Council of the day refused to contest the issue and allowed that development to proceed. Purchasers of those units had bought units that did not comply with the development standards of 1988, let alone 1991. The matter again came to my attention in December 1989, when residents who were moving into Equity Place called at my office and said that the electricity was not connected. It was discovered that council had not given final approval. Mendoza Real Estate, however, had handed over the keys and suggested that those residents call into my office, which was across the street from Mendoza Real Estate, to ask me to make representations to Prospect County Council to have their electricity connected.
Page 4833
I am pleased to say that Prospect County Council acted swiftly. It was mindful of the fact - it reminded me - that final approval had not been given by Fairfield City Council for those purchasers to move in, though it was a week or two before Christmas and for that reason council was eager to assist those people. Some months later the issue was again raised with me in what became a stream of complaints about faulty workmanship in the building, in particular faults with the electricity, cracks in the plaster work, and kitchens and other items that were substandard. Those matters were referred to the Building Services Corporation. I was far from satisfied with the attention given by the Building Services Corporation. One of the grave difficulties in this case was that almost all residents in Equity Place had very poor English skills and communication was extremely difficult. But for the work of one or two residents who were able to translate and explain the problem to other residents and to do work on their behalf, much of the investigation by the Building Services Corporation would not have been possible.
That pales into insignificance compared with the revelations which came to my attention a short time ago when the full details of the scam that has been operating in respect of Equity Place began to unfold. The whole case is a sorry one. Yesterday the Attorney General commenced his answer by thanking the honourable member for Heffron for her question. He said that he would be happy to provide the House with particulars of that matter that have been on his file for some time. The 104 units at Equity Place were sold by Mendoza Real Estate, a Spanish speaking real estate agency located in Fairfield with extensive contacts with the Spanish speaking community, which advertises substantially in Spanish newspapers and other publications. That real estate office was able to attract many applicants, and it processed the applications in a manner that was quite shameful. The units in Equity Place were valued at approximately $110,000. The applicants were referred to Ken Long and Company, Solicitors. In many cases applicants did not see Ken Long at his office but had interviews with him at the Mendoza premises. In many cases they only spoke with representatives of Ken Long's firm. In many cases the applicants were not well financed. They were informed that if they did not have a deposit available a firm in Fairfield - Bardella Management of 12 Nelson Street - would arrange a personal loan for them.
Typically, loans of about $6,000 and at times up to $15,000 were provided by way of deposit. When applicants went to Bardella Management they found an application form for a loan to Custom Credit already made out for them. Often the application showed that the male applicant worked as a contract painter. He would have with him a fictitious letter on a company letterhead stating his income and financial position. Often the woman's occupation was listed as a part-time cleaner with a cleaning company. The letters were quite fictitious. The applicants did not attend a Custom Credit office or have dealings with anyone from Custom Credit. The loan applications directed that the money be paid into the trust account of Ken Long and Company, solicitors. A housing loan application was made to the City Central Co-operative Housing Society, of 222 Pitt Street, Sydney. The application form was filled out at the premises of Mendoza and the necessary employment reference on company letterhead was provided. Either Mendoza or Long sent that application to the housing society. It appears that Long has some contact within that society and as a result no check was made of the application in relation to the inflated income or the bogus employment letter. The paperwork prepared by the society subsequently was sent to Long and Mendoza.
Since then we have found that many families with fairly modest incomes have been misled into obtaining loans on which they could not meet repayments, in some cases of up to $1,400. Of 58 loans through the City Central Cooperative Housing Society 23 are in arrears. As a result, several people have been evicted from their properties. This
Page 4834
matter was brought to the attention of the Department of Housing. On 15th February credit loan officers met with the officers of department's mortgage relief branch. That meeting was informed that a Department of Housing undertaking had been given that no family in the units at Equity Place would be disadvantaged as a result of the inquiries and that no action would be taken against the borrowers as they were, of course, parties to the matter. Contact was continued. On 3rd May, the department gave an undertaking that it would not proceed with the notice to vacate; yet it did. Further, on 21st June two other families were served with notices to quit by the housing society.
It is obvious the department was pretending to assist the owners of the property and at the same time acting on behalf of FANMAC in enforcing the City Central Co-operative Housing Society to clear up its loans arrears. The Attorney General said that the Department of Consumer Affairs is taking every step to protect the interests of the unfortunate victims of this scheme, indicating that he has had this information on file for some time. Now he is saying he asked the Real Estate Services Council to review whether Mendoza Real Estate should continue to hold a licence. This information has been with his officers for some months and no action has been taken. More seriously, it has been claimed - indeed the Attorney General yesterday acknowledged this - that approaches have been made to witnesses warning them not to co-operate in the investigation. Only yesterday the Minister said that police will be notified and appropriate court orders sought. This action comes far too late. It is disgraceful and is a tragedy for many hard-working families in Fairfield. The matter needs much closer investigation and a sympathetic approach by the Department of Housing. It should be given urgent attention by those agencies so that the people who perpetrated these offences can be swiftly dealt with.
Mr ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Merton): Order! The honourable member has exhausted his time for speaking.
Mr SCHIPP (Wagga Wagga), Minister for Housing [4.2]: It is disgraceful that honourable members use this Chamber to more or less conduct a kangaroo court on matters that are being investigated. The honourable member for Fairfield was quite careful not to mention whether he had made representations about this whole matter. I have no memory of any contact regarding the local government matters - which would be outside my administration anyway - or the Building Services Corporation matters. I shall deal first with the final comment of the honourable member for Fairfield. The Attorney General did not just sit on his hands and do nothing. The sequence of events is that the issue of Mendoza first came to the knowledge of the Department of Housing by hearsay in March. Subsequently FANMAC raised concerns about the level of arrears and reported that to the Department of Housing. The full extent of the matter continued to unfold when Credit Line contacted the Ombudsman, who in turn approached the Department of Housing and the matter was discussed with the Independent Commission Against Corruption. ICAC said it could not take the issue on board at that time.
A meeting was then called between the Department of Housing and the Department of Consumer Affairs. A further meeting was held on 30th July and it was agreed that Department of Consumer Affairs should take the investigation on board. At that point the Department of Housing's first preference was to refer the matter to the police. The Department of Consumer Affairs requested the matter remain with its officers until they investigated it further. Three months later, in the investigative period, it was then decided by the Department of Consumer Affairs that the matter should be referred back to the Department of Housing. As of Monday last week - unconnected with matters raised in this House - I spoke to the Attorney General informing him that the
Page 4835
matter was to be referred to the police. Indeed, this morning at 10.30 a meeting was held with the fraud squad. Since then I have spoken to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. He has committed resources to set up a task force to investigate both this matter and the Mount Druitt matter, which involves similar circumstances. During this time the Real Estate Services Council, on legal advice, was told to do nothing until the case was fully investigated by the police. It has not been a matter of hands off but a matter of working through. Subsequently the guidelines have been tightened. FANMAC is taking a more direct interest in the loan origination and auditing of co-operatives right across the board. It is unfortunate that names have been bandied around at this stage of the investigation. As honourable members know, different circumstances can unfold. However, the matter is being carefully examined.
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE ERMINGTON LAND
Mr PHOTIOS (Ermington) [4.8]: I inform honourable members of a grave situation developing for residents at the bottom of Spurway Street, Ermington, on Federal Government controlled land - private Crown land under the responsibility of the Department of Defence. This land has been leased to major commercial operations in order to house thousands upon thousands of private and commercial vehicles on the site. This site was formally a naval store and was designated for medium density housing development by the Minister for Housing, the Hon. J. Schipp. As a Government we entered into negotiations with the relevant Federal departments to secure that site for quality housing of a medium density nature. This would have been a substantial project, providing accommodations for many hundreds of people who are in difficult circumstances. This wonderful site on the foreshores of Parramatta River is at present excluded from the public. On behalf of those residents I am extremely concerned that the Federal Government has withdrawn the site from sale, withdrawn from negotiations with the Department of Housing for the purchase of the site and has decided, as stated in the Parramatta Advertiser of 16th October, to go for some easy money. The Federal Government made the bid to earn that easy money by renting that prime western Sydney real estate while waiting for the market to improve. The Federal Government was not concerned to make available to the public the foreshore land or to make available to the people of Sydney urgently needed housing. Its priority became the quick easy option of the five-year lease to a major commercial operator in order to house a commercial industrial facility in a residential area.
It begs the question as to what the Labor Lord Mayor of Parramatta, Alderman Haines, is really on about. He is quoted in this morning's Sydney Morning Herald as being concerned with the State and Federal governments' negotiations for the proposed purchase of a site at Merrylands, one of the three sites detailed by the Minister for Planning, The Hon. R. J. Webster, in a press release yesterday. This is a clear case of a residential area being violated by a commercial operation that is neither wanted nor warranted. That a commercial operation is causing enormous heartache and anguish to families, children and people at the local school. It is encouraging giant car transporters to have their engines roaring loudly for as long as 12 hours a day through quiet residential streets. It is housing thousands of cars on the harbour foreshores and has increased traffic in the local area. Furthermore, chemicals are being used to spray these vehicles. In certain weather conditions these chemicals have reached the backyards of homes and the local school, irritating children and parents alike. Hundreds of residents have signed a petition and taken it to Labor Alderman Greg McKay desperately seeking answers as to why that Labor council chose to ignore the concerns of residents and approved all the applications for this commercial operation which is housing thousands
Page 4836
of cars on the road, in the park and on the foreshores. Instead that council should be providing much needed housing and securing the natural environment of that area.
I have been doing my best to improve and enhance the quality of living in that area of Ermington. It is worth noting that the Government's agenda led to the Labor Party losing 18 per cent of its vote at the Ermington polling booth in the last election - the largest swing of any polling booth anywhere in New South Wales. That was due largely to the neglect of the area by the Labor Party, evidenced by the Labor lord mayor, his council and the Labor Federal Government doing a deal with the big end of town and putting thousands of cars on a site that should be made available for private housing. The Government has been endeavouring to establish a better range of amenities for the people of this area of Ermington. I have been working hard to secure the $13 million needed for the Parramatta River ferry service. My electorate has thousands of dollars by way of assistance to improve facilities at the George Kendall Reserve. The Government has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars establishing the Parramatta River cycleway and, in a much celebrated community event, the community, working with me as a community-based member of Parliament, was able to save the Ermington shops from being sold. The Minister for Housing came to the forefront and rescued the shops, for which the residents and I will be eternally grateful. The State Government has been doing its bit. I join with, I hope, all honourable members of this House in now calling on the Federal Government to end the lease because the lease conditions have been broken.
The Federal Department of Defence and the Federal Department of Administrative Services make that point in their concession reported on the front page of the Parramatta Advertiser of Wednesday, 23rd October. It is time to cease fobbing off the locals with promises of facilities for the Olympic Games. The Federal Labor member, Mr Paul Elliott, claims to have been told that the former naval stores area is already being considered as part of an Olympic Games bid. The reality is that that is light years away. People deserve a caring and appreciative residential environment that respects the Parramatta River foreshore, enhances it, and makes it readily available for the use and recreation of residents. I have been somewhat shocked by the stories that residents have brought to my attention - stories involving pollution, the use of chemicals, and the increased traffic flowing through this light traffic area. I call for a much more sensitive, caring and compassionate approach by the Labor Party at local and Federal Government levels, reflecting the sort of attention that has been given to that area by the State Government. In my concluding remarks I ask them to give consideration to reopening immediately negotiations with the State Government and the Minister for Housing, who is keen to have quality medium-density developments at wonderful locations like Ermington - in this instance strongly supported by the local community. The challenge to the local council of Parramatta and to the State Government is to reopen the negotiations, tear up the lease with the big end of town and get down to providing the sorts of amenities that the people of Ermington so desperately want returned to them.
Mr SCHIPP (Wagga Wagga), Minister for Housing [4.14]: I thank the honourable member for Ermington for raising this matter and congratulate him on the strength of his conviction to resolve this matter in favour of the residents who live near the site to whom he addressed his comments. My involvement in the issue is on a broader basis, but it involves dealings that started at the housing summit held in Canberra with the authority of the Prime Minister. At that summit the Commonwealth indicated to the world at large that it intended to make available to the States a number of surplus Commonwealth land sites so as to get on with the job of providing housing. Since that time the performance of the Federal Labor Government has been disappointing because
Page 4837
it veered right away from that commitment. It had exaggerated the amount of housing opportunities it was offering. When the real yield was analysed, the State Government has been able to negotiate only one site for the New South Wales Department of Housing and one other site is under negotiation - a small number of lots, I might add.
The Commonwealth departments broke ranks and went their own separate ways, each one wanting to deal with its own land. As the honourable member for Ermington said, they wanted to get a quick quid. They did everything possible to use the land for anything but the purpose for which it was designated at the special housing summit. The Parramatta Advertiser got it right when it said they were going for a quick killing, and that opinion has been reinforced here today. The New South Wales Government and the Department of Housing has suggested - and the Premier has been in touch with the Prime Minister to try to get this shemozzle together with co-ordinated approach, that only one group, I think it is the Australian Property Group, should deal with surplus land on behalf of the Commonwealth Government and should deal with it on a businesslike and realistic basis rather than wait for the golden bucket at the end of the rainbow to extract every red cent, as it now seems to do. They forget about the housing potential and use of the land for other purposes, even if it causes inconvenience to people -
Mr SPEAKER: Order! It being fifteen minutes after four o'clock, p.m., the debate is interrupted pursuant to Standing Order 123A.
Question - That grievances be noted - resolved in the affirmative.
House adjourned at 4.16 p.m. until Monday, 2nd December, 1991, at 2.15 p.m.