Full Day Hansard Transcript (Legislative Assembly, 8 April 1997, Corrected Copy)

Mr Speaker (The Hon. John Henry Murray) took the chair at 2.15 p.m.

Mr Speaker offered the Prayer.

Mr SPEAKER: I inform the House that my writ, issued on 28 October 1996 in accordance with section 70 of the Parliamentary Electorates and Elections Act 1912 for the election of a member to serve in the Legislative Assembly for the electoral district of Port Macquarie in the room of Wendy Susan Machin, resigned, has been returned with a certificate endorsed thereon by the returning officer of the election of Robert James Murray Oakeshott to serve as member for the electoral district of Port Macquarie.

Mr Oakeshott took and subscribed the oath of allegiance and signed the roll.

Royal assent to the following bills reported:

Farm Debt Mediation Amendment Bill
Regulatory Reduction Bill
Police Legislation Further Amendment Bill
Industrial Relations Amendment Bill
Children (Care and Protection) Amendment (Disallowed Regulation) Bill
Courts Legislation Amendment Bill
Crimes Amendment (Court Finger-printing Scheme) Bill
Legal Profession Amendment (National Practising Certificates) Bill
Victims Rights Bill
Victims Compensation Bill
Children (Care and Protection) Amendment (Disclosure of Information) Bill
Criminal Procedure Amendment (Sentences Adjustment) Bill
Listening Devices Amendment Bill
Business Franchise Licences (Tobacco) Amendment Bill
WorkCover Legislation Amendment Bill
Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill (No. 2)
Building Services Corporation Legislation Amendment Bill
Justices Amendment (Committals) Bill
Local Government Amendment (Tribunals) Bill
State Revenue Legislation (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill
Eastern Gas Pipeline (Special Provisions) Bill
Public Sector Management Amendment (Mobility) Bill
Transport Administration Amendment (Light Rail) Bill
Heritage Amendment Bill
Bank Mergers Bill
Forestry Revocation and National Park Reservation Bill
Pollution Control Amendment Bill
Local Government Amendment (Nude Bathing) Bill
Farm Produce (Repeal) Bill
Firearms Amendment Bill
Marketing of Primary Products Amendment Bill
Mining Legislation Amendment Bill
Strata Schemes Management Bill
Strata Schemes Management (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill
Valuation of Land Further Amendment Bill
Fisheries Management Amendment (Advisory Bodies) Bill
National Parks and Wildlife Amendment (Aboriginal Ownership) Bill
Parliamentary Committees Enabling Bill
Sentencing Amendment (Parole) Bill
Traffic Amendment (Street and Illegal Drag Racing) Bill
Traffic Amendment (Vehicle Identification) Bill

The following bills were returned from the Legislative Council without amendment:

Eastern Gas Pipeline (Special Provisions) Bill
Public Sector Management Amendment (Mobility) Bill
Transport Administration Amendment (Light Rail) Bill
Forestry Revocation and National Park Reservation Bill
Pollution Control Amendment Bill
Farm Produce (Repeal) Bill
Firearms Amendment Bill
Local Government Amendment (Nude Bathing) Bill
Marketing of Primary Products Amendment Bill
Mining Legislation Amendment Bill
Strata Schemes Management Bill
Strata Schemes Management (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill
Valuation of Land Further Amendment Bill
Fisheries Management Amendment (Advisory Bodies) Bill
National Parks and Wildlife Amendment (Aboriginal Ownership) Bill
Parliamentary Committees Enabling Bill
Sentencing Amendment (Parole) Bill
Traffic Amendment (Street and Illegal Drag Racing) Bill
Traffic Amendment (Vehicle Identification) Bill

The following bill was returned from the Legislative Council with amendments:

National Parks and Wildlife Amendment (Abercrombie, Jenolan and Wombeyan Karst Conservation Reserves) Bill

Mr SPEAKER: I report the receipt of the following message from the Legislative Council:

Mr Speaker -

The Legislative Council desires to inform the Legislative Assembly that it has this day discharged the Order of the Day for the second reading of the Commonwealth Powers (Firearms) Bill.

Legislative Council M. F. Willis
5 December 1996 President

Mr SPEAKER: I report the receipt of the following message from the Legislative Council:

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Mr Speaker -

The Legislative Council desires to inform the Legislative Assembly that it has this day discharged the Order of the Day for the second reading of the WorkCover Legislation Amendment Bill.

Legislative Council M. F. Willis

5 December 1996 President

Mr SPEAKER: I report the receipt of the following message from the Legislative Council:

Mr Speaker -

The Legislative Council having had under consideration the Legislative Assembly's Messages, dated 27 November 1996 relating to the appointment of a Joint Standing Committee upon Small Business informs the Legislative Assembly that it has this day agreed to the following Resolution:

(1) That this House agrees to the Legislative Assembly's Messages of 27 November 1996 for the appointment of a Joint Standing Committee upon Small Business.

(2) That the Legislative Council Members of the Committee comprise:

(a) 1 Government Member nominated in writing to the Clerk of the House by the Leader of the Government;

(b) 1 Opposition Member nominated in writing to the Clerk of the House by the Leader of the Opposition; and

(c) 1 Member of the Crossbench, nominated by the Crossbench.

(3) That the time and place of the first meeting of the Committee be notified in writing to members of the Committee by the Clerks of the respective Houses.

Legislative Council John Johnson
5 December 1996 Deputy President

Mr SPEAKER: I report the receipt of the following message from the Legislative Council:

Mr Speaker -

The Legislative Council having had under consideration the Legislative Assembly's Message, dated 27 November 1996 relating to the appointment of a Joint Select Committee on Victims Compensation informs the Legislative Assembly that it has this day agreed to the following Resolution:

(1) That this House agrees to the Legislative Assembly's Message of 27 November 1996 for the appointment of a Joint Select Committee on Victims Compensation.

(2) That the Legislative Council Members of the Committee comprise:

(a) 2 Government Members nominated in writing to the Clerk of the House by the Leader of the Government;

(b) 1 Opposition Member nominated in writing to the Clerk of the House by the Leader of the Opposition; and

(c) Mr Jones.

(3) That the time and place of the first meeting of the Committee be notified in writing to members of the Committee by the Clerks of the respective Houses.

Legislative Council John Johnson
5 December 1996 Deputy President

Mr CARR: I report to the House that on 28 November 1996 His Excellency the Governor appointed the Hon. Patrick Carl Scully, MP, as Minister for Roads.

Mr SPEAKER: I report the receipt of a message from His Excellency the Governor transmitting a copy of a dispatch from the President of the Senate of the Commonwealth of 7 March 1997 notifying that a vacancy had happened in the representation of the State of New South Wales in the Senate of the Commonwealth of Australia through the resignation of Robert Leslie Woods on 7 March 1997.

Motion by Mr Carr agreed to:

That the House meet the Legislative Council for the purpose of sitting and voting together to choose a person to hold the place in the Senate rendered vacant by the resignation of Senator Robert Leslie Woods.

Message sent to the Legislative Council advising it of the resolution.

Mr CARR (Maroubra - Premier, Minister for the Arts, and Minister for Ethnic Affairs) [2.25 p.m.]: I move:

(1) That this House desires to place on record its sense of the loss this State has sustained by the death of Phillip Norman Ryan, a former Minister of the Crown.

(2) That this House extends to Mrs Ryan and family the deep sympathy of the members of the Legislative Assembly in the loss sustained.

Today I pay tribute to the late Phillip Norman Ryan. I acknowledge his service to the community in a distinguished career in public life that spanned more than 20 years. Phillip Ryan, who was popularly known as Norm Ryan, was born in 1912. He was only 19 years old when he joined the Australian Labor Party. After attending school at St Joseph's College and Sydney Technical College, he became an electrician, serving an apprenticeship with the Sydney City Council. Later he joined the Public Works Department as an electrical inspector. This
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was the beginning of a long association with public works, but Norm Ryan's career was to take him far beyond his humble beginnings as a tradesman. His public life began in local government.

He became an alderman with Marrickville Council in 1948 and the Mayor of Marrickville in 1953. He retired from that post in 1953, when he was elected to the New South Wales Parliament as the member for Marrickville. In 1959 he became New South Wales Minister for Public Works, a position he held until 1965. Norm Ryan represented his electorate and loyally served the people of this State for 20 years. His was a career characterised by loyalty to his electorate and dedication to the development and prosperity of the State he loved. In his maiden speech to Parliament Norm Ryan dismissed comments by the Leader of the Opposition belittling the ideals and the enthusiasm of newly elected members. He said:

I am proud to be part of the infusion of new blood and to be blessed with enthusiasm, hopes and ideals.

Referring to the beginnings of the Labor Party, he said:

Today the party has the same ideals, and I am happy to be associated with an organisation whose purpose is to maintain the highest possible standard of living and to improve the social benefits already won.

In his maiden speech he spoke of the need to arrest the drift from the country to the city and of ways of achieving this goal, including rural electrification. He was a man with a great vision for the development of New South Wales in the post-war period. He used his first speech to Parliament to complain about the Commonwealth's lack of financial support for New South Wales. Some things never change, and it is interesting now to reflect on Norm Ryan's views on the development of the land. He said:

One of the disgraces of the age is that millions of acres of New South Wales have lain idle for years.

At that time, of course, development and food production was a great post-war priority. Norm Ryan referred to millions of acres still lying under rough native grass capable of development. Today, of course, farmers are at the forefront in saying that our native vegetation has to be protected. Norm Ryan held onto his vision and continued to provide leadership throughout his career. There is a great monument to his work. As Minister for Public Works, he was an advocate for what became probably the most difficult project ever undertaken - the Sydney Opera House. Responding to criticism, he acknowledged the increased cost of the Opera House, but he said that the project would break new ground and set new standards in architecture and engineering design. In 1964 he said, "This building will bring great credit upon this country." He was right. It should be acknowledged that Norm Ryan was one of the many inspired and dedicated individuals who played a role in the development of this State. For that he should be honoured.

Mr COLLINS (Willoughby - Leader of the Opposition) [2.29 p.m.]: I join the Premier in expressing the condolences of the Opposition to the family and friends of the late Phillip Norman Ryan, who passed away on 25 March. This motion honours a man whose life was dedicated to the cause in which he believed. Phillip Ryan was committed to his party for his entire life - he served it for more than 40 years. The length of his membership was no doubt a measure of the strength of his enduring commitment to his party. Phillip Ryan was born on the south coast of New South Wales in May 1912. He attended St Joseph's College at Hunters Hill, before training as an electrician with the Sydney City Council. At the height of the Great Depression, he joined the Australian Labor Party, which, as I have said, he was destined to serve for the next 40 years.

At the age of 36, Phillip Ryan was elected as an alderman to Marrickville Council, a position in which he served for the next five years. In 1953, his last year on the council, he served as Mayor of Marrickville. Marrickville Council was a training ground that equipped him for his later political life. In the year that he retired from the council, he was elected as the member for Marrickville in this place. Phillip Ryan represented Marrickville for the next two decades. His term of office spanned seven parliaments, which places him among the longer serving members of this place. At the peak of Phillip Ryan's career, he was Minister for Public Works under Premier Heffron between 1959 and 1964, and under Premier Renshaw in 1964 and 1965. The Opposition extends its sincere sympathy to Phillip Ryan's bereaved relatives and friends.

Dr REFSHAUGE (Marrickville - Deputy Premier, Minister for Health, and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) [2.31 p.m.]: I join with the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition in extending my sympathy to the family and friends of the late Phillip Norman Ryan, a former member for Marrickville - not my immediate predecessor - who held office from 1953 to 1973. As Minister for Public Works between 1959 and 1965, he presided over major public works and was, as the Premier said, strongly associated with the development and building of the world-famous Sydney Opera House. Though a number of disagreements arose during its construction, the Opera House has brought enormous prestige to Australia.

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Phillip Ryan was dedicated to the Labor philosophy and to Labor principles. He would regularly argue the case for improvements in health, education and transport. He highlighted areas that would advantage people who were less well off. He insisted that the services that were being provided - whether through his public works portfolio or through the Government - would give all people in the State a better chance to participate and would minimise their disadvantages. Phillip Ryan argued passionately for the development of the bush. In his first speech, which was made during an Address-in-Reply debate, he argued for the establishment of hospitals in the country to obviate the need for primary producers to go to the city to obtain necessary treatment. There are now hospitals in the bush, but there are still arguments for improving services. Phillip Ryan argued for the provision of primary and secondary schools, technical colleges and agricultural colleges at selected points to meet the educational needs of the children of the people working in the bush. He was a member from an inner city electorate, but he recognised that there was more to New South Wales than just the people who live in Sydney.

As the Premier said, there are some things that do not change. Phillip Ryan, in his maiden speech, argued passionately that the Federal Government has income taxing powers but that the States have the responsibility to provide services. He argued that the failure of the Federal Government to make available to the State of New South Wales sufficient funds to continue the great works that were already under way, let alone to permit further expansion, was an abrogation of the Federal Government's responsibility to the taxpayers of this nation. A man who serves his electorate well must look after his electorate - and Phillip Ryan was elected seven times. He was committed to the Labor philosophy, and it resonated well, as it still does, with the people of Marrickville.

Mr ARMSTRONG (Lachlan - Leader of the National Party) [2.34 p.m.]: I support the previous speakers and extend the condolences of the National Party to the family of the late Phillip Norman Ryan. His political history and the history of his career have been well articulated by the previous speakers. Suffice it to say that to be elected to this place is a considerable achievement, and to serve as a Minister - I think fewer than 500 Ministers have passed through this place - is an enormous honour. Phillip Norman Ryan made an enormous contribution to this place and to the people of New South Wales, and his family should be justly proud of his record. The National Party extends its sympathy to his family.

Mr FACE (Charlestown - Minister for Gaming and Racing, and Minister Assisting the Premier on Hunter Development) [2.35 p.m.]: I offer my condolences to the family of the late Phillip Norman Ryan. Norm, as he was known, served the Parliament for 20 years. He was one of three Ministers of the 1965 Labor Government who were still here when I entered Parliament in 1972, the others being the late Bill Sheahan, who retired at the same time as Norm, and the late Jack Renshaw, who became a Minister of the Crown once again. The honourable member for Hawkesbury is the only other member who was here during Norm's last year in office. In 1973 although the seat of Marrickville was to continue, the nearby seat of Cooks River was to be abolished. As a mark of the man that Norm was, he offered to step aside after a preselection - even though he probably wanted to continue for at least another term - to make way for the late Tom Cahill, who became the next member for Marrickville. Tom, who had a young family, would have been left without a seat if Norm had not stood aside.

Probably the greatest mark of Norm's period in Parliament and of his contribution to the State was alluded to by the Premier - the Opera House. He presided over the building of the Opera House during the most turbulent period of public criticism, from 1959 to 1965, when the Labor Government lost office. He was lucky enough to be spared long enough to contribute some years ago to the production of an informative documentary that looked behind much of the political and building machinations that surrounded that world-renowned building. His dream for the building was changed on the change of government by the then Minister, Davis Hughes, and the subsequent demise of Utzon and his return to his country. The brigade of young members who entered Parliament at that time remember Norm as a fair person who had a knowledge of a wide range of issues. He had come up through a hard school and had developed excellent communication skills based on life. I give my condolences to Norm's family. He made a significant contribution to the State.

Members and officers of the House stood in their places.

Motion agreed to.

Bill received and read a first time.

Bill received and read a first time.

Mr WHELAN (Ashfield - Minister for Police) [2.40 p.m.], on behalf of Mr Yeadon: I move:

Page 7196

That this bill be now read a second time.

The bill was introduced in the other place on 3 December 1996 and the second reading speech appears at pages 6822 and 6823 of the corrected Hansard for that day. As the bill is in the same form as the bill that was introduced in the other place, I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned on motion by Mr Hartcher.

Bill received and read a first time.

Mr WHELAN (Ashfield - Minister for Police) [2.42 p.m.]: I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This bill was introduced in the other place on 20 November 1996 and the second reading speech appears at pages 6266 to 6268 of the corrected Hansard for that day. As the bill is in the same form as the bill that was introduced in the other place, I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned on motion by Mr Tink.

Motion by Mr Whelan agreed to:

That Standing and Sessional Orders be suspended to allow the introduction and passing through all stages of the Local Government Amendment (Cudgegong Abattoir) Bill.

[Notices of Motions]

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

Mr Speaker announced, pursuant to section 31 of the Ombudsman Act 1974, receipt of the following reports:

Inquiry into Juvenile Detention Centres, volumes one and two, dated December 1996

Conflict of Interest, dated March 1997

Ordered to be printed.

The Clerk, pursuant to the Public Finance and Audit Act, announced receipt of the following reports:

Performance Audit Report entitled "New South Wales Fire Brigades: Fire Prevention", dated December 1996
Auditor-General's Report for 1996, Volume Three, parts 1 and 2
Performance Audit Report entitled "Accountability and Internal Review Arrangements at State Rail", dated December 1996
Performance Audit Report entitled "The Corporate Credit Card", dated January 1997
Performance Audit Report entitled "Medical Specialists: Rights of Private Practice Arrangements", dated March 1997
Report of the Audit Office of New South Wales for the year 30 November 1996
Performance Audit Report entitled "Review of NSW Agriculture", dated March 1997

The Clerk announced, pursuant to section 31FA of the Ombudsman Act, receipt of the following reports:

Joint Committee on the Office of the Ombudsman and the Police Integrity Commission on its Fourth General Meeting with the Ombudsman, dated December 1996
Joint Committee on the Office of the Ombudsman and the Police Integrity Commission on its Overseas Research Trip undertaken in October 1996, dated February 1997

Mr COLLINS: My question without notice is addressed to the Premier. Why is the Premier protecting the identity of the person who gave him the casino report stolen from Louisiana police when that person may be guilty of committing a criminal offence in the United States of America? Given that it is a criminal offence in this State to receive stolen goods, what steps did the Premier take to ensure that the report was legally obtained?

Mr CARR: Members of the press gallery are saying that today's performance by the Leader of the Opposition on this matter was the weakest they can remember.

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

Mr CARR: They are saying that he is a leader obviously under challenge.

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

Mr CARR: They are saying that he is a leader whose time is running out.

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

Mr CARR: When we arrived home last night we flicked on Channel 2 to watch the late night news.

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Mr SPEAKER: Order! It has been some time since Parliament sat and members are a little frisky, but I ask them to refrain from interjecting. Three members were called to order within 30 seconds of question time commencing. I warn those four members that if they interject again they will be placed on three calls to order.

Mr CARR: Imagine my astonishment when I heard the ABC news report that Four Corners had alleged that Bob Carr, as Opposition leader in 1994, had used a confidential document. This was staggering. I, as Opposition leader, had used a confidential document in this Parliament. Can you believe such a thing - that an Opposition leader would use a confidential document in the Parliament to protect the public interest? What a juicy revelation.

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

Mr CARR: I would no more reveal my sources than any whistleblower, journalist or Leader of the Opposition would. More on that later. In 1994 the Labor Party was determined to prevent the mafia having any influence in the first legal casino in New South Wales.

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

Mr CARR: There is a mafia in the United States of America, despite the best efforts of Trooper Ronnie Jones, but there is not here.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition will remain silent.

Mr CARR: The Labor Party was totally and utterly vindicated in everything it did on this issue in 1994. Look at the results of the action we took. Our action triggered a public inquiry by the Casino Control Authority at which we made a comprehensive submission laying before it all our material.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member for Ku-ring-gai will cease interjecting.

Mr CARR: The inquiry resulted in the exclusion of part of the consortium. That was the outcome: part of the consortium was excluded. Further, Showboat subsequently severed links with Louis Roussel III, whose family Four Corners conceded has mafia links. Is this State better off as a result of that inquiry?

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

Mr CARR: Nurse Ratchett says we are not better off. She says that Louis Roussel should have been left in the consortium. That is her position. She did not want the mafia -

Mr O'Doherty: On a point of order. The Premier should refer to honourable members by their correct titles, which he clearly has failed to do in the case of the honourable member for North Shore.

Mr CARR: The honourable member for Ku-ring-gai will be offered a job in 2GB like the other one, on the old midnight to dawn shift. As a result of the action the Labor Party took in this Parliament, revealing this material, a public inquiry was held.

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

Mr CARR: Also as a result of that action part of the consortium was excluded and there was an end to the links between Louis Roussel III, whose family Four Corners conceded had mafia connections, and Showboat.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I place the honourable member for Burrinjuck on three calls to order.

Mr CARR: I make the point that not only did we in the Labor Party have this document but also, I understand, it went to many media organisations. Indeed, on 12 August 1994 the Sydney Morning Herald printed concerns about Mr Roussel. The article stated:

A senior business partner of the successful tenderer for the Sydney Casino, Showboat, is at the heart of a range of scandals rocking the Louisiana gambling industry.

That was the day we revealed our material.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I place the honourable member for Bega on three calls to order.

Mr CARR: In August 1994 the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Casino Control Authority had obtained a copy of the document; it was sitting in files at the Casino Control Authority. Indeed, the Australian Financial Review of 15 August made reference to the possibility of someone in the Casino Control Authority leaking the document. While we are on the matter of revealing sources, a most poignant moment in last night's Four Corners was a reference to an unnamed former Minister in the Fahey Government, one of the members opposite or their colleagues, making very serious accusations under the cloak of Four Corners secrecy. It was a member of the coalition. They have gone silent. An unnamed Minister in the Fahey Government was quoted on Four Corners making the most serious of allegations.

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Mr SPEAKER: Order! I place the honourable member for Ku-ring-gai on three calls to order.

Mr CARR: I urge the Leader of the Opposition to put down in this House the name of that person. Name that person!

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

Mr CARR: Was that member of the Fahey Government that luminary the honourable member for Gosford, who is now touted as a leadership challenger to the Leader of the Opposition. Was it the Leader of the National Party? Was it the honourable member for Lane Cove? Who was it? Or was it one of the luminaries with the coalition before March 1995 but who is now no longer part of the team? One member of the coalition went to a Four Corners reporter and made an allegation of the most serious content, but that person is unnamed by the Leader of the Opposition. That person ought to come forward to say in this House, or in any other forum, precisely what happened in the conversation reported anonymously under the cloak of secrecy on Four Corners.

Mr RUMBLE: I direct my question without notice to the Premier. What proposals has the Roads and Traffic Authority made to extend the Domain and to improve the surrounds of the Art Gallery of New South Wales?

Mr Souris: A cheap and nasty little canopy.

Mr CARR: The shadow minister -

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Premier will refrain from replying to the interjection.

Mr CARR: Last week the shadow minister for roads was on radio station 2UE criticising this Government for building the M2. I am pleased to announce today a proposal to place a landscaped, grass canopy over the Cahill Expressway near the Art Gallery of New South Wales. If approved, it will be a major gain for Sydney's environment.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I place the honourable member for Wakehurst on three calls to order.

Mr CARR: The plan, which is part of a proposed modification to the Eastern Distributor, will add almost one hectare of open space to the Domain. Subject to planning approval, the canopy will extend from 10 metres west of Art Gallery Road to the eastern edge of the Art Gallery building. It will place under cover a 180 metre stretch of the Eastern Distributor.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member for Pittwater has interjected on four occasions, but I have refrained from calling him to order. I now place him on three calls to order.

Mr CARR: It will rejoin the Domain, the Art Gallery, the Royal Botanic Gardens and Woolloomooloo, providing dramatically improved pedestrian links between them. It will significantly reduce noise from the Eastern Distributor at the Art Gallery, the Royal Botanic Gardens and Woolloomooloo.

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

Mr CARR: It will virtually remove from view the eyesore of the Cahill Expressway as it crosses the Domain and provide unimpeded views from the Art Gallery to Woolloomooloo Bay and the historic finger wharf. It will provide an opportunity for the Art Gallery to establish an extended sculpture court outside the northern end of the Art Gallery building. I have no doubt that after the Olympics, in the early years of next century, we can complete the rejoining of the Domain and the Royal Botanic Gardens, severed in the 1950s by the construction of the Cahill Expressway. An environmental impact statement on the proposed Eastern Distributor was exhibited for public comment from 15 November to 24 December last year. The RTA has now prepared its assessment report on the project for lodging with the Department of Urban Affairs and Planning. The report considers all the public submissions made on the EIS. It will recommend to the Department of Urban Affairs and Planning major modifications of the Eastern Distributor in response to public submissions.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Deputy Leader of the National Party will cease interjecting.

Mr CARR: The Deputy Leader of the National Party, who keeps interjecting, is noted in this House for his efforts in losing $50 million of public money on Luna Park. That would have paid for this project - and more. He lost $50 million!

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Deputy Leader of the National Party will cease interjecting.

Mr CARR: He is very sensitive about Luna Park. He lost $50 million of taxpayers' money. Just as well he is a qualified accountant. Imagine how much he would have lost if he had not been qualified!

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

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Mr CARR: The area comprising the Domain, the Royal Botanic Gardens and the Art Gallery is one of Sydney's very special precincts. Many people have been concerned that the Eastern Distributor would reinforce the Cahill Expressway separation of that area, but the proposal I am announcing today addresses those concerns. It is a plan which can provide a tremendous enhancement of public amenity in this important area.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to order.

Mr CARR: It is a very rare and precious opportunity to add more open space to the Domain.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I place the honourable member for Ermington on three calls to order.

Mr CARR: It is a tremendous example of how great environmental and lifestyle improvements can accompany the major traffic benefits of a vital road project.

Mr ARMSTRONG: My question without notice is addressed to the Premier. Does he stand by his comments of August 1994 that all the information he obtained regarding Showboat was publicly available? If so, why is he so reluctant to reveal the source of this so-called publicly available information?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member for Broken Hill will remain silent.

Mr CARR: I have addressed this concern. I repeat my challenge to Opposition members: the member, their colleague who remained anonymous on Four Corners last night, ought to come forward and repeat his or her allegations in this place or in another public forum. A member of the Opposition team made an allegation of the most serious kind.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the Leader of the Opposition to order.

Mr CARR: The Leader of the Opposition should instruct him or her to come forward and repeat publicly in this Chamber the allegations he or she made last night under the cloak of Four Corners anonymity.

Mr WATKINS: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Education and Training, and Minister Assisting the Premier on Youth Affairs. What is the Government's response to allegations of child sexual abuse and teacher misconduct in New South Wales schools?

Mr AQUILINA: In response to revelations from hearings of the royal commission the Government called on a former judge, Mr John Slattery, to report on the status of 173 files on teacher misconduct or abuse. Those files include 37 cases pertaining to teachers removed from schools immediately after the revelations of the royal commission. Mr Slattery has ordered that all those teachers be subject to reinvestigation and that they remain removed from schools until that is done.

[Interruption]

Mr AQUILINA: I note the interjection by an Opposition member. I say, as much for the information of members opposite as for members on the government side of the House, that I believe it is incumbent on them not to involve themselves in any of these investigations. I received a letter from an Opposition member which contained a reference in favour of one of those 37 teachers. I will not name the member because of the possibility of jeopardising the investigation and identifying the school or the alleged victim. I urge caution on the part of all those wishing to involve themselves in this process. A number of people are saying a lot of things and they do not know the harm they are causing in so doing. I warn Opposition members and, in particular, the member to whom I referred earlier who sent me the letter. I will not name him; he knows who he is. As I said earlier, there is the potential for jeopardising a serious investigation.

It is inappropriate to release Mr Slattery's report, as it may publicly identify teachers and their alleged victims. Due to the detail of his review, publication could also jeopardise police investigations and any further prosecutions. Mr Slattery's recommendation vindicates the Government's decision to stand down those 37 teachers. Mr Slattery is continuing to examine the remaining 136 teachers accused of various offences also referred to him by me and by the Government. I have been advised by the Premier's Department that it is unlikely that Mr Slattery will recommend the removal from schools of any of these teachers - a further vindication of this Government's action.

I have now asked Mr Slattery to investigate the 16 departmental officers who appear to have failed to notify appropriate authorities about suspect child abuse and improper conduct. He has also been asked to open so-called closed cases in the case management unit where teachers remain in schools. In addition, the Government is implementing a major reform package as an interim measure while awaiting the royal commission's final recommendations. These reforms will do away with the department's past practices, some of which date
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back 25 years. They will address longstanding systemic failings and, most importantly, will ensure the protection of our students.

I have ordered that the longstanding practice of destroying records of unproven charges against teachers stop immediately. In accordance with another recommendation from Mr Slattery I have also banned the practice of automatic reinstatement for teachers acquitted of serious sexual misconduct - a practice which dates back at least 25 years. To ensure that the department is fully informed of court proceedings a departmental officer is now required to attend all criminal trials relating to sexual misconduct. This will ensure that appropriate action is taken at departmental level, even if a conviction does not result - another of Mr Slattery's recommendations. I make that plain: as a result of Mr Slattery's recommendations there is the possibility of departmental disciplinary action being taken even if a conviction does not result from criminal proceedings.

The Government has almost doubled the size of the case management unit; it has increased the number of staff from eight to 15. Today I announce that Glenys Parry Blackadder, former Assistant Inspector-General of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service and manager of complaints and investigations at the Community Services Commission, has been appointed as chief investigator in the revamped case management unit. A new, centralised computer database, which has been established to track cases and share information nationally, encompasses the "Not to be employed" list.

The Department of School Education will now deal only with cases that the police and the Department of Community Services have declared outside its jurisdiction. It is worth reminding the House that these deficiencies occurred under successive governments. I made the point earlier that deficiencies go back at least 25 years. To drive this point home I need only quote something said by the former Minister for Education in the other place, the Hon. Virginia Chadwick, who told Parliament on 16 September 1993:

I would be astonished if other than in the most extreme circumstances proper reports were not made. With a huge work force, I could guarantee that every one of our 47,000 teachers remembers to report instantly.

That is what she believed was going on at the time which, clearly, was not the case and has not been the case for at least 25 years. As I said earlier, in some instances these failings date back to the Askin era. But all honourable members should remember that it was Government members, when in opposition, who voted to create the royal commission at the time in support of a former Independent, John Hatton. This Government extended the terms of reference of that royal commission to include paedophilia. It did that because it was fearful that, in a number of departments - not just in the Police Service - poor procedures, poor training and other factors had put our children at risk. The Government now knows that its instincts were right. It is addressing the problem as no other government has addressed the problem in the past.

Mr PHILLIPS: My question without notice is directed to the Premier. How does the Premier explain the revelation on Four Corners last night that Mr Packer's employee, Mr Barron, was briefing journalists on the content of the stolen Louisiana police report in preparation for a press conference that the present Premier was to give the following day?

Mr CARR: The report was available to numerous media organisations in Sydney. The report was available at the Casino Control Authority and the report -

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Chair's tolerance is exhausted. I place all members on three calls to order.

Mr CARR: - was in the possession of the Opposition. A major decision was being made about the allocation of a licence for a casino.

Mr Photios: What a lie!

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I remind the House that all members are on three calls to order.

Mr CARR: The report was in the possession of the Opposition. We had it and we used it - as we were duty-bound to use it. The former Government was in the process of issuing a casino licence. A report became available that raised profound concerns about probity. We got hold of a copy of the report and we released it, which caused an inquiry - an inquiry conducted by Mr Tobias, QC - that raised not a scintilla of criticism of the Opposition. There was not a word of criticism of me or my team as a result of that statutory inquiry by the Casino Control Authority. That inquiry resulted in real changes - changes that have benefited the people of this State. I repeat: we did not want any suggestion that there would be Mafia influence on the fringe of legal casino activity in Sydney.

By the way, just as an alert Labor Opposition forced a royal commission into the Police Service in this State, an alert Labor Opposition forced this inquiry in 1994. Anyone who wants an annal,
Page 7201
anyone who wants a record of an alert Opposition protecting the interests of the people of this State, should look at the Labor Opposition in 1994. I remind the House that I have heard before the allegation that this Government when in opposition used illegally obtained material. I heard it in this House from the late-lamented Barry Morris, the former member for the Blue Mountains. Remember Barry, one of the champions that the Liberal Party has produced, one of the jewels of New South Wales liberalism, coming to the table of the House and saying that the then Opposition obtained this material illegally. While we are talking about Barry Morris, let me give the House news: he will be out of Berrima gaol on Tuesday.

Mr MILLS: My question without notice is directed to the Deputy Premier, Minister for Health, and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. What impact will Federal funding cuts have on the surveillance and monitoring of food hygiene in New South Wales?

Dr REFSHAUGE: Honourable members will note with some alarm the recent problems experienced in Victoria in relation to the quality and safety of food products. Effective monitoring is one of the most important ways to ensure that contaminated foods are quickly identified and that the risk to the public is minimised. New South Wales has been an active participant and a strong supporter of national guidelines for the control and monitoring of food standards. As further work in this area has been undertaken, New South Wales has continued to maintain a high level of food monitoring. In addition, New South Wales is improving surveillance by enhancing laboratory-based notification systems.

It is unfortunate that the Howard Government does not share this Government's sense of responsibility to the public. The Howard Government has slashed funding to the Australia New Zealand Food Authority by $3 million. That represents a cut of more than one-third to that authority's budget. The Australia New Zealand Food Authority comprises representatives of all State, Territory and national governments of both Australia and New Zealand. The group's membership includes representatives from both health and primary industry departments. New Zealand and the member States, including New South Wales, have maintained existing funding to that food authority. It is unfortunate that the Howard Federal Government has failed to follow our lead.

I am advised by New South Wales Health that the cuts enforced by the Howard Government will make the food authority virtually unworkable. They will also stall the implementation of the food hazard analysis critical control points. This program is vital to ensure that adequate monitoring of high-risk industries and complex food processes, such as those for processed meat and shellfish, is carried out. Only yesterday a national meeting of public health officers supported moves by the food authority to develop nationally consistent food safety regulations. That is the same organisation that the Howard Government has cut off at the knees.

I know that members on this side of the House will condemn those savage budget cuts. This Government is interested in food safety. It is interested in protecting the consumers from contaminated foods. What will the members on the other side of the House do? Will they support their Federal colleagues and John Howard's plan to cut the food authority's budget? What do the country members say about this? The honourable member for Coffs Harbour obviously supports the cuts to the food authority, but I can tell him that some of the real country members who look after the rural electorates know the devastation that will result if there is a food contamination outbreak in New South Wales. What are they saying to Tim Fischer? What are they saying to John Howard?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member for Badgerys Creek will remain silent.

Dr REFSHAUGE: When the present Opposition was in government we learned what it believed about food safety. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition when he was the Minister for Health got expert advice from the food advisory committee about what to do with smorgasbords. He decided that the decision of the food advisory committee was not right. The then Minister for Health decided to seek better expertise. Where did he go? He went to an up-market resort on the coast and talked to the resort manager to find out what should be done. He disregarded the recommendations and redrafted the food regulations applicable to smorgasbords and salad bars. Despite strong advice for protection of the public using those food outlets, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition decided that the protection would be an optional choice.

When the Labor Party came to office it righted those wrongs and reintroduced the safety regulations in regard to smorgasbords and salad bars. That is what the former Government thought about food safety. The cuts by the Howard Government to food safety budgets will potentially jeopardise the health of everyone in this nation, unless the Federal Government reinstates that funding to the food authority. I have already written to the Federal Minister for Health asking him to support our
Page 7202
campaign for reinstatement of funding for the food authority. We believe that the health of people in New South Wales and, further afield, in the whole of Australia and in New Zealand, deserves the highest standards. The New Zealand Government is continuing its contribution; the New South Wales Government is continuing its contribution; but Nurse Ratchett here supports John Howard.

[Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER: Order! All members will resume their seats. I ask the Deputy Premier to withdraw the reference he made to the honourable member for North Shore and to address her in an appropriate manner.

Dr REFSHAUGE: I withdraw that reference.

Mr SOURIS: My question is directed to the Minister for Gaming and Racing. Did Charles Shields declare to the Minister his conflict of interest in being both a paid consultant to a leading casino bidder and the author of the Minister's gaming policy for the 1995 State election? What steps, if any, did he take to inform the Premier of this conflict of interest?

Mr FACE: I have no knowledge of Mr Shields working for or being employed by Mr Packer while he assisted me as the shadow minister for the Chief Secretary's portfolio. When Labor came to government Mr Shields supplied me with a pecuniary interest declaration, which stated that he was not aware of anything which would conflict with the probity of either my duties as a Minister or his responsibilities as a member of my staff.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I remind the honourable member for Eastwood that he is on three calls to order.

Mr FACE: I am prepared to table the declaration of his pecuniary interests. I emphasise that at no time during my period as a shadow minister was Mr Shields ever paid by me, to my knowledge or that of the Labor Party. I seek leave to table that document.

Leave granted.

Mr GAUDRY: I direct my question to the Minister for the Environment. What is the status of oyster harvesting in Wallis Lake?

Ms ALLAN: Today I am in a position to advise the oyster farmers of Wallis Lake, after much hard work by the interagency task force set up by this Government and the Great Lakes Shire Council, that Wallis Lake is expected to be reopened for oyster harvesting by the end of this month.

[Interruption]

Is the honourable member for Myall Lakes still feeling well? The contamination of Wallis Lake has been a tragedy for the victims of the hepatitis A outbreak and for the families that rely on the oyster industry to survive. On 20 March, the Premier and I released a 10-point response to the contamination. Those measures included the introduction of an oyster quality assurance program for Wallis Lake; a financial assistance package to allow further investigation; a sewage system upgrade, including a $1 million extra assistance for Nabiac and Coomba Park; sediment and virology testing; and a recovery strategy. At that time I announced that the task force would meet to agree on the criteria which, once met, would allow for the reopening of the lake for oyster harvesting.

Those criteria were that the quality assurance program for the lake was fully operational; that a report from the Great Lakes Council on sewage contamination was complete, together with a timetable for the management of all sources of pollution in the lake; that cases of hepatitis A had returned to background levels; that at least one month had elapsed since the last date of sale of Wallis Lake oysters; and that no hepatitis A virus could be detected in the water from the oyster purification tanks in recently harvested Wallis Lake oysters. Has the honourable member for Myall Lakes had his test yet? The good news is that those criteria have now been met. The quality assurance program is now operational and the report from the council has identified several high-priority possible sources of contamination. Those sources are septic tanks on both residential and commercial properties.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member for Wakehurst will cease interjecting.

Ms ALLAN: Cases of hepatitis A have returned to background levels and no hepatitis A virus has been detected in the water from the depuration tanks. I am also pleased to announce that the Minister for Land and Water Conservation has today agreed to further ensure the continuing health of the waterway. A grant of $50,000 will allow the Great Lakes Council to clean and seal the several high-priority septic tanks identified during the extensive pollution survey carried out in recent weeks. Some honourable members opposite do not believe that is good news. I can assure them that my good friend the Mayor of the Great Lakes Council does believe it is good news. Wallis Lake is now the most tested body of water in Australia. Has the
Page 7203
honourable member for Myall Lakes had his body tested yet? The Government is moving to minimise the chances of a recurrence of such a devastating outbreak. My colleague the Minister for Fisheries will extend the quality assurance program to all oyster growing areas in this State with a product and environmental quality monitoring program, grower education and sanitary surveys.

The interagency task force, which continues to meet, is now developing a strategic action plan. Should contamination of this type occur again, all government agencies will have clearly defined roles and responsibilities. More sophisticated testing of oysters will be introduced, and oyster growers across New South Wales will have to take part in quality assurance programs that enforce strict guidelines, enhanced testing and grower education strategies. In the longer term, the Government is working, through the development of its coastal policy, to ensure that the State's waterways are not contaminated through careless and uncontained development. Several other proposals, including a suggestion that all properties with septic tanks be registered, are also under consideration. The Government is also considering other ways of reducing the impact of private vessels on waterways such as Wallis Lake. The Government is working to ensure that the Wallis Lake incident is never repeated.

Dr MACDONALD: Will the Minister for Health provide the House with the reasons that he established a passive smoking task force and then ignored its recommendations to ban smoking in the hospitality industry and aligned himself with the Australian Hotels Association and the tobacco industry?

Dr REFSHAUGE: There is no doubt that over the past decade or so the changes in the attitude of the community to smoking have been significant. I believe that those changes will continue. I believe that the acceptance of tobacco smoking in a whole range of public places will significantly decline, and that that will not take a long time. However, it is important to move with the community. It is important to obtain the evidence, to convince the community of what that evidence shows, and to make sure that legislation is introduced or that the community is encouraged to make changes that it believes are in its best interests.

The Government is still awaiting the report of the National Health and Medical Research Council on the scientific evidence of the health hazards of passive smoking. That report has not been released. I am certainly very keen that the report be part of the community education program so that the community understands what changes are needed and is supportive of the changes that are brought in. The passive smoking task force was not asked to examine the medical evidence relating to passive smoking. The task force assumed that passive smoking was hazardous and that it should therefore consider what options should be introduced by government. The task force came up with five options, the report had five options. That is what the task force was asked to do: it was asked to ensure that options were produced.

Dr Macdonald: That is pathetic.

Dr REFSHAUGE: The honourable member for Manly says that the passive smoking task force is pathetic. I do not believe it is. The task force was asked to come up with a range of options, which it did. Those options ranged from doing nothing to banning smoking in a whole range of public places. The task force provided those options and highlighted the up side and down side of each option.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member for North Shore and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition will leave the Chamber if they continue to interject.

Dr REFSHAUGE: It is fair to say that it is not the intention of the Government to convince non-smokers that smoking is bad. There is plenty of evidence that smoking causes major medical problems. Our role is, firstly, to convince the public not to take up smoking; secondly, to assist them to stop smoking, and, thirdly, to ensure that appropriate changes are available in relation to passive smoking. I am not here to abrogate my responsibility or the responsibility of Parliament for the implementation of legislation. That is the role of the Parliament. I will not move away from that responsibility, even if the honourable member for Manly wants me to do so. To ensure that the matter is adequately debated in this House, it is important that it is adequately debated in the community

The community must have a chance to understand the issues and to inform the honourable member for Manly, me and other members of Parliament what it believes is appropriate. We will then be able to evaluate the community's input. I know that the honourable member for Manly does not usually like to listen to the electorate. He only chooses to listen to the community when he conducts surveys to determine how he will vote on privatisation. When he has decided his own position, he does not listen to the community. All of a sudden he says what should happen. It is essential that we
Page 7204
listen to the community in relation to issues involving personal behaviour.

Mr Cochran: On a point of order. If the Minister wants to make a personal attack on the honourable member for Manly he should do so by way of substantive motion.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member for Manly is not so thin-skinned. The Minister may continue.

Dr REFSHAUGE: To assist the general public to make suggestions about the task force report, the Government is making sure that it is available to every member of the community. Recently the National Heart Foundation has been commissioned to conduct a substantial research program into industry and community attitudes to passive smoking. It is important that that information is brought back to the Parliament. Those who are deeply committed anti-smokers believe that the health police will stop people smoking. They will not. It is the behaviour of individual members of the public that is important.

The honourable member for Manly has been a general practitioner for a long time and I am sure he has told many people about how to improve the status of their health. But he would also know that not everyone believes him or does what he asks them to do. It is important that changes are made, but the community must be involved in the decision making. The changes will then actually work. The former health Ministers opposite look smug but they refused to ban cigarette advertising and sponsorship. They stand condemned because they did not make the changes. The Independents in the upper House and the Labor Party made those changes, with the support, of course, of the honourable member for Manly in the lower House.

Mr McMANUS: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Police, representing the Attorney General. What action will the Government take to help protect from threats, harassment or attack people serving on juries in New South Wales?

Mr WHELAN: The Carr Government, particularly the Attorney General, has been extremely disturbed to learn of a number of cases in which jurors or formers jurors have been threatened. This is clearly unacceptable. Jurors must be protected. I am pleased to inform honourable members today that the Government has acted promptly to address this important issue of protecting innocent people who are merely performing an important public duty. I am advised that recently, after his release from gaol, a person who had been convicted of serious crimes involving a drive-by shooting wrote to at least two people who had served as jurors on his case. Another former juror complained of receiving unsolicited mail which related to the case on which he had served. The most recent incident occurred during the Ivan Milat trial when one juror, who had an unusual name, received a threatening phone call and was then discharged.

Legislation of which the Attorney will give notice in Parliament today provides that jurors' names will no longer be read out in open court. These reforms will ensure anonymity and the safety of all jurors. The changes to the Jury Act will prevent jurors' names being called out in court when they are being empanelled in either civil and criminal trials. The trial judge will be required to ask the Crown prosecutor to inform prospective jurors about the nature of the matter and the identities of the accused and the witnesses. The judge will also ask the prosecutor to explain that those who feel incapable of making an impartial judgment should be excused.

The legislation also includes significant increases in the penalties for soliciting information from a juror or harassing a juror or former juror. The penalty for that serious offence will be increased from $2,000 to $10,000 or two years imprisonment in summary cases, or a maximum of seven years imprisonment on indictment. The legislation also extends that offence, which has until now applied only when the material is sought for publication or broadcast. This reform adds to other recent reforms undertaken by the Carr Government to overhaul and streamline the jury system to improve efficiency and save taxpayers both time and money. The reforms include giving the Sheriff access to police records and other government information to ensure that unsuitable people, such as criminals, are disqualified from jury service. The introduction of the legislation is a further example of the Carr Government's ongoing commitment to improving the jury system and to giving jurors the protection they deserve and expect.

Questions without notice concluded.

Petitions praying that the office of Governor of New South Wales not be downgraded, and that the role, duties and future of the office be determined by a referendum, received from Mr Armstrong, Mr
Page 7205
Beck, Mr Chappell, Mr Cruickshank, Mr Debnam, Mr Fraser, Mr Jeffery, Mr D. L. Page, Mr Rixon, Mr Slack-Smith, Mr Souris and Mr J. H. Turner.

Petition praying that a uniform standard of decency for dress and conduct at all marches, parades and mardi gras be adopted, received from Mr O'Doherty.

Petition praying that Hornsby hospital not be downgraded or closed, received from Mr O'Doherty.

Petition praying that Neringah Hospital not be closed, received from Mr O'Doherty.

Petition praying that Bega and District Hospital be reclassified as a base hospital, received from Mr Smith.

Petition praying that the Pennant Hills patrol not be closed and that the police resources available to the Pennant Hills patrol be increased, received from Mr O'Farrell.

Petition praying that Riverwood Police Station not be closed, received from Ms Ficarra.

Petition praying that when considering the need for new wilderness areas and national parks, the Government should consider the subsequent impact on rural regions and local communities through the loss of income, jobs and recreational opportunities; request socioeconomic and environmental impact statements before proceeding further with any law in respect of this matter; and consider changes in management practices to allow the public vehicular access to existing fire trails and roads for recreational purposes, received from Mr Chappell.

Petitions praying that the House support the Home Invasion (Occupants Protection) Bill 1996, received from Mr Aquilina, Mr Rozzoli and Mr Whelan.

Petition praying that the cut-off point for daylight saving be changed, received from Mr Beck.

Petition praying that Fassifern be included as a station on the Brisbane to Murwillumbah XPT service, received from Mr Hunter.

Petition praying that a senior high school be established at Mount Druitt, received from Mr Amery.

Petition praying that the existing section of the Oxley Highway between Tobins Camp and the intersection with Knodingbul Road is of an inferior standard and requesting a feasibility study into relocating that section to the route of the old highway and Knodingbul Road, received from Mr Jeffery.

Petition praying that Main Road 272 be sealed between Tanja and the Murrah River, received from Mr Smith.

Petition praying that the House reject changes to bag limits and fish length, and reject any proposal to introduce saltwater licence fees for recreational fishing, received from Mr Jeffery.

Dr REFSHAUGE (Marrickville - Deputy Premier, Minister for Health, and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) [3.56 p.m.]: My motion is urgent because this House must clearly send a message to Canberra that New South Wales cannot survive any more cuts. The motion is urgent because the Federal Government budget is about to be presented; it is urgent because patients in New South Wales and in every other State are suffering because of the Federal Government's cuts. This motion must be debated urgently today so that this House can demonstrate the significance it places on health care in this State. It is urgent because not only has the Federal Government already significantly cut funding from the New South Wales public health
Page 7206
system and a range of special programs, it also intends to cut more money from the New South Wales public hospital system. I know the interjectors opposite do not believe that the Federal Government should give any money to any State, but we in New South Wales and my colleagues in every other State are giving the Commonwealth the clear message: stop the cuts to health services. If members of this House show a lack of commitment by not being prepared to stand up with those from other States in the interests of all patients, it will be a travesty. This motion is not only urgent. It is desperately important to send a clear message to John Howard that his cuts are hurting.

Mr COLLINS (Willoughby - Leader of the Opposition) [3.58 p.m.]: The motion of which I have given notice today is urgent because last night on the national groundbreaking Four Corners program, the Premier of this State was seen three years ago to be using a document which was stolen from the Louisiana state police. I asked a question during question time this afternoon, as other members of the Opposition did, to try to get the facts on the record about why the Premier of New South Wales, when he was Leader of the Opposition, was prepared to use a stolen document, which has been identified by the Louisiana state police, without asking any questions as to where it came from and without first ascertaining that it had been legally obtained. The Premier has to come clean about who gave him the stolen document. The Premier of this State used stolen goods to achieve a political objective.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is too much interjection.

Mr Gibson: On a point of order. I am reluctant to take a point of order, but the standing orders in this Chamber are well known. The Leader of the Opposition has to prove why it is more important to deal with the motion he has proposed. Nothing in the standing orders gives him liberty to deal with the substance of the matter.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is a lengthy motion and the Leader of the Opposition is at liberty to make reference to it.

Mr COLLINS: The matter is urgent because last night on a national program allegations were made which reflect on the honesty and integrity of the Government. The motion is urgent because it gives the Premier of this State an opportunity to come clean about the use of the document, to come clean about where he obtained the document, how he used the document, how he quoted from it selectively - to lay it all out for the people of New South Wales. He has not done so in response to a series of Opposition questions at question time. We are giving him the opportunity to come clean about it.

This opportunity comes rarely. I warn the Premier about what happened to another political leader who once used information which was illegally obtained. He went on to be the first President of the United States to resign from office in disgrace. The Premier is given the opportunity to defend himself, to explain to the House where the document came from, why he was in possession of a stolen document, the legality of the document, how he used it and why he used it to the political advantage of the Labor Party. He has not done so. He is asked to provide the identity of the person who gave him the stolen document from the Louisiana state police. He is asked to provide all the documentation that he used, not just edited excerpts of it.

The motion also calls on the Premier to make himself available to give evidence to the Casino Control Authority on his role in this grubby matter. There is no more important matter than for the Premier of this State to clear his name, to come clean, to lay all the facts on the table of this House. We, the Opposition, challenge him to do this. If he does not do it he leaves it open to people to draw their own conclusions about the integrity and the honesty of the Government which he leads. He leaves it open for people to draw their own conclusions about why the Premier used a stolen document and on whose behalf he used a stolen document. That is why the Premier has to tell the people of New South Wales why he has done what he has done, why he has seen fit to use a stolen document, why he did not check with anyone where that document came from and whether it had been legally obtained. If the Premier does not take this opportunity he could well become the Tricky Dicky of New South Wales. He has the chance to explain in the Chamber where he got the stolen document from. I urge him to take it. [Time expired.]

Question - That the motion for urgent consideration of the honourable member for Marrickville be proceeded with - put.

The House divided.

Page 7207

Ms Allan Mr Markham
Mr Amery Mr Martin
Mr Anderson Ms Meagher
Ms Andrews Mr Mills
Mr Aquilina Mr Moss
Mrs Beamer Mr Nagle
Mr Clough Mr Neilly
Mr Crittenden Ms Nori
Mr Debus Mr E. T. Page
Mr Face Mr Price
Mr Gaudry Dr Refshauge
Mr Gibson Mr Rogan
Mrs Grusovin Mr Rumble
Ms Hall Mr Scully
Mr Harrison Mr Shedden
Ms Harrison Mr Stewart
Mr Hunter Mr Sullivan
Mr Iemma Mr Tripodi
Mr Knight Mr Watkins
Mr Knowles Mr Whelan
Mr Langton Mr Woods
Mrs Lo Po' Mr Yeadon
Mr Lynch Tellers,
Mr McBride Mr Beckroge
Mr McManus Mr Thompson

Mr Armstrong Mr Oakeshott
Mr Beck Mr O'Doherty
Mr Blackmore Mr D. L. Page
Mr Brogden Mr Phillips
Mr Chappell Mr Photios
Mrs Chikarovski Mr Richardson
Mr Cochran Mr Rixon
Mr Collins Mr Rozzoli
Mr Cruickshank Mr Schipp
Mr Debnam Mr Schultz
Mr Downy Ms Seaton
Mr Ellis Mrs Skinner
Ms Ficarra Mr Slack-Smith
Mr Fraser Mr Small
Mr Glachan Mr Smith
Mr Hartcher Mr Souris
Mr Hazzard Mr Tink
Mr Humpherson Mr J. H. Turner
Dr Kernohan Mr R. W. Turner
Mr Kinross Mr Windsor
Mr MacCarthy
Dr Macdonald Tellers,
Mr Merton Mr Jeffery
Ms Moore Mr Kerr

Mr Carr Mr Peacocke

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Dr REFSHAUGE (Marrickville - Deputy Premier, Minister for Health, and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) [4.11 p.m.]: I move:

That this House condemns the Federal Government over cuts to health funding and the damaging effect these cuts are having on New South Wales patients.

It is time some reality was injected into the health debate. Despite what the Liberals say, the health system is not a bleeding wreck which should be sold off to a United States private health company. Two years ago when they said that the health system was an earthly paradise where people were being cured before they fell ill, they were lying. Today, after the Labor Government has injected some $634 million over the past two years into the New South Wales health system, it is functioning effectively, but there is no doubt that it is reaching its limit. The funding increases have improved equity in growth areas but more needs to be done. Despite significant improvements in the New South Wales growth areas - denied to those patients by the former Government - fewer services are available to patients in those areas when compared with services provided to patients in the inner city.

This Government's extra funding of $634 million over two years means that emergency patients are treated sooner - although some patients still wait too long in emergency departments. The extra funding of $634 million means that more patients receive elective surgery and that they receive it faster. Despite significant improvements and a dramatic reduction in the number of people waiting more than 12 months for elective surgery - delays that were left by the Liberal Government - some patients wait too long for elective surgery. Our Government is developing seven new rural hospitals and creating more rural training positions. But patients in rural New South Wales deserve better. Some rural areas have limited access to specialist services.

We are missing the opportunity to build good health in the community through improved community health services. Those opportunities are missed not because of lack of commitment at the State level but because of lack of commitment at the Federal level. New South Wales has some areas which need improvement but it is doing better than any other State in this nation. New South Wales has the shortest waiting times of any State. It has the fastest emergency departments and the most specialist services. Other States are much further
Page 7208
down the road to crisis. Health systems all around Australia are facing national problems and there is no commitment from the Howard Government to provide a national solution.

One of the Federal Government's first decisions in health was to give taxpayers' money to the private health insurance industry. In one year alone the Federal Government gave $600 million of taxpayers' money, which should have gone to our public hospitals, to the private health insurance agencies. A Federal Government body recognised that the $600 million at maximum would provide less than half that value in the reduction of health costs. In other words, the Federal Government was prepared to take money from the public hospitals, from health care and give it to an industry that was not ailing - people had just chosen not to use it - giving less than half that value in health care. What do we hear from the Opposition about these cuts? Nothing. What do we hear from the Leader of the Opposition? Nothing. What do we hear from the honourable member for North Shore, the Opposition's spokesperson on health? Nothing. What do we hear from the the other Opposition spokesperson, the Hon. Dr B. P. V. Pezzutti? Nothing.

Every year thousands of Australians drop out of private health insurance. The Federal Government's policy on private health insurance has failed, which puts extra pressure on our public hospitals. That fallout from private hospitals means that the State Government has to take up that cost, which is cost shifting. This year alone the Federal Government has shifted costs to New South Wales of the order of $250 million. New South Wales has to take up that cost because the Federal Government is not making private health insurance attractive - and it is debatable whether it should or not - and is not fulfilling its responsibilities to patients who now use public hospitals because they have dropped out of private health insurance. The Federal Government has dudded every State and is dudding the patients of this nation.

It is simple fact that patients use the private health system largely for elective surgery. When they stop paying insurance, that elective surgery pressure is put on public hospitals, and we are seeing those results. Today I am releasing the February elective surgery figures which show 45,843 cases. As a result of the fall in private insurance cover, its cost impact on New South Wales - some $250 million this year alone - and the Federal Government's direct cuts to public hospitals, more people will wait longer to be hospitalised. The average waiting time for medical and surgical patients in February this year was 1.3 months, which is significantly less than patients face in other States, but we are always trying to do better.

The total health expenditure in Australia is approximately $25 billion. Two-thirds of that expenditure is spent on patients over 60 years of age. The Federal Government is trying to make it harder for older people to join private insurance. It is suggesting that older people should pay more, which will not encourage older people to take private health insurance. The Howard Government is walking away from the elderly in this country. It is not surprising that every State health and community services Minister - and there is only one State with a Labor Government - considers that this is a national disaster. The Opposition members can walk away from that but they are the ones who went to Jeff Kennett to ask how it is done. Did the Opposition members go to Jeff Kennett as a stunt or did they go to hear him? He is saying very clearly "Stop those Federal cuts".

In addition, the Howard Government has cut the special purpose payments to health care and has cut $34 million from the Commonwealth dental health program. That move will return us to the bad old days when people with dental needs had to wait up to three years for treatment. People will not receive treatment until their problems become acute and instead of restoration of their teeth they will have extractions. I have spoken to many people during the time the dental health program was not in existence. Some older people would not leave their houses because they were disfigured with dental problems; some could not eat with dignity in front of another person; and some had poor nutrition because they could not eat foods which they should.

The Federal Government - the Howard Government - is denying old people the right to dental care. What does the New South Wales Opposition do about it? The honourable member for North Shore, who has attacked almost every policy in Australia - State or Federal, Liberal or Labor - has never called for the restoration of the Commonwealth dental health program. Last week, when she issued one of her very few media releases insisting that New South Wales put more money into the public health system, she deliberately left out the $34 million cut to the dental scheme. That is how much she thinks about the dental health care needs of pensioners; that is what she thinks of dental health services in rural New South Wales. She specifically excluded that cut from what she said should be provided for health care in the forthcoming budget. It is not surprising that she is a joke amongst the medical community; it is not surprising that she is a joke amongst the general community.

Page 7209

Dental health care was particularly excluded by her. She has no commitment to the dental health program, particularly the program that reduced waiting time for dental treatment from three years to less than six months. In that same media release she identified $44 million, which she claimed the Government needs to contribute to the hospital budget because the Commonwealth has reduced its funding. What hypocrisy from the Liberal Party, whose members will say anything. The coalition in opposition will support the Federal Government when it cuts funding, then say that a Labor Government in New South Wales has to restore a Federal Liberal cut. It is enormously hypocritical. The Federal cut will mean that 17,000 fewer patients will receive treatment. I ask the honourable member for North Shore - [Time expired.]

Mrs SKINNER (North Shore) [4.21 p.m.]: What absolute hypocrisy! I have never heard such hypocrisy or such drivel in my life. The Minister needs to have a cup of nicotine in the corridor to steady his nerves. He obviously tried to pull this stunt today to disguise the fact that waiting lists in New South Wales are higher than they have ever been in the history of waiting lists. I believe the Minister said the figure is 45,843. The number of people on waiting lists in January was a record, yet this figure is higher than that one by about 500. A record number of people in New South Wales are on elective waiting lists. The only reason these figures are released is that the Opposition is using freedom of information provisions to make them available to the media. To suggest I do no work with the media is ludicrous. To suggest that the extension in the waiting lists has anything to do with anything other than the Minister's actions will be laughed at by the medical fraternity and everybody else.

The Minister referred to a statement I made last week pointing out the minimum amount of additional funding required by the Carr Government for the recurrent health budget in the next financial year. Based on very conservative estimates gleaned from documents from government sources or the Auditor-General, that figure is $423 million. I understand from the Minister's shaking and subdued response to the media when they called in relation to this subject that I am absolutely on the mark. This is indeed the amount of money needed to cover the cuts, inefficiencies and poor management of this Minister and the Carr Government which have our health system in so much strife. The New South Wales Treasury half-yearly statement of the budget position for 1996-97 identifies an underlying deficit in health of $205 million. How does the Minister explain the deficit before any changes are made to funding by the Commonwealth Government? The figures are an absolute farce - yet the Minister sits there pretending to have a conversation with another member.

This motion refers to the damaging effects these funding cuts are having on New South Wales patients. When Mr Peter McCowan was in this place a couple of weeks ago to explain to the media how he has needed to use a catheter every day since May last year and that he had been waiting for surgery for four months, even though his doctor determined he should have had surgery within 30 days, I called the Health Care Complaints Commission, put Mr McCowan on the phone, and he was given an operating theatre time. That is an example of the ill impact of efforts by this Government on patients. Last week Miss Karel Lyons drove from Wagga Wagga to talk to the media in the hope of highlighting the problems for people who are suffering under the Carr Government as a result of lack of access to much-needed health care. Her bladder was accidentally perforated during a hysterectomy. The repair operation was not successful and her doctor determined that she should have surgery within seven days. That was 10 weeks before she came in here and spread out the amount of medical equipment, drugs, et cetera, that she had to take daily to get her through the misery of a perforated bladder.

I know she will not mind my telling you, because we spoke about her problems at length. She had a catheter affixed with a catheter bag. It sometimes blocked and leaked. She usually woke up at night in a bed of urine. She had to be injected twice daily with medication. Fortunately she is a nurse, so she understands the system. She told me that she has never seen anything like it in her life. She holds this Minister and this Government responsible. I could go on ad nauseam about the number of patients who have contacted me to complain about this Minister, this Government and the lack of access to hospital waiting lists, but this Parliament would do better to hear them slowly over the next few weeks. I will bring them out one at a time so that the Minister's colleagues, who have obviously been told some cock-and-bull story, will get a picture of what it means to have Dr Andrew Refshauge as the Minister for Health in this State.

Why do people not have access to hospitals? The reason is that the Carr Government, and this Minister, cut the health budget in real terms this year. I refer to articles written the day after the Treasurer brought down the Budget. The recurrent health budget increased by 0.9 per cent when the inflation rate nominated by the Government was 3.3 per cent. In other words, a shortfall in real terms of 2.4 per cent meant that hospitals had to cope with inflation at a rate greater than the consumer price
Page 7210
index, because the cost of treatment, equipment, drugs, staffing, goods and services, and salaries - which were higher than the consumer price index rate - were more than the Government had allocated. Because of all these costs and the reduction in funding in real terms hospitals are in dire straits. I regularly receive phone calls, not only from doctors, nurses, patients and their carers, but also from health administrators who are responding with their feet and leaving this Government to show their lack of confidence in this Minister. In the past two years 33 senior health managers, some of whom made public health their life's work, have left the hospital system because hospitals are no longer able to provide the stunning options described by this Minister when he was in Opposition. It is because hospitals are broke that they cannot provide treatment for patients like Peter McCowan and Karel Lyons. To cut budget debts the Government must reduce services.

Hospitals are shutting beds and cutting back on operating theatre times. They are putting a freeze on the employment of staff and are closing beds for extended times over holiday periods. This Minister told us that we would never again have part-time hospitals over the Christmas and New Year period, that hospitals would be open all through that period and, furthermore, that they would be open on Saturdays. This year hospitals were closed from Christmas until February. During the Easter holiday period many hospitals closed for the whole of the school holidays, not just on Good Friday and Easter Monday. Those hospitals closed because the Minister failed to provide funding to enable them to operate. This motion is a farce. I move:

That the motion be amended by leaving out the word "Federal" with a view to inserting instead the word "State".

If my amendment is accepted we will have a more accurate portrayal of the situation in New South Wales. It will give Government members an opportunity to show the people of New South Wales that they are with them. They will have an opportunity to show the Peter McCowans and other patients who cannot get access to the health system that the Carr Government and this Minister have failed to provide the resources that are required. My amendment will also give Government members an opportunity to acknowledge that an additional $423 million in recurrent terms alone is needed in this year's budget just to maintain the current level of service. [Time expired.]

Mr MILLS (Wallsend) [4.31 p.m.]: The honourable member for North Shore, who just moved an amendment to the original motion, displayed an appalling ignorance of our constitutional set-up - a matter to which I will refer later. It is important that I say something positive in this debate after the carping, the negativity and the mendacity displayed by the honourable member for North Shore. Despite Federal budget cuts and the uncertainty that that has created, the Carr Government is building a secure future for the public health system in New South Wales. This Labor Government is building an efficient and effective health system which is funded on a rational basis. It is implementing a resource allocation formula which the Liberals and Nationals promised would be implemented eight or nine years ago. However, they lost office before achieving that. We are already seeing a build-up of health services in growth areas of New South Wales. This Government is not just talking about services; it is opening them. Services are being provided in growth areas.

Through contracts with area health services the health system is being made responsible for building good health in the community - an attitude change - and not for just treating the sick. The Department of Health is working with health professionals to establish quality benchmarks so that the health system can be measured to establish whether it is curing patients. Those benchmarks will establish whether we are really doing the job that we have set out to do in the health system. We have not yet achieved our goals but we are working towards achieving them. No government could hope to restore the health system in two short years after seven years of budget cuts by the former Government. No State government could restore the health budget while the Federal Government is slashing the general purpose grants and getting stuck into special purpose payments to health.

This Labor Government has increased the health budget by 7.7 per cent above inflation. From 1988 to 1995 - the seven long years of the previous Liberal-National Government - the health budget was left short. Labor, in its first two budgets, added an extra $632 million to the hospital system because Liberal health Ministers took out $632 million. One thing that has cost the honourable member for North Shore her credibility is her unceasing, untruthful mantra about State Government budget cuts. Let me make it clear to all honourable members, to those people listening in this building and to the people of New South Wales, that an increase of $632 million in two budgets is not a cut. The honourable member for North Shore is simply wrong. Black is not white and up is not down. The honourable member for North Shore would not know how to read a budget statement.

Current Liberal spokespeople now have the gall to point out weaknesses in the system. The former Government was proud of its productivity cuts. It told us how well the system was running, in
Page 7211
spite of the funding squeeze that went on every year. The coalition Government pointed to the 50,000 people on hospital waiting lists and said, "These waiting lists are terrific. They are the best in Australia. The people in New South Wales should be pleased with waiting lists like that." Two years later those waiting lists have not grown, despite the growth in the system. Waiting times have fallen and they are now well and truly the lowest in Australia. More importantly, the Government's waiting list reduction program has virtually wiped out long waiting times for patients who, under the previous Government, had been on waiting lists for inappropriately long times.

Every honourable member of the lower House who receives representations from constituents would know that waiting times have fallen. I repeat that waiting lists in New South Wales are now the lowest in Australia. The honourable member for North Shore said that the waiting lists were unacceptable, even though they were the same size now as they were under the previous Government. She described the waiting times that are even lower now as "outrageous". She is not looking at the history of the former Government. In 1994 the Liberal Party had the temerity to claim that its undersized health budget, which is over half a billion dollars smaller than the present health budget, was generous. [Time expired.]

Mr PHILLIPS (Miranda - Deputy Leader of the Opposition) [4.36 p.m.]: It is with pleasure that I speak in debate on this matter. However, before going into any detail I say to the honourable member for Wallsend that one of the biggest mistakes a Government backbencher can make is to take a Minister's briefing paper and read it in this Parliament. The Minister is conning the honourable member for Wallsend and he is conning this Parliament. When I was a Minister my backbenchers had enough knowledge of my portfolio to write their own speeches.

[Interruption]

The honourable member for Wallsend does not have to read briefing papers provided to him by the Minister. Let me get to the guts of this matter. This debate is a feeble and dishonest attempt by this Government to palm off on the Commonwealth Government the problems that it has created. Let me debunk some of the lies that have been espoused and some of the figures that have been put forward by Government members. Let us get it right. In 1993 I signed with the Commonwealth a Medicare agreement that is up for negotiation again next year. Hospital funding was to increase - and it has increased - by $2 billion over a five-year period. That means that New South Wales is getting between $700 million or $800 million in additional funding for the health system over that period. In other words, the Commonwealth Government is clearly doing its share.

One thing to which the Minister would not refer in debate on this matter was the total of the Commonwealth cuts. He is too dishonest to do that. He knows that the Commonwealth Government's economic policy in its Treasury papers, which were released recently by Michael Egan, clearly show that revenue has increased by $286 million in New South Wales. What caused those revenue improvements? The answer is: increases in taxes by this Government, increases in share transfer stamp duty, and an increase of $142 million that the Government got out of government trading enterprise coffers. Where do those increases in stamp duty revenues come from? They come from an increasing housing market and building sector, and from Commonwealth Government improvements to the economy which have given the State Government a funding windfall. The Government has gained over $100 million because of lower interest rates and lower interest payments.

In spite of the increase in funding from the Commonwealth Government through Medicare, the record funding and increased taxes that the Government has put on, and the windfall that the Government has received from the growth in the economy, the Government is screaming poor mouth. The Government said that it has pumped $600 million into health, but it is still screaming poor mouth. Let me deal with the real issue in health. Everyone involved in health in New South Wales knows that the fundamental problem is one of management. New South Wales Health faces a cash crisis because the Minister sent it broke in his first year by running it hot on a stupid, outrageous, dishonest waiting list promise that was never achieved. Since the early 1990s New South Wales has had the fastest treatment times in Australia. The Minister for Health used that quote in this House, so he should not be dishonest about it.

He imposed cuts, and he did away with the efficiency gains in the health system which would have given him the money to open up Liverpool Hospital. That is how stupid he was. He stopped the efficiency gains in the health system. The health system in this State has a management crisis: 33 top health bureaucrats have been driven away, or have walked away, from this health system. Members of the Opposition have spoken to a number of them. They have walked away because they are tired of the lack of leadership and direction of this Minister. There is a morale crisis in the health system. The Minister should talk to the nurses, the doctors and the managers. The Government will not fix this
Page 7212
problem in two years. The Government could double the amount of money being spent on health in New South Wales, but the way the money is being misspent by the Government, the crisis would continue. The Minister for Health is the most unpopular Minister on his side of the House. [Time expired.]

Ms HALL (Swansea) [4.41 p.m.]: I congratulate the Minister on his fine performance as Minister for Health in this State and on the injection of $634 million extra into the health budget of this State. What he has done is remarkable, given that he has to work with the present Federal Government, its funding cuts, and the blunders of the former State Government. Instead of injecting money into the public system, the former Government made a commitment to the private system by privatising Port Macquarie Base Hospital. This State is still paying for the former Government's blunders.

The New South Wales health system is functioning effectively, but it is functioning at its limit. One might ask why. It is being brought to its limit by Federal Government funding cuts. This year the Federal Government has made cuts of over $100 million to health in New South Wales, and it looks as though there will be more. The Federal Government has cut programs for the aged and the chronically ill. The cuts made by the Federal Government hurt the most vulnerable people in the community - not its mates. The saddest aspect is that at the same time that the Federal Government is making these cuts it is making a donation to the wealthiest. The Federal Government is using the money that it is taking away from public hospitals to subsidise private health insurance companies' profits. That is criminal. I use that phrase deliberately, because that is where the money is going. It is not going to the taxpayers. The tax rebate has already been eaten up by premium rises. I am sure honourable members have heard comments such as those in the community.

The tax rebates will simply allow the health insurance companies to charge higher premiums to their ever-shrinking pool of members. Who is bearing the cost? The public health system has to bear the cost. Even if the scheme were to meet its aims and encourage the young and healthy back into private health insurance, it would do very little for the public health system. The young and healthy are not using many public hospital resources at the moment. As we all know, the greatest users of public hospitals are the elderly and the chronically ill. They are the people who cannot afford these premium rises. They are the people who gain very little benefit from tax breaks, and they will not be affected by the Medicare levy rise because they do not earn over $100,000 a year. Realistically, many householders earning over $100,000 a year are self-insured anyway. If they need hospital treatment, they pay for a private hospital, rather than join a public hospital waiting list

It is those who are too poor to pay a private hospital bill, or even a gap, who rely on the public hospital system. Private health insurance changes would benefit the public hospital system only if they helped the poor, the old and the chronically ill into private health insurance. That is not what the private health insurance companies want. Private health insurance companies have already sent their stalking-horses into the national media to demand an end to community rating. They have already started down the track by offering the healthy and the young cheaper packages which do not cover operations for old people, like hip replacements, as the advertisements say. Without community rating, the price of health insurance for the elderly and chronically ill will rise. The only people who will get cheaper health insurance are the young and the healthy.

It is very little help to the public hospital system if the young and healthy take out private health insurance. If they use hospital services at all, it is often for emergency services. Whether insured or not, most people use a public hospital in an emergency. However, If increased costs force the elderly and chronically ill out of private health insurance, that will have a dramatic effect on the public hospital system. Those are people who regularly use the hospital system. If they are forced out of private health insurance, they will use the public hospital system in ever-increasing numbers. Raising the overall level of private health insurance will not help public hospitals. [Time expired.]

Dr REFSHAUGE (Marrickville - Deputy Premier, Minister for Health, and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) [4.46 p.m.], in reply: I thank the honourable member for Swansea for her contribution. It was great to hear the Deputy Leader of the Opposition once again talking about health. Unfortunately, even he had to change the topic; he could not support his spokesperson on health. He talked about his job as shadow treasurer with a great exposition. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition is getting closer to vaguely sounding credible. The interesting thing he said about health was that there is no point in blaming the Federal Government for health cuts. I suggest that he refer to speeches in Hansard that he has made over the last four years.

Mrs Skinner: In Hansard.

Dr REFSHAUGE: Obviously, the honourable member for North Shore is thinking about exactly the same thing. The trouble is that when the Deputy
Page 7213
Leader of the Opposition, the former Minister for Health, was arguing the case for productivity cuts to be re-introduced into the hospitals, he was actually arguing against his shadow spokesperson's position, which is to stop cuts to hospitals. One cannot have cuts and then at the same time not have cuts. Obviously, we are still awaiting the Opposition's policy on health. On the one hand, the Opposition says it is going to have cuts; on the other hand, it says it is not going to have cuts. I know that the Leader of the Opposition is suggesting that the Opposition not have a policy yet, that it should wait and see and will leave the policy until election time. But I do not think he really meant to have two totally opposing policies being proposed at the same time. It is a little bit difficult to sell that in the community. I will let the community know about the Opposition's policies - both of them - so that it can make up its mind. No-one listens to anything that the Opposition says, so it probably does not matter that much. I will not say what the Premier calls the honourable member for North Shore.

Mrs Skinner: I am flattered, actually.

Dr REFSHAUGE: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is an interesting film, but I will leave it to others to make comments about that. The honourable member for North Shore not only cannot read, but she cannot understand figures. When she has a figure in her mind, no matter how many times it is disproved, she sticks with it. Goebbels did that, as did other propagandists - although I am not suggesting that she is like that. One of the Opposition's biggest problems is that it continues to suggest it is right when it has been proved in fact that it is wrong. I have a suggestion for the Opposition: when it is proved to be wrong, it should recognise it. I learned that from my seven years in Opposition. The Opposition will be listened to when it owns up to its mistakes. There is one mistake that seems to be repeated: the absolutely amazing revelation of the honourable member for North Shore about a man who died in the back of an ambulance because it could not get to a hospital, it was diverted.

Mrs Skinner: He died after the ambulance was turned away.

Dr REFSHAUGE: The first story is that a man died in the back of an ambulance after it was turned away - the story has changed three times. We are getting a vague variation of the story at the moment.

Mr Blackmore: On a point of order. The Minister is introducing material that was not raised during the debate. Mr Speaker, I ask you to draw him back to the subject matter.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am sure that the Deputy Premier knows, and will abide by, the standing orders.

Dr REFSHAUGE: The credibility of the Opposition is stark - it has no credibility. The honourable member for Georges River is still parodying this absolute beat-up. After the performance of the Leader of the Opposition today regarding the leaked documents - that probably did not even exist - and the stolen information, if the honourable member for North Shore has any confidence in her leader she will produce it. Opposition members are the ones saying, "Produce the evidence. Give us your sources." Every time the honourable member for North Shore raises an issue, I will refer her to the speech of the Leader of the Opposition and ask her to produce whatever evidence she has. Is it stolen information? If it is, are you going to accept responsibility for aiding and abetting a theft? The Opposition's contribution to this debate shows that it has no commitment to public health, that it is absolutely desperate to protect John Howard and that it supports his cuts. That is the message that it has given the people of New South Wales. [Time expired.]

Question - That the words stand - put.

The House divided.

Ms Allan Mr Markham
Mr Amery Mr Martin
Mr Anderson Ms Meagher
Ms Andrews Mr Mills
Mr Aquilina Ms Moore
Mrs Beamer Mr Moss
Mr Clough Mr Nagle
Mr Crittenden Mr Neilly
Mr Debus Ms Nori
Mr Face Mr E. T. Page
Mr Gaudry Mr Price
Mr Gibson Dr Refshauge
Mrs Grusovin Mr Rogan
Ms Hall Mr Rumble
Mr Harrison Mr Scully
Ms Harrison Mr Shedden
Mr Hunter Mr Stewart
Mr Iemma Mr Sullivan
Mr Knight Mr Tripodi
Mr Knowles Mr Watkins
Mr Langton Mr Whelan
Mrs Lo Po' Mr Woods
Mr Lynch Mr Yeadon
Dr Macdonald Tellers,
Mr McBride Mr Beckroge
Mr McManus Mr Thompson

Page 7214

Mr Armstrong Mr O'Doherty
Mr Beck Mr D. L. Page
Mr Blackmore Mr Phillips
Mr Brogden Mr Photios
Mr Chappell Mr Richardson
Mrs Chikarovski Mr Rixon
Mr Cochran Mr Rozzoli
Mr Collins Mr Schipp
Mr Cruickshank Mr Schultz
Mr Debnam Ms Seaton
Mr Downy Mrs Skinner
Mr Ellis Mr Slack-Smith
Ms Ficarra Mr Small
Mr Fraser Mr Smith
Mr Glachan Mr Souris
Mr Hartcher Mr Tink
Mr Hazzard Mr J. H. Turner
Mr Humpherson Mr R. W. Turner
Dr Kernohan Mr Windsor
Mr Kinross
Mr MacCarthy Tellers,
Mr Merton Mr Jeffery
Mr Oakeshott Mr Kerr

Mr Carr Mr Peacocke

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Amendment negatived.

Question - That the motion be agreed to - put.

The House divided.

Ms Allan Mr Markham
Mr Amery Mr Martin
Mr Anderson Ms Meagher
Ms Andrews Mr Mills
Mr Aquilina Ms Moore
Mrs Beamer Mr Moss
Mr Clough Mr Nagle
Mr Crittenden Mr Neilly
Mr Debus Ms Nori
Mr Face Mr E. T. Page
Mr Gaudry Mr Price
Mr Gibson Dr Refshauge
Mrs Grusovin Mr Rogan
Ms Hall Mr Rumble
Mr Harrison Mr Scully
Ms Harrison Mr Shedden
Mr Hunter Mr Stewart
Mr Iemma Mr Sullivan
Mr Knight Mr Tripodi
Mr Knowles Mr Watkins
Mr Langton Mr Whelan
Mrs Lo Po' Mr Woods
Mr Lynch Mr Yeadon
Dr Macdonald Tellers,
Mr McBride Mr Beckroge
Mr McManus Mr Thompson

Mr Armstrong Mr O'Doherty
Mr Beck Mr D. L. Page
Mr Blackmore Mr Phillips
Mr Brogden Mr Photios
Mr Chappell Mr Richardson
Mrs Chikarovski Mr Rixon
Mr Cochran Mr Rozzoli
Mr Collins Mr Schipp
Mr Cruickshank Mr Schultz
Mr Debnam Ms Seaton
Mr Downy Mrs Skinner
Mr Ellis Mr Slack-Smith
Ms Ficarra Mr Small
Mr Fraser Mr Smith
Mr Glachan Mr Souris
Mr Hartcher Mr Tink
Mr Hazzard Mr J. H. Turner
Mr Humpherson Mr R. W. Turner
Dr Kernohan Mr Windsor
Mr Kinross
Mr MacCarthy Tellers,
Mr Merton Mr Jeffery
Mr Oakeshott Mr Kerr

Mr Carr Mr Peacocke

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Motion agreed to.

Mr O'DOHERTY (Ku-ring-gai) [5.05 p.m.]: I move:

That this House censures the Minister for Education and Training with regard to the following:

(a) that on 23 October 1996 the Minister misled the House with regard to school violence at Marrickville High School;

(b) that the Minister's attempt to avoid accountability for teacher safety is because he has failed to implement policy which adequately protects teachers or deals with serious behaviour problems among students;

(c) that teachers at Marrickville High School say they lack appropriate facilities to deal with student violence and have complained about lack of support from the department and the Minister; and

(d) that Government promises on school violence have been broken.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have received correspondence under the signature of the New South Wales Attorney General, dated 8 April 1997, which reads as follows:

Page 7215

Mr Speaker,

It has been brought to my attention that the Opposition proposes to move a motion this afternoon regarding an incident of violence at Marrickville High School on October 23, 1996.

I am advised that the incident in question is before the courts and that the alleged perpetrator of the above incident has been charged with attempted murder and is remanded in custody to appear on June 23, 1997.

In so far as the debate would canvass material issues of the trial, I am of the view that to proceed with the proposed censure motion within the Parliament would be sub-judice and therefore, could jeopardise the attempted murder trial.

I advise the House that I will be taking the advice of the Attorney General in relation to the matter.

Mr O'DOHERTY: As I understand it, in accordance with the Attorney's letter, provided that I do not canvass any of the material that might be brought before the court in relation to the specific charge laid against a person in connection with the incident at Marrickville High School, there is nothing that stops this House from debating general matters regarding government policy, as is envisaged by paragraph (d) of my motion. There is nothing in paragraph (d) of the motion that would be precluded by anything that either you have said, Mr Speaker, or the Attorney General has advised in his letter. Government promises on school violence have been broken and I will confine myself to that.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I take the honourable member's point. I believe he is correct when he indicates that he can debate paragraph (d), so long as he does not refer to the specifics of this case.

Mr Whelan: On a point of order. Mr Speaker, in support of your decision, it is important that the House understands that paragraph (a) of the motion states that on 23 October 1996 the Minister misled the House with regard to school violence. That is the time and date of the very incident in respect of which this young person has been charged.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have ruled only on paragraph (d). I said that the honourable member for Ku-ring-gai can debate paragraph (d).

Mr Whelan: I am inclined to agree with that, but only if the most strict guidelines are adhered to. There can be no mention of the specific incident referred to at Marrickville. That would not be countenanced. Mr Speaker, I remind you, because the Attorney sent me a copy of the letter -

Mr O'DOHERTY: He did not send it to me. One would have thought he would send it to me.

Mr Whelan: It is not on your head; it is on the head of the Parliament. The Attorney said:

In so far as the debate would canvass material issues of the trial, I am of the view that to proceed with the proposed censure motion within the Parliament would be sub-judice and therefore, could jeopardise the attempted murder trial.

Mr Speaker, I accept your ruling, but, having considered what the Attorney has said, the Government will be very vigilant to ensure that the honourable member, who is going to speak on paragraph 1(d) of the motion only, does not transgress the sub judice rule in relation to this attempted murder charge. This is a very serious criminal charge that a young person is currently facing; it is not a civil matter. If there is a transgression the debate will have to be interrupted by points of order at the first opportunity.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! This is an important matter and I directed the Clerk to stop the clock while the point of order was dealt with. I direct that the member's time now recommence.

Mr O'DOHERTY: The Daily Telegraph told the story with an article headed "Branded a bully at age five". The article stated:

Sam Wynn, 5, yesterday was suspended from his school for being a bully.

Sam Wynn, whose picture I am looking at now, may not be an angel but he is the public face of the failure of the policies of the Carr Government to deal with school violence and school suspension issues. He was involved with two mates, another five-year-old and a six-year-old. A note went home in his bag. Why? Because he was playing Power Rangers in the playground. That might have been a serious matter and, indeed, I understand that an altercation took place. Members have heard many times about the O'Doherty report into boys' education. It made specific findings and gave warnings about school bullying and about boys playing power games in the playground. I am on the record as being as concerned as any other member of the community - more concerned than most - about those issues and the effect of that culture on boys.

The principal of Mannering Park Public School suspended two five-year-olds and a six-year-old without calling in the parents, just by sending a note home in the boys' bags. He said that he had absolutely no choice because of the policy of the Minister for Education and Training, which provided that if there was in incident of violence in the playground he must suspend students of any age. At five years of age kids have enough trouble remembering which are the canteen days. At five years of age kids have enough trouble remembering which is the day they have to bring their library bag. Only after rifling around in the bottom of a five-
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year-old's school bag among the remains of the day's lunch does one find the notes that have been sent home about serious matters to do with school policy.

The policy of the Minister for Education and Training required the principal of Mannering Park Public School to put a note in the bag - next to the squashed sandwiches - of Sam Wynn and his mates suspending them from school for three days. The principal was not even required to call the parents or even explain it to the boys themselves. That is the face of the policies that are supposed to be dealing with serious issues to do with the culture that leads to violence amongst schools in New South Wales. It is a nonsense, and it was noted to be a nonsense. The Minister himself has said in public comments that he believes it was a nonsense. The principal said that he felt that he had no choice under the Minister's policy but to suspend those boys - branded as bullies at the age of five. The Minister has declared that it was stupid. The Minister is condemning his own policy as being stupid.

I ask honourable members to compare the case of Sam Wynn and his mates to the "nightmare high", Hurlstone Agricultural High School, a selective high school, which has the misfortune to be in close proximity to the Glenfield Tutorial Centre. Repeated incidents have been brought to the attention of the Department of School Education and the Minister for Education and Training involving attacks on the students and staff of Hurlstone Agricultural High School. What action did the Minister take? Did he suspend any students - and they were a lot older than five years of age? No, he took no action whatsoever as incident after incident was brought to his attention which demanded serious attention but which received none.

When the Opposition raised this matter through the media in January 1997 the Minister yet again promised that he would call for a report and take action. We are sick of hearing it. He can suspend a five-year-old student at Mannering Park Public School on the central coast but he cannot do anything to protect the students and the staff of the Hurlstone Agricultural High School. They were assaulted on a train. Two girls had their hair set on fire with a cigarette lighter. Boarders at the school have been held hostage, some at knife point, in their own dormitories. The principal has been verbally abused and spat at. Teachers have been spat at. Their cars have been routinely vandalised. Hurlstone Agricultural High School recorded more than 50 serious incidents of assault, harassment, intimidation and vandalism in 1995. They were brought to the attention of the department and the Minister, and nothing has been done. Another report was called for. He promised action in February. No action has been taken.

Another case to compare with that of Sam Wynn and his mates - five years of age and already branded bullies by the Minister for Education - is that of Scott Wakeling, a 16-year-old student at Mount Druitt High School. He has been beaten up scores of times and hospitalised twice by school bullies. He says that there are three main perpetrators. He has brought this to the attention of the school, the department, the Government and finally the media. The Wakeling family has now taken out three apprehended violence orders against the offenders because the department has failed to take any action to protect the safety of Scott Wakeling. Scott's parents recently told the Today Tonight program on Channel 7 that he has been diagnosed as having a serious problem with depression. Scott is facing very serious problems with his own schooling, not because of anything he has done but because of the failure of the Government to protect him. It is the same sort of lame excuse and justification that we got from the Minister on 23 October when referring to an incident -

Mr Aquilina: On a point of order. You gave a specific ruling that the honourable member for Ku-ring-gai was not to make any reference -

Mr O'DOHERTY: I have not made any reference to anything.

Mr Aquilina: The honourable member for Ku-ring-gai has mentioned the date of the alleged offence in the context of his speech on school bullying. I wish to reinforce the comment you have made, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member for Ku-ring-gai is sailing very close to the wind. I uphold the point of order taken by the Minister for Education and Training.

Pursuant to sessional orders business interrupted.

Mr WATKINS (Gladesville) [5.16 p.m.]: I take this earliest opportunity at the start of this parliamentary session to speak out for and on behalf of the teachers of New South Wales. Clearly, the stability, health and happiness of our children and the future of our economy and nation depend on our schools and the quality and morale of the teachers working in them. In recent times, however, a range
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of individuals and groups have deliberately, unfairly and destructively attacked the status, commitment and morale of our teachers and stressed the problems facing the profession. Whilst it is valid to look at the challenges, most are obvious. The average age of teachers is now in the late forties, and shortages in key areas are likely within a few years. Whilst this means New South Wales now has the most experienced and best-qualified profession it has ever enjoyed, it also means an ageing profession having to continually embrace an accelerating level of change.

That change involves an ever-increasing level of duties, including new reporting and testing regimes, new policies in discipline and gender equity, the introduction of technology, reporting of abuse and the constant thrust of curriculum development. Few professions have been asked to embrace so much change so quickly. Few have accepted that change so readily. Teachers have, because they know that they are dealing with the futures of the next generation. However, it is clearly the financial constraints on our schools, a problem beyond the control of individual teachers, that is the greatest challenge. These constraints impact on curriculum choice and equality of opportunity. Teachers will struggle with this problem until there is a national approach and an acceptance by all governments in Australia that education is underfunded.

Struggling for scarce dollars has been part of the experience of the profession for most of this century. Whilst it is valid to look at problems, it is far more important to consider the great strengths and vitality of teachers and to ask why they have become subject to such inaccurate and undeserved criticism. These attacks are especially destructive to the morale and enthusiasm of our teachers, and it seems part of a growing trend. They have reached a pitch of excess in recent months. The respect that teachers have for their own calling and the status in which they are held cannot but be affected by these attacks.

One can only wonder at what has motivated recent attacks on the profession. At times it has been ignorance at what schools can and do achieve. At other times it is deliberate misinformation. The recent attack by the Federal education Minister blaming teachers for low literacy standards was an especially unpleasant example. More disturbing, perhaps, has been the willingness of reasonable people to believe the lies and ignorance and to lay blame. And the list of blame is long and growing. It now seems - according to the commentators - that teachers are directly to blame for unemployment, illiteracy, violence, poor driving skills, relationship breakdowns, widespread drug abuse, underachieving and even paedophilia.

These attacks paint a picture of our schools and the teaching profession that is totally at odds with reality. In every school in New South Wales, from the smallest bush school in the Tweed Valley to the largest co-educational high school in the western suburbs of Sydney, wonderful things are happening, and they are happening because of the fine men and women of the teaching profession in this State. Every day teachers are protecting and caring for the safety and security of their students, and entertaining, inspiring and teaching our precious children. They do so with tolerance, forbearance, good humour, respect for the dignity of each individual child and an overwhelming desire to see the children in their charge grow, learn and develop into happy, healthy and successful people.

The result for our children is an education system that leads the world, schools that communities have confidence in, and teachers who are respected by parents and admired and liked by students. In a society that too often stresses aggressive competition, material wealth, consumerism and a cynical individualism, our schools are overwhelmingly positive, uplifting, generous places. Teachers are at the centre of our schools and at the heart of our hope for the future. They need our support and understanding, and deserve our thanks and praise. Rather than attaching blame to them, the time has come to speak out and honour the men and women who have devoted themselves to the teaching of children. Many are now questioning their commitment after a lifetime of hard work. I trust that the outcome of the current scrutiny of the profession is a widespread realisation of their value.

Mr AQUILINA (Riverstone - Minister for Education and Training, and Minister Assisting the Premier on Youth Affairs) [5.21 p.m.]: I congratulate the honourable member for Gladesville on a sensitive contribution about the position and role of teachers in modern society. The honourable member is, of course, no stranger to education issues as he is a former teacher and the secretary of the Government's backbench policy committee on education. I have tremendous admiration for him and a deep respect for his opinions on education and other matters relating to government. The honourable member has painted a picture of the status of teaching and the difficulties faced by modern-day teachers in New South Wales and, I presume, right around Australia.

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New South Wales has one of the largest education systems in the world. Many countries are bigger than the State of New South Wales and have larger populations but education is usually tackled through a vast range of different systems. New South Wales has one government system which has a large number of teachers and students and is classified as one of the largest in the world. The honourable member has indicated that teachers are experiencing a peak ageing period. In a short span of years relative shortages of teachers are expected in some areas. However, that will provide an opportunity to introduce a balance of experience and skill with a youthful initiative, something that I believe the teaching community is looking forward to. I congratulate the honourable member for Gladesville and concur with his sentiments.

Mr KERR (Cronulla) [5.23 p.m.]: Following recent incidents of mass under-age drinking at Woolooware and Gunnamatta Park which required large-scale police attendance I draw this age-old problem to the attention of the House. When I was first elected as the member for Cronulla, the community and I set out to make the streets of the Cronulla electorate safe. That is, of course, an ongoing challenge. As the American commentator James Q. Wilson said:

Unpleasant actions are chiefly the behaviour of young people who in all cultures in every epoch test the limits of acceptable behaviour. Testing limits is a way of asserting selfhood. Maintaining limits is a way of asserting community. If the limits are asserted weakly, uncertainly, or apologetically, their effects must surely be weaker than if they are asserted boldly, confidently, and persuasively. How vigorously and persuasively we - mostly but not entirely older people - assert those limits will surely depend to some important degree on how confidently we believe in the sentiments that underlie them.

Under-age drinking can lead to tragedy and personal injury because of the subversive way in which it is carried out. It has always existed and will continue to do so because of its attractive and forbidden appeal to the young. Under-age drinking is a problem for the whole community: the young lives harmed by alcohol-induced behaviour, and the vandalism and fear inflicted on others. The problem of under-age drinking does not discriminate between families or social classes and requires eternal vigilance from all of those associated with young people. Following discussions I have had with community leaders and parents, it is apparent to me that when all is said and done awareness of the problem boils down to parents knowing where their children are and being aware of the symptoms, which include the smell of alcohol on breath or clothes, unexplained losses from dad's home bar and an unexpected demand for more pocket money.

When in government I was chairman of the Liquor Industry Ministerial Advisory Council, which introduced many new measures to counter antisocial and under-age drinking. Those measures included the introduction of the proof-of-age card and responsible alcohol serving practices. However, young people still find ways to beat the system by visiting unscrupulous liquor dealers or getting others to buy liquor for them. Heavy fines already exist in both cases for supplying liquor to under 18-year-olds, but if the system is not working the Government has to consider harsher penalties, perhaps even imprisonment. Cronulla police have informed me that under-age drinking on licensed premises has virtually been eradicated. Our under 18-year-olds are much-valued members of society and should not be overlooked in planning schemes to provide entertainment facilities for them.

Sutherland Shire Council has allowed dances for under 18-year-olds. However, it is essential that appropriate venues are chosen for these dances and that the venues have appropriate security. The lighting of Dunningham Park is to be completed in June and I commend the council for that. However, it is necessary to increase lighting in other public parks and areas. Education in schools about the consequences of under-age drinking is important. That will empower students to make their own decision after the facts have been presented. It is essential that Cronulla police station is adequately manned. The previous Government budgeted for the upgrading of the station, but that has now been abandoned by the Labor Government. Alcohol-free zones have been highly successful but the $20 penalty is not a deterrent. That penalty must be substantially increased. A number of outbreaks of violence have been handled well by the police. An American legal scholar, Robert Bork, said:

Boredom is a much underrated emotion. The young, especially the very intelligent and vigorous, who have not found a path in life, are particularly susceptible to boredom's relentless ache. It is an emotion that is dangerous for individuals and for society, because a lot of the cures are anti-social: alcohol, narcotics, cruelty, pornography, violence, zealotry in a political cause.

All of us must realise that rights are the harvest of responsibilities and we can enjoy our liberty only if those rights do not degenerate into licence.

Mr AQUILINA (Riverstone - Minister for Education and Training, and Minister Assisting the Premier on Youth Affairs) [5.28 p.m.]: The honourable member for Cronulla has raised an issue that is relevant to all members; it is of general concern throughout the community of New South
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Wales. I cannot comment with any detail on the specific matters the honourable member raised which relate to his electorate. I refer particularly to the measures being taken by Sutherland Shire Council. I note that, generally speaking, the honourable member seems to be satisfied with the measures taken. However, I should like to make one or two brief comments about education programs in schools relating to under-age drinking and to reassure the honourable member - indeed, all members of this House and the community generally - that the Department of School Education takes this matter seriously. As part of the personal development and education course, the department has probably the most comprehensive program put forward by any government. Indeed, the program has been widely complimented by many members of the community who are in a position to judge such matters.

Education is, of course, only one aspect. We need to ensure that those who do not heed the education programs and offend are redirected back to the proper path in other ways. The honourable member has made comments about the need for harsher penalties for under-age drinking. I am sure the Attorney General and the Minister for Police will note his comments. Those remarks are in stark contrast to some of the comments made by his colleagues who, when dealing with other aspects of violence in our community, particularly school-related violence, seem to want to adopt a softly-softly approach. Governments need a degree of consistency in the way in which they approach these issues. I am very much in favour of education programs, but penalties should be imposed if they are needed.

Mr McBRIDE (The Entrance) [5.30 p.m.]: I commend the blue-light disco organisations throughout this State, in particular The Entrance blue-light disco, which is organised under the auspices of The Entrance Police Service patrol. Blue-light discos were started in western Sydney in 1982 by concerned police, parents and citizens who were anxious to provide supervised, safe dance and entertainment facilities for young teenagers. Public concern has been aroused by the rapid growth of the youth population in the area and the lack of facilities for teenagers. Adults and of-age youth were catered for by the pub and club industries. However, because of licensing laws and other legal requirements at the time so-called under-age youths could not avail themselves of such services. There was also a general lack of community and public facilities and private services for the age group. The same situation existed on the central coast.

On Friday, 27 May 1983, less than 12 months after the establishment of the first blue-light discos in New South Wales, the first blue-light disco on the central coast was held at what was then called EDSACC stadium, which is now known as the Bateau Bay Recreation Centre. The disco was attended by 343 young people whose average age was approximately 13 years. It has continued successfully for almost one and a half decades. It was a significant success by any standards, but more importantly the blue-light disco at The Entrance has provided a special and very much-needed service to the young people of The Entrance area and its surrounds.

The organisers of the original event included former Sergeant Ray Greentree as president, who later returned to The Entrance patrol as commander. Ray has an outstanding record of service both as a police officer and as a community worker. He was a great officer and he is a great human being. The secretary was Sergeant John O'Brien and the Treasurer was Barry Swadling, a member of the very distinguished Long Jetty Swadling family. Committee members included Councillor Tony Sheridan, a former child welfare officer, a Wyong Councillor and the Mayor of Wyong Shire. To their credit the local radio station 2GO and papers the Guardian, the Central Coast Express Advocate and the Gosford Star enthusiastically supported the blue-light disco. The Gosford Star and the Guardian are no longer published, but The Entrance blue-light disco goes from strength to strength.

In 1995, the only year for which records are available, 65 branches operated throughout New South Wales, with three branches on the Central Coast: The Entrance, Gosford and Tuggerah Lakes. The total turnover of all New South Wales branches is $1.147 million, with some $63,000 donated to charities. The blue-light discos were attended by 88,000 patrons and were serviced by 752 volunteer police officers and 3,435 civilian helpers. It is an enormous organisation by any standards. Financially, The Entrance branch is the second largest in the State. The total attendances are the largest in the State, averaging 630 young people per function. Its donations are the second largest in the State. In 1995 it donated $9,300 to charity. Fourteen police officers and 66 volunteers provided supervision during functions. The Entrance blue-light disco is held on the last Friday of every month from 7.30 p.m. to 10.30 p.m. It caters for young people aged from 10 to 17 years, that is, teenagers who are under the legal age for the consumption of alcohol.

On 28 February, the last Friday of February this year, I visited The Entrance blue-light disco unannounced to review the operation. I can
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unequivocally inform the House that the management of the disco was outstanding. More than 400 people were in attendance as well as four volunteer police officers - Senior Sergeant Bruce Tubnor, Senior Constable Stuart Sutherland, Senior Constable Broadley and Senior Constable Darren Crosbie - police general support officer Janelle Cox and three VIPs: Ann Vandershaft, William Vance and Melinda Smith. For the second time a voluntary breathalyser unit was at the entry to the disco to maintain the alcohol-free atmosphere. Let me assure the mums and dads of my electorate that The Entrance blue-light disco is a first-class service, possibly one of the best in the State, where, with total confidence, they can leave their children in the care of a great group of community-focused workers. I congratulate the original organisers and all the unnamed workers who have served voluntarily in the past 14 years.

Mr AQUILINA (Riverstone - Minister for Education and Training, and Minister Assisting the Premier on Youth Affairs) [5.35 p.m.]: I compliment the honourable member for The Entrance on his contribution. It can honestly be said about him that he never supports anything in which he does not thoroughly believe. I firmly believe, therefore, that he would not have done this commercial unless he thoroughly believed in what is happening in his electorate. As he pointed out, The Entrance blue-light disco, which takes place on a monthly basis, is a safe entertainment venue for the young people of The Entrance. The prospect of 600 young people being supervised by police officers and volunteer adults who are keen to ensure that the young people are provided with a safe environment in which they can entertain and enjoy themselves in such a way that their parents can be perfectly at ease is commendable.

I echo the praise of the honourable member for The Entrance for all those who selflessly give of themselves and their time to ensure that young people are given such opportunities. It is a far cry from the many media reports about young people running rampant in our society and about the destructive nature of some young people. It is pleasing to see young people enjoying themselves in such a positive way and to realise that there are adults who care enough to ensure that they are provided with the opportunity to do so. I compliment the honourable member for The Entrance on the support he has given to The Entrance blue-light disco and all those involved with it.

Mr J. H. TURNER (Myall Lakes) [5.37 p.m.]: I am concerned about the funding arrangements for the Great Lakes Disabled Alliance, which operates as Redshaw Cottage at Forster. The organisation has made two applications for finance to the Minister for Community Services, the first for additional staff to help with the work that is presently carried out, which I will refer to shortly, and the second to provide a respite care service for intellectually disabled adults. The Great Lakes Disabled Alliance offers training in independent living and community access to adults with intellectual disabilities. It is open to any adult 18 years and over with an intellectual disability with moderate to high support needs. The coordinator, Narelle Coates, is the only fully paid operator in the organisation, which relies on volunteers. Currently the service has 12 clients. There are more on the waiting list, but the service cannot take any more because, unfortunately, it has not received recurrent funding for additional coordinators or assistants to operate this very important organisation within my electorate.

As I have said, Redshaw Cottage has a waiting list. Some of those who attend the cottage are able to undertake employment in the community. For instance, one client is placed in volunteer work at the local radio station twice a week, another is involved in community sporting activity twice a week, four clients would like to seek supported employment positions and a further two clients wish to attend TAFE courses with a support person required for each one. Narelle Coates understands that care of clients at Redshaw is intense, but people within the community who are currently being trained could assist these disabled people. I recently visited the alliance and I was greatly impressed by the work it is doing for the intellectually handicapped. One of the tragic things about respite care, for which funding is required, is that some of these handicapped people are 40-year-old and 50-year-old adults. Their carers are their parents, who are very old.

The parents of one disabled person are over 70 and are beside themselves because Port Macquarie is the closest centre to my electorate where respite care is provided. However, it is almost impossible for people to get into the Port Macquarie respite care facility. It is about a 1½-hour drive. Newcastle, which is in the other direction, and which has the only other centre, is about a two-hour drive. Redshaw Cottage, which operates daily and accommodates handicapped people, is empty at the weekends. It would be ideal if we were able to provide respite care for carers at Redshaw Cottage. As I said earlier, funding applications have been sent to the Minister. Unfortunately, the Minister has not been able to make funding available both for respite carers and additional staff. I am most anxious for
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the Minister to review these applications as they will provide not only an important service to people in my community but also make them feel part of that community.

Those people do not have to fend for themselves - their carers are very loving and look after them - but they need to be taken on outings. I have seen photographs of many happy people at the zoo and in speed boats. We should increase funding for the Great Lakes Disabled Alliance to enable the appointment of additional staff. We could then give more disabled people in our community a quality of life that they presently do not enjoy. More importantly, we could give their carers a quality of life that they have been denied year in and year out while they have tended to their disabled loved ones. It would be hard for honourable members to understand the burden on those carers who have lovingly looked after intellectually impaired adults for many years. The Minister should give some consideration to reviewing this matter and to granting funds for this worthwhile activity in my electorate.

Dr REFSHAUGE (Marrickville - Deputy Premier, Minister for Health, and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) [5.42 p.m.]: The honourable member for Myall Lakes has highlighted the need for supported accommodation and training and other respite care for people with disabilities. This Government's first decision was to increase the number of accommodation places for people with disabilities. We liberated money that was available but which was not used. In the two years that this Government has been in office 450 places have been created. As the honourable member for Myall Lakes has pointed out, there is a very real need for these services - a need which is obvious when one talks to the families involved.

This problem does not involve only young people; frequently older people are involved. Some people have looked after their children for most of their childhood and adulthood. People with disabilities who are in their forties or fifties have parents who are significantly older than they are. Those parents do not know what will happen to their children when they are not able to care for them. The Government takes this issue seriously. I thank the honourable member for Myall Lakes for raising this issue in the way that he has. I do not know the individuals that he has named, but I know that people working in this area have a strong commitment to social justice. They make the lives of disabled people a lot better. I echo the words of the honourable member for Myall Lakes. I congratulate everybody working in this difficult, caring and worthwhile field. I will ensure that the Minister for Community Services is informed of the honourable member's concerns about the Great Lakes Disability Alliance. I hope that we see a positive solution to this problem.

Mr RUMBLE (Illawarra) [5.44 p.m.]: I draw attention to the Baringa centre in Wollongong for the intellectually disabled. Blake Farmer, the son of Jan and Keith Farmer, lives at Koonawarra in the Illawarra district. I have had the pleasure of knowing this family for in excess of 10 years. Many months after Blake's birth his parents found out that he was intellectually disabled. For seven years they coped with Blake at home, but there were problems for Blake's older sister. In the last 13 years Blake, who is now 20 years old, has been a resident at the Baringa centre, but his stay at that centre has been patchy. Information that I have received shows that up until 1994 Blake was getting attention in the form of outings, which included surfing, which he looked forward to. It appears that from 1994 the Baringa centre went from a caring home to being a cog in a large bureaucratic wheel. An article in the Illawarra Mercury reveals:

Staff and residents have been assaulted and some nurses have been stressed to the point of nervous breakdown because of problems at Baringa . . .

The woman, a nursing sister, said the centre was chronically understaffed and the staff who stayed were frustrated that the Community Services Department - which runs the centre - "ignored" their situation.

The nurse, who does not wish to be named because she is still working in the same field, worked at Baringa for 10 years before stress drove her out a year ago.

"The reason I am speaking up is that I feel we have all been pushed aside," she said.

"One very aggressive young boy broke a nurse's nose in 1994 and one of the reasons his behaviour deteriorated to that point was that there are so few familiar faces.

"The high staff turnover compounds the problems."

The nurse said staff concern about their safety and the safety of residents was overlooked by the department heavyweights who were motivated by "formulating protocols and writing reports."

"The work at Baringa was very unpredictable. We reported things to the department but nothing would be done . . .

A political correspondent in the Illawarra region is reported as stating:

The saga of Baringa at Fairy Meadow is one which needs addressing before it drags on any longer.

The reputation of the residential home for the intellectually and physically disabled is deteriorating rapidly as more parents and former staff come forward with disturbing allegations of what is happening in the once stable home for the disabled.

It seems the Community Services Department which runs the centre has lost direction after a departmental overhaul in 1994.

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Since then there has been increasing pressure on depleted staff to pay more attention to paperwork than their human charges.

The correspondent refers also to the Farmer family and states:

Parents such as Jan Farmer whose son Blake has been a long-term resident of the centre spoke publicly to The Mercury about her disappointment in seeing the centre reduced to a bureaucratic black hole.

However, the good news is that the department says that 10 additional group homes will be available within the next 12 months. I request the Minister for Community Services to ensure that, in the meantime, the situation at Baringa for staff and for people with disabilities will improve and that the end result will be satisfactory for all.

Dr REFSHAUGE (Marrickville - Deputy Premier, Minister for Health, and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) [5.48 p.m.]: The honourable member for Illawarra raised an issue which was referred to earlier by the honourable member for Myall Lakes - the issue of people with disabilities who require care and support. It is good to hear honourable members airing important issues that have often been hidden. People such as Blake Farmer in the Illawarra region and the people referred to by the honourable member for Myall Lakes in the Great Lakes area are being supported strongly by their members of Parliament.

This is a stressful area in which to work, but that does not mean that we should be adding to that stress. I am sure that the Minister for Community Services will do everything he can to improve service support for staff at Baringa. As the honourable member for Illawarra has pointed out, the 10 additional group homes in the Illawarra region which are long overdue will be welcomed. That is part of this Government's commitment to increase the number of accommodation places for people with disabilities and to assist them as much as possible to be active participants in our community.

Some years ago I had an opportunity to visit the Baringa centre and was very impressed by the dedication of the staff there. The centre certainly is not one of the most modern facilities, but it is also not one of the oldest. Obviously, it is also fit to meet the challenge of the changes that have been brought in with the Commonwealth disabilities legislation. The Government wants to make sure that the qualities that we are looking for, both at Commonwealth and State levels, are able to be reproduced so that people with disabilities can get quality care wherever they might be. I will make sure that the Minister for Community Services is aware of the issues raised by the honourable member for Illawarra. I hope to be able to report soon that the improvements that he has been asking for have occurred.

Mr SCHULTZ (Burrinjuck) [5.50 p.m.]: Tonight I speak on behalf of the Binda, Bigga and Tuena, bush fire fighters in the Crookwell shire. On 17 March the National Parks and Wildlife Service set alight windrows of timber in the Razorback Nature Reserve for a control burn. The Razorback Nature Reserve is due east of Bigga, and the windrows of timber were set alight when the fire danger in the area was considered by locals to be very high. Landholders are extremely irate with the National Parks and Wildlife Service for starting this fire on 17 March. The local people should have been given the opportunity to state their opinion regarding the conditions before this fire was started. The captain of the Tuena brigade, which is one of the adjoining brigades, had not been notified that the National Parks and Wildlife Service was intending to carry out this control burn.

Approximately three kilometres of windrow timber was set alight, with no provision made to prevent the fire from escaping on the western side into private property. The fire trails should have been prepared before this fire was lit, and many more personnel and resources should have been in position before the burn took place. The fire has caused excessive cost, lost time and stress to landholders, which they could well do without considering the conditions that the rural industry is suffering at present. Many of them have difficulties making ends meet running their businesses without such a bureaucratic bungle as this.

The Binda, Bigga and Tuena brigades, along with many other firefighting units from the Crookwell shire, were called to control the fire on Wednesday, 19 March, two days after it was commenced. The fire had reached private property on the western section. The owners of that property were not aware or notified by the National Parks and Wildlife Service that their land was being destroyed. Many of the bush fire fighters worked 24 hours straight - more in some cases - to gain control of the fire, under the directions of the National Parks and Wildlife Service personnel who were very difficult to work with, even creating confusion among the local volunteer brigade members.

The National Parks and Wildlife Service employees then commandeered the bush fire radios, even to the extent of commandeering channel 17 on the UHF CB radio which the Binda brigade uses as its channel for communication. This created major complications for the Binda brigade trying to contact its members. The National Parks and Wildlife Service did not consider that local knowledge may have saved many thousands of dollars in money and
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time. Local brigade members feel that the National Parks and Wildlife Service should not have had control when the fire left the nature reserve. When the fire reached private property, the management should have been carried out by the fire control officer from the Crookwell Shire Council.

The fire burned approximately 150 hectares of private property, approximately 9.5 kilometres of boundary fences and 1.8 kilometres of internal fencing. The majority of the Crookwell shire brigades had to contribute a considerable amount of their time in containing the fire, along with brigades from adjoining shires. The cost to the district landholders and the Crookwell Shire Council would be tremendous. The damage within the reserve to flora and fauna over the five days of fire would be much greater than a landholder could cause in a lifetime. The landholders would like to draw the Minister's attention to the restrictions which will be placed on landholders if threatened species conservation legislation is passed by this Parliament. It should be noted that the landholders are much more responsible for the care of their land, which they depend upon for their livelihood.

The damage could have been avoided if the control burn had been carried out much later in the year, and the fire would have burned slower, giving the animals time to escape. When the fire was put out it had burned out 1,250 hectares, which is a significant parcel of land. The National Parks and Wildlife Service has a case to answer about the way it handled this fire. The cooperation from the National Parks and Wildlife Service in a previous fire on 8 February 1989 was in direct contrast with what happened on this occasion. The landholders have asked me to inspect the area, and I intend to do that next week. I will certainly have further to say about this.

The attitude of the National Parks and Wildlife Service can be described only as cavalier and irresponsible. It is typical of the cowboy attitude of some sections of the National Parks and Wildlife Service in relation to bushfires and, more importantly, the lack of communication with those people best suited to fight the fires, that is, the bush fire brigade members themselves, who have considerable experience with it. I notice the presence in the Chamber of the Minister for Emergency Services, and I ask him to consider this very serious issue I have raised.

Mr DEBUS (Blue Mountains - Minister for Corrective Services, Minister for Emergency Services, and Minister Assisting the Minister for the Arts) [5.55 p.m.]: In relatively recent days I have been made aware of a degree of concern in the Crookwell area about circumstances surrounding this fire. I am not in a position to comment on the matter, although it is my general experience that the National Parks and Wildlife Service cooperates very well indeed with the bush fire fighting service - the rural fire service as it is to become. However, I have called for reports, and I will communicate further with the honourable member when I have received them.

Ms MEAGHER (Cabramatta) [5.56 p.m.]: I bring to the attention of the Parliament a serious issue relating to the productivity and efficiency of Cabramatta police and police generally. It has been brought to my attention that in any given fortnightly roster period of the Cabramatta patrol, between 500 and 700 policing hours are spent at local courts waiting for matters to be heard. This could mean up to 30 police a day from one patrol sitting in courthouse waiting rooms - not on the beat, not responding to distress calls, but simply waiting around to process their matters. This represents a tremendous loss of active policing hours to the local community.

The court system in New South Wales is archaic. For example, Fairfield Local Court starts at 10 a.m., breaks at 11 a.m. for morning tea, takes a full hour for lunch, breaks again for an afternoon cuppa, and shuts up shop at 4 p.m. We have a court that works for four and a half hours a day, and it is simply not good enough. Policing in New South Wales is a 24-hour-a-day business. The extensive delays that police experience in bringing matters before a magistrate is evidence that the court system is out of date and desperately in need of an overhaul. Too many times police are forced to wait around for an entire day for their matters to be heard, only to find at the end of the day that their matters have been rescheduled because of delays and problems in the system.

The matter is so critical for the Cabramatta patrol that the superintendent of Cabramatta was recently quoted as saying, "Meantime, my officers spend so many hours at court I'm left with a depleted outfit. First we filled Fairfield Local Court, then Liverpool, then Burwood - and now we are prosecuting at Campbelltown as well." Many of the problems which cause delays and backlogs in the New South Wales court system are detailed in the recent review by the Public Accounts Committee of the interim report by the New South Wales Audit Office into Courts Administration. The issues of resource allocation, outdated procedures and lack of coordination identified by the report deserve immediate Government attention.

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The Government must look at the court system in New South Wales generally, and it must look at ways of minimising court delays for police. There is a clear need to extend court hours. For example, night courts would prevent having to roster all police involved in court matters on day shift, which often limits the availability of police for night patrols. Similarly, courts should implement a system whereby police are told that a matter is listed for the morning or the afternoon. Whilst it is not feasible in many instances for a court to nominate an exact time, the indication of morning or afternoon appearances means that we get an extra half a day of active policing from its officers, and that translates to more police on our streets.

There is a strong belief in the community, particularly in Cabramatta, that police time should be focused on patrols and street level law enforcement. The Government has a responsibility to maximise the availability of police officers to patrol and to serve local communities. Major initiatives have been introduced to reduce the number of police officers involved in administrative duties and in the upper echelons of the New South Wales Police Service. I commend the Government and the Minister for Police for the increase in resources and police numbers over the past two years. It is time for the Attorney General to act - court delays take police officers off the street and delays alienate witnesses and dramatically increase prisoner-related costs.

The Carr Government has made a tremendous political commitment to increasing the level of police resources in Cabramatta. The authorised strength of the patrol has increased to 110, which is a record by about 20. We have seen the introduction of mounted police, a dog squad patrol and a joint venture with the local council to introduce closed-circuit television, which will improve police prosecutions in the courts. However, this greater political commitment and the energetic policing of our local police means very little if they are sitting around in a calcified court system waiting for matters to be heard. I urge the Attorney General to take up this matter.

Mr SMALL (Murray) [6.01 p.m.]: I am concerned about health services today, particularly in my electorate. I am pleased that the Minister for Health is in the House, and I hope that he will take these points on board and respond to them. I have written to the Minister about various matters on a number of occasions and he has responded to them. I raise the concerns of my constituents, particularly in the Deniliquin and Murray regions. On 16 January I called a public meeting and some 300 people attended. The Minister was unable to attend the meeting, but the chairman of the greater Murray health services, Joy Ross; the executive officer, Michael Moodie; and Susan Wiser, representing health services - all of whom are based in Wagga Wagga - attended the meeting.

A number of motions were moved at the meeting, including a motion that we send a delegation to meet the Minister. The delegation comprises the mayor of Deniliquin Council, Sue Taylor; the general manager of Deniliquin Council, Neil Armstrong; the health services manager from Deniliquin, Di Rinoldi; the mayor of the Council of the Shire of Wakool, David Shannon; and me. After a long delay, we received advice that we could meet the Minister's senior policy officer. We have tried to meet the Minister on a number of occasions - I understand that he is under a lot of pressure. We are concerned about these issues and we would like to meet the Minister to discuss them. My constituents are concerned about health needs and the media genuinely shares their concerns. I share the unrest that my constituents who experience major health problems confront today. I congratulate the nursing staff, the doctors, the domestic staff and the kitchen staff, all of whom are doing their best under great stress.

I hope that the Minister will meet the appointed delegation at Parliament House. I ask him to appoint a board member to represent my unrepresented hospitals in the Murray electorate - Deniliquin, Corowa, Hay, Finley, Berrigan, Jerilderie, Tocumwal, Barham, Lockhart and Urana, which is a multipurpose hospital. I ask the Minister to stop the chilled food program in the Murray electorate. It is totally against the wishes of my constituents and it has serious ramifications for small country towns, particularly in relation to the normal purchasing of food supplies. It is wrong to have only two powerhouse kitchens, such as those located at Wagga Wagga and Albury. It will hurt smaller country towns that have hospitals if they do not have that purchasing power. I ask the Minister to ensure that any redevelopment of the Deniliquin hospital is taken in consultation with the local community, including the doctors and the nursing staff.

Health is not an issue that can be ignored. I have always found the Minister to be available to speak to me on these important issues and I would like to think that he would be prepared to meet the delegation so that he can understand and appreciate the concerns. We no longer have hospital boards, so there is no joint connection between the community and a hospital board in any of the hospitals in the greater Murray health services. This is just one of our problems - we do not have board members, we
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do not have communication and I have referred to the chilled food proposal. We are concerned about the loss of staff, the loss of service, the loss of beds and the loss of expenditure in small country towns. Employment, wages and the purchase of food supplies will be affected. [Time expired.]

Dr REFSHAUGE (Marrickville - Deputy Premier, Minister for Health, and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs) [6.06 p.m.]: I appreciate the concerns that were raised by the honourable member for Murray. Like the honourable member, I have a keen interest in ensuring that rural health services are expanded and enhanced. It is important to put on the record that over the past two years the Government has significantly increased funding to rural New South Wales. In fact, a massive $55 million is now being spent in rural New South Wales employing doctors, nurses and looking after patients.

It is important to recognise that with the change to areas from districts we have ensured that areas are able to spend money in a more comprehensive way - specialist services that may not be available in a district health service that may not be big enough to support them may be available and, in many areas, are available in rural health services. There are bigger catchment areas that are able to provide for those patients. We want to ensure that the rural area health services are equal to their city cousins, so that they have the same status - they did not before. The voice of rural New South Wales has been much more clearly heard at the top. Rural hospitals, like their city cousins, should have staff representatives on the boards - something denied in previous times.

The issues raised by the honourable member for Murray are important and he may be able to get some explanations from me or my staff. Although I am busy at the moment, I urge him to go ahead with that meeting with my senior policy officer and I will try to attend the meeting, or at least part of it, to hear the concerns raised by the delegation. A number of issues were raised and they are important. I am sure that my office will be delighted to work with the delegation to ensure that it understands what we are trying to do and that it will be supportive of it.

Mr NAGLE (Auburn) [6.08 p.m.]: The Auburn electorate is facing the challenge of the 2000 Olympic Games. In 1996 I visited Atlanta - at my own expense - and I met a lot of people, two of whom impressed me so much that I invited them to come to Sydney to talk to my constituents about how the Olympic Games will impact on the electorate. The Olympic Games will be held in the electorate of Auburn. For no fee - only their air fare and accommodation - the two women arrived in Sydney in late January and ran a series of seminars over five days. Ordinary people and the business community - the people of Berala, Regents Park, Auburn, Silverwater, Birrong, Yagoona, Lidcombe and Sefton - were able to learn what impact the Olympic Games will have on the electorate.

Diane Stone, one of the representatives, has been employed by the DeKalb Convention and Visitors Bureau in Decatur, Georgia - which is part of the metropolitan area of Atlanta - for 10 years. The bureau promotes DeKalb County as a destination for meetings, conventions, individual and group travels. In 1995 and 1996 Diane served as the project director for DeKalb `96, a task force with the mission of preparing DeKalb County for the 1996 Olympic Games. DeKalb County hosted three events at Georgia's Stone Mountain Park: archery, tennis and track cycling. Diane organised and mobilised DeKalb County for the Olympic Games in the year 2000.

The other woman, Kimberley Goff, is the Project Director of Georgia Training Alliance. That entity organised pre-Games training for athletes and was involved with over 150 community groups throughout Georgia where athletes could be housed close to the sporting facilities that they were using for pretraining. The Georgia Training Alliance was also involved in organising medical facilities for any athletes who became sick, either during the Games or during pretraining. It ensured that athletes could cope with the first fully airconditioned Games and the humid climate. It also organised insurance for the athletes. Georgia Training Alliance was Kimberley's idea; she set it up.

In one speech Kimberley told of how a runner from an African country became that country's greatest athlete. Whilst he was in school, a band of rebels attacked the school and burned it to the ground. All of the children inside were piled on top of one another and were burnt to death, except this boy who was at the bottom and he was saved. When he got out of the building he started to run, and he has been running ever since for his community. This is one of the many stories that I will be telling the House over this coming year about what happened in Atlanta. This venture of seminars could not have occurred without the financial support of a number of organisations. I wish to thank those organisations that came to the seminar organised through my office. I thank also my staff, Kristine, Lisa and Nola, for their wonderful work in helping me prepare the seminars.

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I thank, in particular, Colin McDowell from Allied Express Couriers and Taxi Trucks, his wife, Cheryl, and his staff member Heather, for helping me organise the seminar and for sending out the invitations. I thank them also for their donation. As well, I thank Margaret Ward, Ted Hedges and the executive of the Auburn Returned Services League Club for their support. I thank also John Engish and Allen Harris from Torch Publishing Company Pty Ltd and the Review Pictorial. I thank Phil Gilbert of Phil Gilbert Toyota, Lidcombe, for his support and that of his wife, as well as Brian Boyd and David McIntosh from Paynter-Dixon Constructions (Aust.) Pty Ltd.

I shall refer also to other people I wish to thank: John Overall from Enterprise Concept Industrial Relations, Greg Wells from the National Australia Bank Ltd, John Mallos from Dulux Trade Centres, Greg Healey of G. H. Healey and Company, Basil Klevansky of the Link Group of Companies, Earle Cameron of Earle Cameron Constructions Pty Ltd, Denys Goggin of the Shell Company of Australia Limited, Robert McMillan and Dennis Cooper of the J. S. McMillan Printing Group, Dennis Rabinowitz of Jackson Poole Rabinowitz, Colin Gray of the New South Wales Chamber of Fruit and Vegetable Industries Incorporated, Sam Warden of Westcoast Smash Repairs, Michael Ghamrqoui of High Technology Communications Pty Ltd, Kane Fang of First International Computer (Australia) Pty Ltd, Margaret Fisher of Margaret Fisher Consultants, and last, but not least, special thanks to the Bankstown Sports Club President, Kevin McCormack and his committee.

Those people helped the constituency of Auburn by putting in the money to bring the two women out. I thank those organisations for their help. They did not have to do it; there was no compulsion. However, because of my submission and my plea for help they assisted me. They are a part of the Auburn community and I thank them for their great work and support. The seminars conducted by these two women will form part of further speeches by me. Some of the interesting things they were able to tell my electorate about the great thrills and spills that will be experienced in the 2000 Games should be told in this House and to the community of New South Wales. My thanks go to Diane Stone and Kimberley Goff for their wonderful help.

Mr AQUILINA (Riverstone - Minister for Education and Training, and Minister Assisting the Premier on Youth Affairs) [6.13 p.m.]: This is not the first time that the honourable member for Auburn has raised an issue relating to the Olympics in this Chamber. Obviously, as the honourable member for Auburn - the electorate that will be the host of the Olympic Games in the year 2000 - he takes his responsibilities seriously. He has a great reputation in this Chamber and around his community as a magnanimous host. I am sure that will be well and truly tested in the year 2000. He will be very much in the limelight and I am sure the electorate of Auburn will rise to the occasion in top fashion.

Along with the Minister for the Olympics, the member for the Olympics, the honourable member for Auburn, has a unique role in this Chamber and in this State. I know that he takes very seriously the preparations that are currently going on within Auburn to ensure that nothing is left wanting. In particular, it is noteworthy that at his own expense he visited Atlanta to seek out people with experience to enable him to provide his constituents with the necessary advice and to ensure that they will be superb hosts and provide first-class entertainment.

In 1994 I was fortunate also to go to Atlanta, at the expense of the United States Government. I was hosted in Atlanta by an American family by the name of Rood who had volunteered to host families from around the world for the 1996 Games. They expressed concern that they did not have exposure to people from other countries who had carried out this role previously. It is pleasing that the honourable member for Auburn is providing this opportunity to his own constituents.

Mr HARTCHER (Gosford) [6.15 p.m.]: I seek the assistance of the Minister for Transport in relation to a constituent of mine, Mark Gibbons, and thank him for coming into the Chamber to hear my private member's statement on Mark's behalf. Mark is a young man, aged 20 years, who had been unemployed for two years. His father had worked with the State Rail Authority and Mark also wished to be employed by that organisation. He was thrilled when a job was advertised, he was granted an interview and was appointed to the job.

Unfortunately, Mark was late for work on quite a number of occasions and when his probationary period had terminated, he was dismissed by the State Rail Authority because of his poor work attendance. That would normally be the end of the story. In fact, it is only the beginning. Because Mark was conscious of his medical condition, he sought the assistance of the Sleep Disorders Centre at the John Hunter Hospital. He was analysed at that centre and was found to be suffering from a fairly rare condition called
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narcolepsy. He has reports from his specialist, Dr Ambrogetti of the John Hunter Hospital, who certifies to his condition. In one of his reports he stated:

I am writing upon request of Mr Gibbons in regards to his condition of narcolepsy. Symptoms of narcolepsy can be treated but a cure for this condition is not available. The treatment of the sleepiness associated with narcolepsy can be relieved to some degree even though complete resolution may not be achievable.

Narcolepsy is a life long condition.

This lifelong condition for Mark constitutes a physical impairment. He was born with it and is unable to resolve it; he will have it to the end of his days. Mark is physically impaired by narcolepsy. In fact, a member of this very Chamber from 1988 to 1991, the former Independent member for Swansea Ivan Welch, also suffered from narcolepsy. He also was treated at the Sleep Disorders Centre at the John Hunter Hospital and publicised his condition for the benefit of other sufferers.

Mark has received a good deal of publicity in the media regarding his condition. I am asking that he be reinstated with the State Rail Authority. He had a good work record, though his poor attendance record is not denied as he attended late on a number of occasions. However, it has been well established that this was not through any lack of good intent on his behalf but because of his physical impairment. That has been diagnosed, can now be treated and brought under control. All Mark needs is a chance.

I ask the Minister to intervene and ask the State Rail Authority to give Mark that chance. Perhaps he could be put on probation for a further period and if he is again unsatisfactory, naturally the State Rail Authority will exercise its rights. However, if his condition can be controlled, as the specialist certifies, and if it can be established that he has had a good work record, surely the principle of anti-discrimination should apply. The Anti-Discrimination Act clearly prohibits any employer from discriminating against an employee on the basis of intellectual or physical impairment.

Mark does not wish to exercise his rights through the Anti-Discrimination Board. He came to me as his member of Parliament to see whether he could be assisted at a parliamentary level, and that is why I am making this approach to the Minister for Transport. I ask him to take an interest in this case to see what can be done for Mark. Narcolepsy is defined in the medical dictionaries as an incurable life-long sleep disorder that usually begins during the patient's early twenties. Certain phenomena occur in narcolepsy, including uncontrollable daytime sleep attacks, catalepsy, sleep paralysis and hypnagogic hallucinations. Mark's condition has been analysed and can be controlled.

The issue really is whether State Rail is a genuine, fair-opportunity employer prepared to comply with the spirit of anti-discrimination by acknowledging the people in the community who are disadvantaged by intellectual impairment or physical impairment. If such conditions can be identified and treated, people who otherwise are good employees should be given an opportunity. On 15 April, next week, Mark will have his twenty-first birthday. What a wonderful birthday present it would be to him, and what a wonderful present it would be to hundreds of other sufferers like him, if the Minister took up the cudgels by giving Mark a further chance. [Time expired.]

Mr LANGTON (Kogarah - Minister for Transport, and Minister for Tourism) [6.20 p.m.]: I have sought advice from State Rail with respect to the matter of Mark Gibbons and have been advised of the following: Mr Gibbons commenced probationary employment with the State Rail Authority as a station assistant on 3 February 1996 and was given termination notice on 3 September 1996. During his employment at Wynyard station he repeatedly failed to attend for or was late for duty. I am advised that in the month of August alone there were at least six instances of "fail - no advice" and "fail - advice". His record shows repeated entries concerning being late for duty, absence with no advice and sick leave. He appealed and attended a hearing with the acting manager, legal services on 30 September with a union representative. The hearing found that the termination was justified.

At the hearing Mr Gibbons raised for the first time a medical condition and produced a certificate stating that he was suffering from daytime sleepiness. The stationmaster at Wynyard gave evidence that he had discussed the subject of Mr Gibbons' continued lateness and days absent on numerous occasions and at no time had Mr Gibbons mentioned a medical condition. Mr Gibbons was not dismissed for his sleep condition as it had never been raised with State Rail prior to his termination; he was treated the same as any other probationary employee, whose work performance and record are taken into account.

State Rail is a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week service industry in which the practice of probation for new recruits has been an effective method of ensuring that the most appropriate and reliable people become permanent employees. It would be unfair on a worker's colleagues, and unfair on the public they serve, to employ a person who is unreliable and whose record of attendance is so poor. Furthermore, I understand that Mr Gibbons raised with the honourable member for Gosford the matter of re-employment with State Rail. I have a
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copy of the letter which CityRail human resources sent to the honourable member for Gosford dated 3 April and I can add nothing further to that.

Mr ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Clough): Order! I call the honourable member for Gosford to order. I call the honourable member for Gosford to order for the second time.

Private members' statements noted.

Suspension of standing orders agreed to.

Mr WHELAN (Ashfield - Minister for Police) [6.22 p.m.]: I move an amended motion of which I gave notice earlier today:

That unless otherwise ordered -

(1) That the House shall meet during the autumn (budget) sittings as follows:

Wednesday 9 April 1997 10.00 a.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Thursday 10 April 1997 10.00 a.m. - until the conclusion of private members' statements

Tuesday 15 April 1997 2.15 p.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Wednesday 16 April 1997 10.00 a.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Thursday 17 April 1997 10.00 a.m. - until the conclusion of private members' statements

Tuesday 22 April 1997 2.15 p.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Wednesday 23 April 1997 10.00 a.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Thursday 24 April 1997 10.00 a.m. - until the conclusion of private members' statements

Tuesday 6 May 1997 2.15 p.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Wednesday 7 May 1997 10.00 a.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Thursday 8 May 1997 10.00 a.m. - until the conclusion of private members' statements

Tuesday 13 May 1997 2.15 p.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Wednesday 14 May 1997 10.00 a.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Thursday 15 May 1997 10.00 a.m. - until the conclusion of private members' statements

Tuesday 20 May 1997 2.15 p.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Wednesday 21 May 1997 10.00 a.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Thursday 22 May 1997 10.00 a.m. - until the conclusion of private members' statements

Tuesday 27 May 1997 2.15 p.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Wednesday 28 May 1997 10.00 a.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Thursday 29 May 1997 10.00 a.m. - until the conclusion of private members' statements

Monday 2 June 1997 2.15 p.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Tuesday 3 June 1997 10.00 a.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Wednesday 4 June 1997 10.00 a.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Thursday 5 June 1997 10.00 a.m. - until the conclusion of private members' statements

Tuesday 17 June 1997 2.15 p.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Wednesday 18 June 1997 10.00 a.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Thursday 19 June 1997 10.00 a.m. - until the conclusion of private members' statements

Tuesday 24 June 1997 2.15 p.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Wednesday 25 June 1997 10.00 a.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Thursday 26 June 1997 10.00 a.m. - until the conclusion of private members' statements

(2) That the House shall meet during the spring sittings as follows:

Tuesday 16 September 1997 2.15 p.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Wednesday 17 September 1997 10.00 a.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Thursday 18 September 1997 10.00 a.m. - until the
conclusion of private members' statements

Tuesday 23 September 1997 2.15 p.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Wednesday 24 September 1997 10.00 a.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Thursday 25 September 1997 10.00 a.m. - until the
conclusion of private members' statements

Tuesday 14 October 1997 2.15 p.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Wednesday 15 October 1997 10.00 a.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Thursday 16 October 1997 10.00 a.m. - until the
conclusion of private members' statements

Tuesday 21 October 1997 2.15 p.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Wednesday 22 October 1997 10.00 a.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Thursday 23 October 1997 10.00 a.m. - until the
conclusion of private members' statements

Tuesday 28 October 1997 2.15 p.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Wednesday 29 October 1997 10.00 a.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Thursday 30 October 1997 10.00 a.m. - until the

conclusion of private members' statements

Tuesday 11 November 1997 2.15 p.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Wednesday 12 November 1997 10.00 a.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Thursday 13 November 1997 10.00 a.m. - until the
conclusion of private members' statements

Tuesday 18 November 1997 2.15 p.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Wednesday 19 November 1997 10.00 a.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Thursday 20 November 1997 10.00 a.m. - until the
conclusion of private members' statements

Tuesday 25 November 1997 2.15 p.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Wednesday 26 November 1997 10.00 a.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Thursday 27 November 1997 10.00 a.m. - until the
conclusion of private members' statements

Tuesday 2 December 1997 2.15 p.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Wednesday 3 December 1997 10.00 a.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Thursday 4 December 1997 10.00 a.m. - until the
conclusion of private members' statements

Tuesday 9 December 1997 2.15 p.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Wednesday 10 December 1997 10.00 a.m. - 10.30 p.m.
Thursday 11 December 1997 10.00 a.m. - until the
conclusion of private members' statements.

As I have indicated to honourable members, it is proposed that from Wednesday, 9 April 1997, the House sit from 10 a.m. to 10.30 p.m. and Thursday, 10 April, from 10 a.m. until the conclusion of private members' statements. The circulated sitting pattern extends to Thursday, 26 June 1997. The proposed sitting timetable for spring extends from Tuesday, 16 September 1997, to Thursday, 11 December 1997. It is necessary to deal with the matter this evening so that the Parliament may sit according to the sessional and standing orders tomorrow. Members like to be able to plan their diaries well in advance. Comment has been made about the lack of sitting hours of the Parliament. Only one fair body makes an assessment of the sitting hours, the Legislative Assembly office. It is the honest broker. It has advised me that by the time the House rose last year the Legislative Assembly had sat for 557 hours and 17 minutes, which was the longest session of any Parliament in Australia.

The Legislative Assembly office has also provided me with a list of sitting hours dating back to 1978. The list shows that the House sat more
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hours last year than in any other year - longer than the Fahey Government ever sat, longer than the Greiner Government ever sat, longer than the Unsworth Government ever sat and longer than the Wran Government ever sat. I congratulate members on all sides of the Chamber on the very rigorous session we had last year, including sitting on a Saturday. It was of great inconvenience to members and their families. We sat late on occasions. We are trying to regulate the program so that we conclude at a reasonable hour and commence at a reasonable hour, while allowing the business of the House to proceed.

Mr HARTCHER (Gosford) [6.26 p.m.]: I thank the Leader of the House for his courtesy to all members in providing a timetable for the whole year. I cannot recall that happening on many occasions in the past. It is an extremely valuable initiative which will be of assistance to all members. I also thank the Leader of the House for his courtesy some time ago in advising me that 6, 7 and 8 May will be included as sitting days so that I could inform my colleagues. That said, it needs to be recorded just what this Government is doing. The number of sitting hours given by the Leader of the House is not disputed - I have not checked them but I would naturally accept his word. However, the Parliament has not sat since 27 November 1996. It is now 8 April. The Government is compressing Parliament into certain times of the year so that for a very long time it avoids parliamentary scrutiny. From 27 November to 8 April is 132 days.

For one-third of the year the Government has avoided the scrutiny of the Parliament. It has avoided the questions, the motions, the matters for urgent consideration and all the opportunities that the people of New South Wales - not just the Opposition - have to scrutinise the actions of the Government. The Minister may well wave the white flag but the evidence speaks for itself. I will not prolong the debate. The point has already been made in the media and throughout the community: the Government does not like Parliament. It avoided sitting last year. Parliament was due to sit in February but was prorogued because of the Government House controversy. While there was no controversy of a similar nature at the beginning of this year, we have gone from November to April without sitting.

The people of New South Wales are entitled to better. They are entitled to a Parliament that sits regularly throughout the year so that the concerns of the public can be raised. That is what they have members of Parliament for: to raise their concerns. It is not just to pass legislation - the Government has its own legislative program - it is to ensure that the Government's actions are scrutinised and that members can raise matters of concern to their electorates. The community as a whole should have a stake in what its elected representatives are doing. If Parliament is not sitting the people have no say; they have no voice. While the Opposition will not divide on the motion, we place on record that we are not happy that Parliament has not sat for 132 days. We will continue to press for regular sittings of the Parliament to ensure that the public can scrutinise the actions of the Government and call the Government to account.

Mr WHELAN (Ashfield - Minister for Police) [6.29 p.m.], in reply: I thank the honourable member for Gosford for his comments and I appreciate his remarks. The point remains that this year the Legislative Assembly is to sit for 61 days, which is four days longer than the former Government ever sat. I remind the honourable member that in 1988 the coalition Government sat for only 41 days. In 1993-94 he was a Minister in the coalition Government. The point may be the quality of work that occurs when members of Parliament sit. The indicative program may have to be changed in the light of recommendations of the Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service. For argument's sake, the corruption report could be delayed, which would mean that the Parliament would have to consider it at a later stage. The second report relating to paedophilia may also be delayed. I am not privy to that information. If any urgent matters arise the Parliament, as it did in relation to guns, would have to make appropriate sitting arrangements. I thank the honourable member for his comments.

Motion agreed to.

[Mr Acting-Speaker (Mr Clough) left the chair at 6.31 p.m. The House resumed at 7.30 p.m.]

Bill introduced and read a first time.

Mr E. T. PAGE (Coogee - Minister for Local Government) [7.30 p.m.]: I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The bill contains a single amendment to the Local Government Act 1993 to allow Cudgegong (Abattoir) County Council to secure loans for expansion by mortgaging its land. It is a small bill which will have significant consequences for the Mudgee region of New South Wales by way of increased jobs and economic prosperity. The Government is committed to maximising industry,
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investment and employment growth in the State's regional areas. A number of very practical regional assistance strategies focus on these objectives, such as the regional business development scheme. This scheme is designed to assist prospective and existing businesses in regional New South Wales to survive and grow by improving competitiveness and sustainability.

The impetus for the projected expansion of Cudgegong (Abattoir) County Council arose from a feasibility study funded by the State Government under a regional initiative. The county council might be better known by its trading name, the Mudgee Regional Abattoir. It has been operating successfully since its establishment in 1965 and currently caters for both the domestic and export markets, mainly in beef, sheep and goat meat. In 1995-96 the abattoir's turnover was $18 million. It has a full-time staff of 230 plus 70 or more casual employees. The abattoir's annual payroll is $8 million and a further 200 people derive their income from activities associated with the abattoir. This level of activity gives the abattoir an important place in the regional community and an impact beyond.

For example, the abattoir makes its facilities available for the slaughtering and judging of cattle for the Sydney Royal Easter Show and other competitions. In terms of its future, expert consultants have highlighted the need for the abattoir to value add to products. The demands of developing markets, particularly export, are for packaged product rather than carcases. The abattoir intends to implement the strategic directions for future development which have been identified by the consultants. The abattoir's plans involve a new beef boning room complex, new mutton chain and slaughter floor, new sheep slaughter floor and associated chilling and freezing capacity. The estimated cost of these improvements, which will ensure the viability of the abattoir into the future, is $6 million to $7 million.

The abattoir's proposals are of major economic benefit to the Mudgee region. Up to 200 jobs may be created at the abattoir if the new works lead to the increase in throughput anticipated, including the need for a second shift. A minimum of 60 new jobs will be created immediately the boning room and associated facilities are completed. Employment opportunities also exist during the construction phase. Taking account of a multiplier effect of between two and three, the positive impact of this investment project on the region's economy is significant. I emphasise that the expansion is to take place in the context of a robust abattoir operation.

The county council has an enviable reputation within the meat industry. It has been trading profitably during some very trying times, including the effects of adverse climatic conditions and reduced demand. I mention this because the financial sector has been reticent to lend to the abattoir which, notwithstanding its commercial acumen, is also a local government county council. It is surprising that the abattoir's strong trading history and the existing statutory guarantee over future income that applies to all local government bodies do not appear to provide sufficient security. I was approached by abattoir representatives to overcome the problem. There is no doubt the bill has the support of the local member and the Opposition benches. No-one would suggest that this industry should not be supported.

The Government has had to examine this issue thoroughly, as assets held by all levels of government belong to the community. Jeopardising, however slightly, the ownership of those assets by allowing them to be mortgaged has significant ramifications. There are factors which suggest that Cudgegong (Abattoir) County Council is a unique case. It is the only abattoir county council in New South Wales and does not have access to local government rating income, which is the reason the banks are reluctant to lend money to the organisation. The land in question was bought by the abattoir for operational purposes and has never been, and is not likely to be, enjoyed by the general public.

Finally, and most significantly, the abattoir conducts its business on a commercial basis, in which mortgage lending is an accepted norm. In all the circumstances, the Cudgegong (Abattoir) County Council's inability to mortgage land represents an unreasonable impediment. For this reason, an enabling power for the abattoir is proposed in the bill as a special case and not as a general indicator of policy. I previously stated that the Government is committed to regional development. It is pleasing to be able to give these words a tangible meaning for the Mudgee region. I commend the bill to the House.

Mr SOURIS (Upper Hunter - Deputy Leader of the National Party) [7.36 p.m.]: I am pleased to speak in debate on this bill on behalf of the State Opposition because I am the local member for the Mudgee area, in which the abattoir is located. The bill will be supported in bipartisan fashion. The Minister for Local Government has already alluded to the fact that he had discussions with abattoir representatives, as I did, on behalf of the county council, the only commercial county council in New South Wales. I also had discussions with the Minister and his staff. That is why this bill is before the House.

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When the 1993 local government legislation passed through Parliament it had an unintended quirk that prohibited a local government county council from borrowing in excess of a certain sum without being supported by the usual form of local government guarantee, that is, a charge over the rating income of the local government area. However, this enterprise must stand fully on a commercial footing, and the normal commercial requirement for a mortgage to undertake borrowings - in this case in the order of more than $6 million - is a mortgage over the real estate which is owned by this commercial undertaking. Coincidentally, the shareholders are the two local government authorities, the Rylstone Shire Council and the Mudgee Shire Council.

The bill is before the House to enable this county council to expand its business to create value-adding opportunities for the district's rural economy and to provide an important jobs boost to the local economy. The abattoir already employs 230 people and has capacity for casual staff of up to 70 people. It has an $8 million payroll; both the level of employment and the payroll have the potential to double as a result of this investment. All due care has been taken by the two shire councils and by the management of the county council to ensure that the intended investment is economically viable and will provide a safe and secure investment for the community, given that financial obligations will be associated with the loan and the mortgage. The State Opposition has pleasure in supporting the bill. With the passage of the bill through both Houses the Opposition looks forward to investment in the Mudgee area, a boost in the regional economy, the decentralisation and value adding of business in the Mudgee area for the benefit of the entire community and, ultimately, the economy of New South Wales. Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time and passed through remaining stages.

Debate resumed from an earlier hour.

Mr O'DOHERTY (Ku-ring-gai) [7.41 p.m.]: Earlier I referred to Scott Wakeling, a 16-year-old student from Mount Druitt High School, who had been attacked outside the school. The Department of School Education and the Minister for Education and Training have used that as an excuse to claim that they did not have the jurisdiction to try to help Scott Wakeling in his plight. He took his case to the Today Tonight program. He and his parents told the program that he was physically and mentally scarred, and that he had been diagnosed as manic depressive. The family is considering relocating away from Mount Druitt because they cannot guarantee Scott's safety outside school. As I mentioned earlier, apprehended violence orders have already been taken out against the students who have assaulted Scott.

When the school is not prepared to take account of incidents outside school grounds in the broader community although they involve school students, such incidents must be dealt with in a way that teaches students why they should not harass, bully or act violently towards other students in their community. They cannot be dealt with in a simple, punitive, get-tough way. Yet time and time again that is the response of the Carr Government. The chronicle from this year continues. In February 1977 at Matraville High School two teenagers held a boy in a headlock and repeatedly hit him over the head with a tree branch during a schoolyard bashing. In November 1966 at Hunters Hill High School a schoolboy was stabbed by a classmate during a fight.

Mr Watkins: Are you going to go over every incident that occurred at every school?

Mr O'DOHERTY: All these matters have been raised publicly. The honourable member for Gladesville would be happy if these matters were never raised publicly because the Government he represents, a government that is failing to address the problem of student and teacher safety in schools, would then not be accountable. He might want to hide from it. He may not want people to reflect on these issues and, in the calm light of a dispassionate debate in this Parliament, discuss the inadequate response of the Carr Government He might not want the Government to be accountable, but the people of New South Wales do.

Mr Rozzoli: On a point of order. With due respect, I ask you to ask the honourable member for Gladesville to desist from interjecting. We are trying to listen, but we can hardly hear what the honourable member for Ku-ring-gai is saying.

Mr ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Mills): Order! The point of order is upheld. The honourable member for Gladesville will cease interjecting.

Mr O'DOHERTY: The honourable member for Gladesville is a teacher, and teachers have said that the response of the Carr Government is absolutely inadequate. The honourable member for Gladesville is deliberately flouting your ruling. For the edification of the honourable member for
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Gladesville and others I will read to the House what was said by teachers at Marrickville High School:

We welcome the Director General's recent support of teachers in regard to the issue of student violence, however, the lack of appropriate facilities remains a major problem. Whenever Marrickville High School wishes to have students with behavioural problems placed elsewhere, it expects the full support of the Minister of School Education and the Department of School Education. Unless such support is immediately forthcoming, we will regard Marrickville High School as an unsafe working environment and failing to comply with the requirements of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

If the honourable member for Gladesville cares about the working conditions of teachers he will be quiet and listen. The reaction of the Carr Government has been tough rhetoric, and the Minister for Education and Training has ordered schools to crack down on bullies. I laughed when I heard the Premier of New South Wales, not the Minister for Education and Training, announce that a black list would be created, which already has the names of 800 students on it. Teachers in schools have told me that students with serious behavioural problems who have been named on the list and who were in programs to modify their behaviour have started to try to live up to the reputation created for them by being on the new black list.

Mr ACTING-SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Gladesville to order.

Mr O'DOHERTY: That is the kind of muddle-headed, punitive response that has led to groups like the Parents and Citizens Association accusing the Government of being driven by fear and prejudice, and of offering no incentive to anybody to behave in a better fashion. A review of school suspension rates, which was ordered by the Minister for Education and Training, revealed that despite the get-tough rhetoric and the new you-beaut policies, suspension rates under the Carr Government have increased. Every day 160 students are suspended in schools. The response of the Government is to suspend five-year-old children, but the report stated that the major problems were boys in years 7 to 10. The report revealed that the major problems are linked to attitudes and cultures that lead to violence. The Government is doing nothing about those attitudes and cultures but issuing press releases and making a big show of suspending five-year-old students from school.

The Government has also come under attack from teachers for not implementing a policy that clearly upholds the rights of teachers to suspend or expel students. I am sure the Minister will say in his contribution that he has guaranteed the right of teachers to suspend or expel students. It is not working in schools. The Minister will remember debates in this Chamber in which he said exactly the same thing about the policies of the previous Government. It was the then Opposition that said that schools ought to be tougher on suspending and expelling students. Such policies have always been in place, but there is much more to the issue than that. A few years ago the Minister argued some of those aspects in this House. The Minister now seems like a total company man. He has bought the line that everything possible is being done.

The reality is that every day violent incidents continue in schools. Last year almost 600 violent incidents in or near New South Wales schools were reported. There is no lack of will on the part of teachers to deal with the problem, but they want the resources to do so. I refer honourable members to resolutions of the New South Wales Teachers Federation. The federation wanted the department to investigate as a matter of urgency the whereabouts of the funding previously available to behaviour teams. Where has the funding gone? Where have school counsellors gone? They have gone into district offices where they are remote from being able to deal on a one-to-one basis with the sensitive issues that lead to violence in schools. The promises of the Labor Party are legion, but they are not being met.

In 1995 the Labor Party promised teacher education programs to train teachers to cope with bullying and playground violence, but training and development funding has been cut. It promised that school counsellors would be targeted on a needs basis. School counsellors have gone into district offices and become administrators, and fewer school counsellors are on the ground. The Labor Party promised isolation rooms in each school, but no funding is available. It promised at least one extra school specialising in students with chronic behaviour disorders. The Government is finally cranking that policy into operation after the events at Marrickville last year. The Labor Party promised more, but nothing has yet happened. It promised flexible school hours to allow for more playground supervision. That has not happened. It promised cooperation between local police and school staff to stop gangs. That has not happened. It promised to ban gang insignia and behaviour in schools. That was always banned.

The Labor Party wanted to ensure that the department backed the authority of teachers and principals. Teachers made a submission in January or February this year stating that had not happened. It wanted to introduce a trial program of specially trained teachers at schools to act as discipline officers. No trial has been conducted. The adopt-a- cop policy has not been implemented. The Labor
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Party claimed that it would encourage community reporting of locations where youth problems are frequent. That is a rhetorical nonsense; no program is in place. The policy of police youth liaison officers patrolling identified locations has not been implemented. School conflict resolution panels have not been formed. All relevant vocational subjects are about to be shaken up and made less relevant as a result of the McGaw report. A systematic reporting framework for schools has not been implemented. [Time expired.]

Mr AQUILINA (Riverstone - Minister for Education and Training, and Minister Assisting the Premier on Youth Affairs) [7.50 p.m.]: At the outset I want to place on the record that the Government and the Department of School Education are absolutely committed to combating violence and discrimination in all its forms. Any form of bullying, violence or discrimination is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. I would have thought that in 15 minutes the honourable member for Ku-ring-gai would be able to come up with some remarks that were a little more positive and factual. I would have thought that he would be able to give some detail about what he proposes or to point out some specific shortcomings of the Government. But he failed in all of those matters, because he is negative, negative, negative. All he can do is attack schools, and belittle the popularity of various schools and the reputation of teachers and principals and the schools to which they belong. Not once in 15 minutes did he offer a single iota of positive comment about what the Opposition proposes to deal with bullying and the other issues at hand.

Later in the debate I will deal with the specific details of the Government's comprehensive policy in relation to bullying. The Government had a big job to do. The last two years have been difficult indeed because of the previous seven years of gross neglect. I am not the only one saying that. Figures from the Bureau of Crime Statistics, to which I will refer later, show precisely how the Government has made major inroads into school bullying. There is, of course, one difference between the present Government and the previous Government. The previous Government made nothing public. It had a culture of silence, an ethos that hid every fact. Managers were told to manage, and school principals never reported anything that would reflect on the the reputation of the school. If a matter went further than the school, it went to the regional office. As happened with so many other matters it was then then lost because regional directors were supposed to maintain their own systems. Nothing was reported to head office, and the director-general and, indeed, the Minister were kept in blissful ignorance. That is the way the previous Government ran the system. By keeping people ignorant the previous Government was able to hide the facts and cover up the extent of bullying in schools.

The shadow minister now has the hide to move a censure motion against me. The Government has had a record two years of introducing policies, initiatives and training proposals into schools. Principals and students have had more support than they have ever had before. I am not the only one to say that. Teachers; Chris Puplick, the Chairman of the Anti-Discrimination Board; and many others have said it. I have it in writing. Members of the Opposition laugh and carry on because they are blissfully ignorant of the facts. Their approach is negative. Their approach is to create false issues and make up spurious stories. The shadow minister raised one or two specific incidents during his contribution. He referred to an incident at Mannering Park Public School. Today he trumpeted long and loud, as he did earlier in the media, about the fact that a five-year-old student was suspended from that school. The child was not five years old, but six years old. He claimed that the principal had no alternative but to do what he did.

Mr O'Doherty: That is what he said.

Mr AQUILINA: Precisely, that is what the principal said. To claim that suspension was in accordance with the policy, or that it was my fault or the Government's fault that such action was taken, is clearly nonsense. The shadow minister himself even admits it is nonsense. If, as a result of some major tragedy, he were to become Minister for Education, would he be personally responsible for the supervision of the actions of each of the 2,226 principals in this State? Of course he would not. He is laughing and sniggering, because he knows precisely what the facts are. I make it plain now as I did previously that the policy is in black and white as a specific guideline, but the principal on this occasion did not apply the policy appropriately. The claim of the shadow minister is wrong. The policy does not state that students must be suspended at any age. The principal was wrong; that is not the policy. The policy is a guideline to be used with discretion. Principals are nominated because they have discretion, experience and expertise and because they can exercise judgment. That is why the policies are laid down as guidelines. They are provided to give support and help. They are to be used as a guide; they are not laws that have been laid down and must be adhered to.

The shadow minister referred to what happened at Hurlstone Agricultural High School. That shameful situation, which was trumpeted in a media hit one Sunday morning, did an enormous amount of harm to the school as well as to the
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Campbell House students to whom it referred. Again the shadow minister hides his head because he knows about those shameful circumstances. He knows that what happened has not done anybody any good but has brought harm to the school and the students and has damaged the reputation of both schools. Both schools and their communities have worked hard to overcome whatever problems existed. Indeed, that was their responsibility. I am pleased that those schools and their communities are now satisfied with the arrangements that have been agreed to. The reports I have received indicated that there have been no serious incidents in relation to the issue and that the two schools are working harmoniously. They had every opportunity to do that from the outset and that is what is now happening.

Conflict resolution is a major task for schools, teachers and students. People like the shadow minister and other members of the Opposition augment conflict because they want to highlight it for the specific purpose of promoting themselves rather than resolving the problem. The shadow minister has a muddled approach. On the one hand he claims that the Government's policies are inadequate. The Government has a vast list of policies and, as I have said, later in the debate I will itemise those policies in detail. However, on the other hand the shadow minister has claimed that the Government's approach is heavy-handed, and that the Government is all about suspensions and kicking children out of schools while not taking enough time to provide the counselling that students and teachers require. I categorically refute his claims. The shadow minister clearly does not have a clue about what is happening in schools. He does not have a clue about bullying and violence in schools. He is speaking absolute rubbish.

For example, he has referred to counsellors being in district offices and to the fact that the Government is supposed to have only recently established special schools as a result of the incident he referred to at Marrickville. I say to the shadow minister that special schools are operating and this Government will establish more. If the shadow minister asks me where they are I will not tell him because he will make a nonsense of this proposal, just he tried to do with the so-called 800 students who are on his supposed black list. That is the sort of negative psychology used by the shadow minister.

Mr O'Doherty: It is your black list.

Mr AQUILINA: There is no black list. There is a list of students who require help and special assistance. They can only get that special assistance if they are identified and if we are frank about this issue. When the shadow minister was chairman of the former Government's education committee he was a party to a serious cover-up of the location of these students and the sort of assistance they were supposed to be getting. Those students never got that assistance because nobody recognised them. Nobody wanted to know who they were. Frankly, they have been left in blissful ignorance to stumble their way out of the schools and eventually, because of their age, work their way out of the system.

This Government has recognised those 800 students and is targeting their needs. It is providing special classes and special schools for them. They are getting specialist attention and will continue to receive that attention. They are receiving attention right from kindergarten, not only at the end of their schooling. The Government recognises the students requiring that special attention and it is providing it for them at their schools. Between third class and sixth class they are removed from the school, if that is required, for a short period. Later, in their secondary schooling, they are removed from school, if required, for an extended period to enable them to attend specialist classes.

There are a record number of counsellors in our schools. Today the Government has in place more policies and more training than has ever been the case in the history of New South Wales. It certainly has far more counsellors and policies in place than was ever the case during the time of the previous Government. But, even more important than that, the Government is honest about the present situation. It is not a party to the cover-ups of the previous Government. The Government does not believe in not finding out who these kids are and where they are located so that it does not get any negative publicity. For those reasons the Government will continue to provide the sort of support that those students need.

Despite all his claims, the shadow minister is taking a softly-softly approach. Members of this Government are supposedly the culprits because they have allegedly given principals and teachers leverage to discipline those students who refuse to be disciplined. The shadow minister, when referring to a case at Mount Druitt High School, said that teachers should be held responsible for what happens to students outside school hours. I acknowledge that teachers have a responsibility to ensure that they should do whatever they can for students within the school environment and while they are at school. I am confident that teachers, using the policies and guidelines that the department has given them and the counsellors that are available to them, are doing what they can for students during the school period within the school grounds.

It is absolutely ludicrous to hold teachers responsible for what students may get up to at a
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shopping centre at the weekend or, perhaps, in a local neighbourhood late at night. Teachers are there to provide teaching and guidance for students within the time available to them. They cannot be mother, father, sister, brother and teacher to all the kids in their care. That is precisely what the shadow minister is saying teachers should be doing. On the one hand, he is saying that today teachers have an impossible job and, on the other hand, he is giving teachers responsibilities which are beyond their physical capabilities. More importantly, he is allocating blame to those teachers for what happens outside school grounds and the school environment.

Frankly, the attitude of the shadow minister is reckless. His policy lacks direction. He has no sense of where he is going on this issue. We do not know whether he will use the hard stick on the one hand or the softly-softly approach on the other hand. Clearly, the Liberal Party has no policies. I have not heard the shadow minister advocate one policy that would be of benefit to students, teachers and schools. The shadow minister is all about criticism, negativism, narking and apportioning blame and he has denigrated the reputations of schools and pupils, and the work of teachers.

The shadow minister and the Opposition stand condemned for their negative policies on this matter. They have the hide to attempt to censure me and this Government after the record number of policies that we have introduced in the classroom and after the record number of improvements that we have achieved over the last two years in an attempt to undo the problems created for us and for schools over the past seven years and in an attempt to build up a positive environment for teachers and students within the school environment. I am proud of the Government's policy on bullying. Frankly, the Opposition has nothing to offer in this debate. [Time expired.]

Mr RICHARDSON (The Hills) [8.05 p.m.]: I was fascinated to hear the Minister for Education and Training talking about the negative attitude of the honourable member for Ku-ring-gai. He said that the honourable member's attitude was negative, negative, negative. Frankly, it is difficult not to be negative about what this Minister is doing to our education system, about what the Government is doing to our schools and about what the Government is not doing for our students. I remind the Minister that he is the Minister for Education and Training; the honourable member for Ku-ring-gai is not the Minister for Education and Training. It is not the responsibility of Opposition members to develop policy and to hold the Minister by the hand; it is the responsibility of the Government to develop policies that work and to implement those policies in a way that benefits our schools and our students.

I was fascinated to hear the Minister talk about the record two years of introducing policies, but he could not name any teachers or anybody in the education system who actually supported those policies. The only person whose name he could cite as supporting the Government in its actions was Chris Puplick, his mate. Clearly, there is no support whatsoever for what the Minister is doing to protect teachers and other students within the school system. The Minister criticised the honourable member for Ku-ring-gai for what he had to say about Hurlstone Agricultural High School. The honourable member for Ku-ring-gai quoted extensively from a newspaper article that appeared on that issue. In common with many other honourable members in this House, I was sent a letter from Hurlstone Agricultural High School Parents and Citizens Association.

Mr O'Doherty: That is why I raised it. I got the letter and that is why I raised it.

Mr RICHARDSON: That is right. The honourable member for Ku-ring-gai, who also received this letter, raised the matter appropriately. If relations between students at Hurlstone Agricultural High School and those of Campbell House school have improved, it is almost solely due to the publicity which has accrued as a result of the actions of the honourable member for Ku-ring-gai.

Mr ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Mills): Order! The honourable member for Gladesville will cease interjecting.

Mr RICHARDSON: I received the letter in January this year.

Mr O'Doherty: They had written to him for a year.

Mr RICHARDSON: That is right. The problems at this school have been ongoing for a number of years. It is interesting to note that on 5 February 1996 the Minister said that the problems at this school had been resolved. On 5 February 1996 the Minister wrote to the Hurlstone Agricultural High School Parents and Citizens Association and said that a local investigation of the concerns expressed to him by the parents and citizens association had been carried out by the district superintendent, Mr Richard Booth, and some local initiatives had been put in place to help alleviate problems caused by student contact. That is terrific! One would have thought that the Minister had resolved the problems. But the next paragraph in the letter from the parents and citizens association, which I will read, will disillusion honourable members. The author stated:

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Sadly, since that time the problems have escalated. The Minister's promise has not been kept . . .

That is precisely the point the Opposition is making in this censure motion. The Minister's promise has not been kept. No effective response has been received from Richard Booth. The Hurlstone Agricultural High School Parents and Citizens Association has been reasonable on the issue. It understands that kids with behavioural problems and special needs have been placed in this special school. However, it objects to those kids imposing on the rights of the other students at Hurlstone Agricultural High School - as, indeed, honourable members would object if they had kids at that school. The letter stated:

It was a provocative and irresponsible act for the Department to open the Glenfield Tutorial Centre in a demountable building at the corner of Roy Watts Road while the Campbell House School incidents were being investigated . . .

The only measure which has been put in place that we can see to alleviate the problems has been to stagger the times of arrival and departure of the respective schools. Rather than alleviate the problems, this has in fact exacerbated them.

According to the letter there has been no improvement at Hurlstone Agricultural High School. The most recent incidents cited by the honourable member for Ku-ring-gai date from October 1996. The Opposition seeks from the Minister proof positive that the situation has improved materially since then. The Opposition knows that, for example, inadequate funds have been granted to Arndell Special School at North Ryde to maintain its program. [Time expired.]

Mr ROGAN (East Hills) [8.10 p.m.]: A censure motion is important, and there should be substantial reasons for moving it. During the debate all I heard from Opposition members were quotes from a series of newspaper articles about individual incidents but nothing of great substance. I have not heard anything that goes to the core of the discipline and violence problems in our schools. I tried to make some notes of what Opposition members said, but there was absolutely nothing to which the Minister need respond. This Opposition motion is hypocritical. One reason for the problems in our schools is that families are in crisis. Families are under stress and their problems are carried into the schools. They will be in further crisis as a result of the Federal cutbacks. Community services were massively cut - criminally, I thought - by the previous Government, and that goes to the heart of this motion.

Mr O'Doherty: On a point of order. The honourable member may not have been present during the earlier part of the debate, but the motion is substantially a censure of the Minister, relating to his school violence and discipline policies. It has nothing to do with the Department of Community Services, the Federal Government or family policy at a Federal level.

Mr ROGAN: On the point of order. The point raised by the honourable member for Ku-ring-gai is indicative of the total lack of understanding of what is behind the motion. I referred to the Department of Community Services and the cutbacks by the Federal Government because those matters are germane to the debate, which is about discipline and violence in our schools.

Mr ACTING-SPEAKER: Order! I have heard enough on the point of order. There is no substance to the point of order.

Mr ROGAN: When this Government took office it restored 20 district officers and at least 40 field officers in the Department of Community Services to help families in crisis. That was a small measure but at least it redressed the terrible neglect of the previous Government. All these things happened under the Opposition when in it was in government. Earlier the Minister outlined the various measures taken by the Government. Time does not permit me to detail all of them but I shall refer to some of them. School counsellors will be targeted on a needs basis to assist in resolving the problems to which this motion is supposed to refer. Local police and school staff have cooperated to stop gangs from using standover tactics and intimidation. Indeed, in my area of Revesby, crime prevention workshops for school students have been launched to build better relations between police, students and teachers.

Honourable members can relate in the House or in their electorates specific discipline incidents or cases of school violence. However, what is required is a policy to address the problems. The Government, through this Minister, is implementing a policy - something that the previous Government did not do. I suppose that the Opposition spokesman on education is required to justify his existence on the front bench by moving such motions as a matter of course. However, he is required also to provide substance to them - substance that has not been provided in this debate except for quotations from a few newspapers which do not address the major problem of school violence and discipline. That problem is being addressed by the Government through this Minister. [Time expired.]

Ms SEATON (Southern Highlands) [8.15 p.m.]: I am pleased to support this censure motion because safety in schools for both students and staff is paramount. It is fundamental that staff and students should feel safe and secure at school and,
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indeed, on the way to and from school. Without the assumption every day of being able to walk through the door into a safe environment, it is impossible to learn. Children cannot learn in an environment in which they fear the actions of others; and teachers certainly cannot concentrate on the job if they are in such an environment. Supporting this censure motion is important not only because it highlights the Minister's failure to ensure safety and security in schools but also because it reminds us of the daily fear of some students with disabilities in New South Wales schools, and the Government's inadequate response to that fear of bullying and violence.

Recently there have been reports in the media, including the Sydney Morning Herald, of parents who have been forced to keep children with disabilities at home for fear of the trauma and bullying that they have been experiencing at school. Those reports have referred to the lack of appropriate action by schools in respect of disabled students. Concern has been expressed by the Disability Council of New South Wales and I shall refer to a couple of specific incidents that I think would horrify parents. The first is an incident of a 12-year-old girl with a disability who was sexually abused -

Mr Watkins: Allegedly.

Ms SEATON: - who was allegedly sexually abused in a toilet cubicle by four girls. The Sydney Morning Herald reported the incident of a disabled girl who allegedly received brain damage after being kicked by a gang of boys. What was the response by the Government and the Minister to those incidents? The Premier led the way; basically, his response was to wade in and shoot the messenger. He did not try to solve the problem. He did not look at the causes and provide constructive solutions. His solution was to take the children out of the schools and deny them access to mainstream schools.

The Minister stood by and watched the Premier say that; his silence meant effectively that he agreed with the Premier. The Minister did not support students with disabilities who live in fear not only of harassment and humiliation but of being bullied. The Premier has further confused and muddied the waters of the whole debate about access to mainstream schools by telling students to stay away. No wonder parents of children with disabilities are shocked and disappointed by what has been happening. This is in the context of the important McCrae report, which is being considered by parents and teachers. The Government has sought submissions on that report. I have met with special school parents and teachers, and there is a lot of confusion about exactly where the Government is coming from in relation to children with disabilities and their access to schools. The Premier is essentially saying that children with disabilities should be taken out of these schools.

The Minister is not disagreeing with the Premier on this issue. That is because the Minister is not prepared to act, just as he was not prepared to act on school violence of the sort that has been demonstrated by the honourable member for Ku-ring-gai. It is not just the coalition that is concerned about these issues. Many coalition members have received a copy of a letter sent to the Minister from the principal of an inner-western school who is particularly concerned about violence. The letter suggests that the department has failed both teachers and students, that there has been a lack of appropriate facilities to deal with instances of violence in schools, and that whilst the principal expected the full support of the Minister, she did not get it. I have also received letters from parents involved with Hurlstone Agricultural High School, and I support the comments of the honourable member for The Hills on that issue.

The Minister deserves the censure of this House. On 20 May 1993 the Minister made much political mileage of his proposal to ban weapons in schools. He talked about heavy fines and long periods of imprisonment. But, having said a lot about it, he has been very reluctant to actually do something about the things he was promising. Teachers and staff were promised one thing by the Minister and have been left with nothing. One would also have to ask what happened to the Minister's party policy promise in January 1995 of a crackdown on school violence. What happened to those specially trained school discipline officers? I said before that the coalition is not the only organisation that is worried about an increase - [Time expired.]

Mrs BEAMER (Badgerys Creek) [8.20 p.m.]: It is obvious that in this debate the shadow minister for education is reckless in his endeavour to denigrate teachers in New South Wales schools. He has done that without any positive program, without any alternative, and without any attempted solution. It is obvious to anybody listening to this debate that the shadow minister's censure motion is based on a few articles in the Daily Telegraph and other publications. We can all quote from publications, and later in my speech I will quote from today's Daily Telegraph. In this censure debate, based as it is on newspaper articles, the Opposition has not once said what it intends to do. What reports or investigations did the Opposition ever initiate? What will the Opposition say to students in New South Wales? Every member who has contributed to this debate has said that students deserve to go to school and feel safe. How will they be able to do that? An
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article in today's Daily Telegraph, under the headline "Peace terms" and the subheading "Words, not fists, resolve disputes in this playground", talks about Rooty Hill Public School, a school close to the Minister's electorate and my electorate. It reads:

When there's a dispute in the playground of Rooty Hill Public School, the students sort it out among themselves - not with fists, but with words.

How do the students do this? The article continues:

Rather than go at it toe-to-toe to resolve a difference, the aggrieved parties take the matter to another two students - elected peer mediators - to have it sorted out.

A peer mediation program is working in the schools.

Mr O'Doherty: Who brought that program in?

Mr ACTING-SPEAKER (Mr Mills): Order! The honourable member for Ku-ring-gai will cease interjecting, as will the honourable member for Gladesville.

Mrs BEAMER: The honourable member for Ku-ring-gai spoke about four examples. On the one hand he said this Government is far too harsh; on the other hand he said this Government is far too lax. School bullying, a complex problem, needs time and initiative to be resolved. I believe that every member of this House would be aware that the shadow minister has offered no initiatives and no policies. He has not talked to schools, as this Government has done, about developing their discipline code by semester one this year. He has not talked about strategies to promote good discipline and effective learning or about practices to recognise and reinforce good student behaviour and achievement. He has not dealt with any strategies for unacceptable behaviour. It is obvious from the Opposition's denigration of teachers that all it is after is a bit of political pointscoring because it does not have any policies. It is atrocious and ridiculous to censure a Minister who has talked about effective, good discipline in our schools. This Government is developing programs which will create happy environments in the vast majority of schools.

The Government is developing strategies which will make bullying unacceptable. We have to have strategies to deal with that problem. Any violence in our community is unacceptable, but we have to have strategies in schools to deal with that issue. Censuring the Minister about this issue - something the Government has talked about for so long and which it is implementing - is the most farcical and hypocritical thing I have seen in this House. We have talked about counselling in schools and about people developing mediation programs that are working. Today's Daily Telegraph referred to them as "Peace Terms". How are these programs working within schools? How will students learn to deal with those problems in a way which will carry forth not just from the school but through their entire lives? What we need in our schools is an understanding of how people can deal with each other with words, not fists. That is what we are getting in our schools because this Government has an effective program. The Opposition has nothing to offer. [Time expired.]

Mr AQUILINA (Riverstone - Minister for Education and Training, and Minister Assisting the Premier on Youth Affairs) [8.25 p.m.], in response: The honourable member for Badgerys Creek concluded her contribution by saying that the Opposition has nothing to offer. That is absolutely correct. The Opposition had nothing to offer while in government; it has had nothing to offer over the last two years; and it certainly has nothing to offer tonight. It has contributed absolutely nothing in this debate. I have listened to a number of spurious allegations, mostly based on newspaper articles, but the Opposition has nothing to offer to back up the matters referred to in the articles. The honourable member for The Hills, who raised the issue of Hurlstone Agricultural High School, mentioned a letter he received in January this year.

I advise the honourable member that the Department of School Education received a letter from that school's council this term indicating great satisfaction with the way the whole matter has been working. It is all right for the Opposition to quote from correspondence and try to portray, through a tissue of misrepresentation, that things are bad when indeed things are going better. What would we expect from the Opposition? That is part of the negative way in which the Opposition approaches all issues relating to what is happening within our schools. Nothing can happen that is good; nothing can happen that is positive. It all has to be bad because we are the Government and members opposite are the Opposition. They are too small-minded to acknowledge that good things are happening in the schools of this State. Things are continuing to move forward and there are many pluses in what is happening in government schools in New South Wales. But all that the Opposition can do is drag down reputations, schools and the standard of teaching within our community.

The honourable member for Southern Highlands spoke about the McRae report as though it was some issue which the Government is working overboard to scuttle. I remind the honourable member, who has not been in this Chamber for long, that this Government commissioned David McRae to produce a report. This Government undertook a consultation process never before undertaken in this
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State. This Government, at the request of all disability groups, extended the consultation period until 27 March this year to enable people to make submissions; and the Government received over 600 submissions. I inform the honourable member for Southern Highlands that at this very minute in my office in this Parliament none other than David McRae is waiting for me to get through this nonsense in the Chamber so that I can talk to him about something that really matters - how we deal with children with disabilities in our schools and how we deal with this integration program.

Those are the real issues, and it is this Government and I as Minister who will proceed with them. All that people such as the honourable member for Southern Highlands can do is drag the situation down and belittle the very real and positive efforts being made by the Government on behalf of many thousands of young and disabled people. The honourable member for Southern Highlands had the hide in the Chamber today to raise allegations - unproven allegations - made in newspapers about the so-called mistreatment of disabled students. In one instance the honourable member talked about someone having sustained brain damage as the result of a beating. That allegation has been found to be demonstrably false. Although there has been nothing said in the newspapers about this, the lady in question had an operation a year later that was completely unrelated to the abuse referred to by the honourable member for Southern Highlands.

Specific details and facts are unimportant to Opposition members, because they are all about the gutter, they are all about dragging people down and they are all about dragging down the public education system. They are the people who stand condemned and they are the people who deserve to be censured, because of the way in which they approach the whole issue of education. At a time when, for a whole range of reasons, public education in New South Wales, the teachers, the parents who send their children to public schools and, most important, the students require support, assistance and encouragement, Opposition members are nitpicking, going through the newspapers and bleating at every allegation made, and using allegations to drag down the public education system.

The shadow minister for education stands condemned because he cannot come up with anything positive. In two years I have not heard him come up with anything positive. He keeps quoting the so-called O'Doherty report, the only issue he speaks about positively, because it bears his name. That is the only contribution he wants to make towards education in New South Wales - his report is supposed to go down in history perpetuating the name of O'Doherty as having done something original about education in this State. Frankly, this Government is about more important issues than that. If people wanted examples of positive policies, the Government has an endless range of them. I could go through pages and pages of Labor Party commitments and actions, policies that have been implemented and fulfilled.

Mr Cochran: Give us just one.

Mr AQUILINA: It is obvious that the honourable member for Monaro is not the product of a public school education - with his mentality I do not think he would have been allowed to finish.

Mr Cochran: What a rude little man. What school did you go to?

Mr Jeffery: A reform school.

Mr AQUILINA: Precisely. The honourable member for Oxley has said what school the honourable member for Monaro went to, a reform school. Reform schools are something that the present Government will not have a bar of, because it is about providing special schools to make sure that it helps students who are in real need. In 1996 the Government introduced phases 1, 2 and 3 of "Strategies for Safer Schools". Other positive policies are "A Fair Go for All", which relates to personal safety and positive relationship lessons for kindergarten to year 2 students; revised "Resources for Teaching Against Violence", which also includes a section on bullying; and crime prevention workshops, run in conjunction with the police.

Those are positive policies that have been introduced and are being implemented; they are not just claims that have been made. The shadow minister for education spoke about school counsellors. Counsellor allocations for every school are being reviewed this year. The Government wants to make sure that counsellors are allocated to the schools that need them. The previous Government, on the contrary, allocated counsellors on a per capita basis, irrespective of whether they were needed, with the result that schools with relatively few social problems in Sydney's north shore took counsellors away from schools in Sydney's west and south-west and rural New South Wales.

The issue of what the Government is doing to help students has been raised. The shadow minister for education indicated that the Government intends to cure bullying in schools by wielding a big stick. Consequently, he would have us believe that he would adopt a softly-softly approach; he would have
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us talk to school bullies and say, "Naughty school bullies, you shouldn't do that"; he would have us think that if we talk nicely to school bullies they will somehow correct their ways and change their character. Obviously, both claims are extreme. The Government is allocating in excess of $80,000 a year for welfare programs in our schools - a record allocation designed to ensure that students who, because of the shortcomings of society and because of their home background and the problems they experience with dysfunctional families and the like, require support and assistance in schools are provided with it.

Of course the shadow minister for education is quiet about that allocation, because it is well in excess of the amount spent on welfare programs by the previous Government under whose administration he was chairman of the education committee. The support material "Student Welfare, Good Discipline & Effective Learning" lists a number of good proposals. Yes, where needed the Government has established isolation rooms to enable schools to make decisions in such a way as to remove troublesome students from a class and at the same time provide them with the additional support they need in a quiet environment.

More than 30 additional teachers are now developing programs for students with behaviour disorders. As I have said before, new specialist centres for students with behavioural disorders are also being established. Some centres have already been established and others will follow. As the honourable member for East Hills has said, the Department of School Education and the Police Service are collaborating in the establishment of a pilot program to make sure that we target areas of high youth problems. Crime prevention workshops are being run across the State. The list of initiatives is endless, and the shadow minister for education knows it well.

Mr O'DOHERTY (Ku-ring-gai) [8.35 p.m.], in reply: The New South Wales Opposition believes that there is nothing wrong with education in this State that cannot be fixed by a change of government. That is the focus of this attack tonight and of the Opposition attack on education in general. I have said earlier in the debate that I am not critical of the efforts of the teachers, who are doing their best trying to cope day by day with the difficult situation in which they find themselves.

Mr Watkins: That is absolute rubbish.

Mr O'DOHERTY: The honourable member for Gladesville, who did not contribute to the debate, is chattering away like an inane parrot. Already he has been called to order on a number of occasions. On this round we shall ignore him, as we ignored him previously. I wonder why, as chairman of the Government's education committee, the honourable member for Gladesville did not speak in the debate. To me, that indicates a lack of confidence in his own Minister. Opposition members believe that the teachers who are battling the problems in our schools deserve better support than they get from the present Government and from the Minister for Education in particular. The Government criticised the previous Government for having no policies. Labor's Policy For School Education of March 1995 states at page 30:

Nearly 200 different school violence approaches are currently in operation in New South Wales.

About five minutes ago the Minister told the House that under the previous Government there were no policies, yet in March 1995 he said there were 200 policies. I ask the Minister whether it was no policies or 200 policies. The reference in Labor's Policy For School Education to the 200 different school violence approaches continues:

They have titles as diverse as "Stop, Think, Do", "Fresh Start", "Reality Therapy", "Youth in Groups", "Talk Sense to Yourself", "Peer Mediation", "Alternate High School" and "Wilderness Enhanced".

The highlight on page 30 of Labor's March 1995 education policy is peer mediation, which is recognition of one of the policies in place under the coalition Government. I hope that the honourable member for Badgerys Creek, who has left the Chamber, is listening to the debate in her room, because she told us about a wonderful program of peer mediation in operation in her electorate. More strength to the school that is running that program, because the Minister for Education has taken away the money that schools can use to develop peer mediation programs, peer support programs and other school-based antiviolence initiatives.

The Minister has taken that money away. Schools used to be paid $150 per teacher per year to send their teachers to training development programs identified by the schools as appropriate. How much is the Minister paying schools today? He is paying them $25 per teacher per year. Will schools be able to afford to send their teachers to in-service training in these excellent programs - such as peer mediation - which were operated and supported by the previous Government? No, they will not. The Minister and a number of honourable members have referred to the Hurlstone Agricultural High School.

Mr Watkins: You raised it.

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Mr O'DOHERTY: The Opposition raised the issue because the Government failed to deal with the issues that the school had been raising with the Government for a number of years. I refer to a newsletter addressed to all parents and friends of the Hurlstone Agricultural High School:

It was with disbelief and mounting anger that Denis Simond, President of the School Council, viewed the Nightline program on Channel 9 on the evening of Tuesday, 12 November, 1996 and later that we both read the full page article on page 13 of that morning's Sydney Morning Herald.

Both the newspaper article and the Nightline program were dealing with the problems of violence in schools. Enquiries made revealed that the newspaper article had been placed in the paper by a freelance journalist at the behest of the Department of School Education. The Nightline feature could not have been shown without the consent of the Department.

In dealing with this issue, both forms of media promoted Campbell House School at Glenfield as being "a school which acts as saviour".

The Hurlstone Agricultural High School said that it was the promotion by the department of its school situation as a positive that led to its absolute fury in raising it publicly. After years of going to the Labor Government and being denied any substantive action on its complaints, it finally went public. I spoke to the president of the school council at some length about whether he wanted the Opposition to raise the issue publicly. I said, "Do you realise that this will involve publicity for your school?", and he replied, "We understand the implications of that, but we have no choice because the Government has been failing us."

The Minister wrote to the Hurlstone Agricultural High School on 5 February 1996, after it had spoken to its local member - the Minister for Urban Affairs and Planning, and Minister for Housing - and to the department. The Minister wrote to the high school saying that a local investigation of concerns had been carried out by the district superintendent and that local initiatives had been put in place to help alleviate the problems. However, the high school's newsletter stated:

Sadly, since that time the problems have escalated. The Minister's promise has not been kept, as no effective response has been received from Richard Booth.

The issue was raised by the parents and by the Opposition reluctantly, after discussion, because the Government failed to act - that is the whole point of the motion: we are seeking to censure the Minister because he acts only when he is provoked to do so by negative publicity; only when he is shamed into doing so. His policy represents a dog's breakfast of tough rhetoric on one hand, and the desire to look as though he is supporting progressive programs on the other. The Minister talks about progressive programs, but he does not give them necessary resources.

The Minister said that major inroads have been made and that the number of incidents in schools has decreased. He also claimed that the previous Government kept no figures in this regard. In 1994, under the then coalition Government, statistics were compiled and released for the first time in relation to violence in schools. The Government released the figures and the Sydney Morning Herald of Tuesday 28 June 1994 reported that fact. The biggest drop in the figures occurred between the first year of reporting this system, 1994, and the next time that the figures were reported, in the middle of 1995. In other words, the biggest drop occurred due to the policies of the previous coalition Government. What has happened under the Labor Government? The number of incidents has steadily increased. The biggest drop occurred between 1994 and 1995, and since 1995 the number of incidents of serious violence in our schools has increased.

As I demonstrated earlier in the debate, a report released by the Minister showed that the number of suspensions in schools has increased. The Minister said that nothing occurred under the previous coalition Government. I have mentioned the 200 programs that the Labor Party mentioned in its election document in March 1995, and I will tell honourable members about some of the initiatives of the previous Government. For example, I refer to the addition of extra counsellors in schools - the ratio of counsellors to students was the best that it had ever been in the history of public education. The then Government provided 671 new and 158 enhanced programs in the areas of alternative education, behaviour management, community participation, mediation and staff development. It had mandatory recording of all incidents. It had the expulsion, on the recommendation of the principal, of any student caught with a weapon on school premises or at activities conducted by the student off school premises.

The then Government had a warning system for repeat offenders, and it banned school gangs and gang colours in schools. The then Government reported behaviour that threatened other students or teachers to the principal, and the principal reported that to the police for action, if necessary. Unwanted intruders were reported to the police; principals were given the power to declare vacant any place occupied by a student who demonstrated that he or
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she should not be there; and there was alternative placement for excluded students in a compassionate way that allowed them to make some restitution for what they had done. Schools had the right to refuse the enrolment of a student with a history of violence. The then Government produced a kit - one of many developed; I have mentioned a number of them - with resources for teaching against violence, and it won an award for that initiative. The coalition Government had many programs.

The current Government has tough rhetoric - five-year-old students are being suspended from school. The Minister spent the first part of his speech criticising and undermining the principal of the Mannering Park Public School. The principal said that the Minister's policy made him do what he did - that he had no choice. Whether that is right or not, the Minister's policy stands on trial today, not the principal of the Mannering Park Public School. The Labor Party's policy and the increasing nature of violent incidents in schools are under scrutiny today. Students deserve to feel safe at school, but they do not feel safe under the Labor Government. Staff deserve to be safe at school, but they are not safe under the Labor Government. Teachers have expressed this view publicly, as I have already stated in my speech. [Time expired.]

Question - That the motion be agreed to - put.

The House divided.

Mr Armstrong Mr O'Doherty
Mr Beck Mr D. L. Page
Mr Blackmore Mr Phillips
Mr Brogden Mr Photios
Mr Chappell Mr Richardson
Mrs Chikarovski Mr Rixon
Mr Cochran Mr Rozzoli
Mr Cruickshank Mr Schipp
Mr Debnam Mr Schultz
Mr Downy Ms Seaton
Mr Ellis Mrs Skinner
Ms Ficarra Mr Slack-Smith
Mr Fraser Mr Small
Mr Glachan Mr Smith
Mr Hartcher Mr Souris
Mr Hazzard Mr Tink
Mr Humpherson Mr J. H. Turner
Dr Kernohan Mr R. W. Turner
Mr Kinross Mr Windsor
Mr MacCarthy Tellers,
Mr Merton Mr Jeffery
Mr Oakeshott Mr Kerr

Ms Allan Mr Markham
Mr Amery Mr Martin
Mr Anderson Ms Meagher
Ms Andrews Mr Mills
Mr Aquilina Ms Moore
Mrs Beamer Mr Moss
Mr Clough Mr Nagle
Mr Crittenden Mr Neilly
Mr Debus Ms Nori
Mr Face Mr E. T. Page
Mr Gaudry Mr Price
Mr Gibson Dr Refshauge
Mrs Grusovin Mr Rogan
Ms Hall Mr Rumble
Mr Harrison Mr Scully
Ms Harrison Mr Shedden
Mr Hunter Mr Stewart
Mr Iemma Mr Sullivan
Mr Knight Mr Tripodi
Mr Knowles Mr Watkins
Mr Langton Mr Whelan
Mrs Lo Po' Mr Woods
Mr Lynch Mr Yeadon
Dr Macdonald Tellers,
Mr McBride Mr Beckroge
Mr McManus Mr Thompson

Mr Peacocke Mr Carr

Question so resolved in the negative.

Motion negatived.

Mr WHELAN (Ashfield - Minister for Police) [8.55 p.m.]: I seek leave to suspend standing orders to enable consideration forthwith of business with precedence notice of motion No. 1 (Disallowance of Education Reform Regulation 1996).

Leave not granted.

Mr D. L. PAGE (Ballina) [8.56 p.m.]: I move:

That this House censures the Minister for Land and Water Conservation for:

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(a) his gross mismanagement of rural water policy in this State;

(b) his policies that run counter to the Premier's pro-food strategy for New South Wales;

(c) notes with great concern the impact of the Minister's water policies on income and investment in New South Wales; and

(d) calls on the Minister for Land and Water Conservation to modify his water policies to fit the realities of providing, in a more flexible way, the water needs of both industry and the environment.

In October last year I gave notice of this motion. The Government has since used a series of delaying tactics to try to keep this incompetent Minister from parliamentary scrutiny. After approximately six months it is nice at last to debate this matter. An examination of Hansard reveals that from the time this Minister entered Parliament in 1991, when he was an Opposition member, he did not make one contribution by way of parliamentary speech on rural water issues.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is far too much audible conversation in the Chamber. Members wishing to converse should do so outside the Chamber.

Mr D. L. PAGE: This Minister, who made not one contribution of parliamentary debate on rural matters in his time in opposition, was appointed the Minister responsible for the complex area of rural water management in New South Wales. The people of New South Wales have a city-based Minister with no knowledge of rural water issues making decisions that affect millions of dollars worth of investments and hundreds of jobs in this State. This Minister has a totally inflexible approach to implementing water policies in New South Wales. His approach to the implementation of the Murray-Darling cap, which was introduced a few years ago initially for one year and subsequently extended for two years, has been very inflexible and certainly has not assisted New South Wales. In fact, his approach has driven jobs from New South Wales into other States, which have adopted a more flexible approach.

A good example of what I am talking about has been the absolute fiasco in the Cudgegong Valley and the Macquarie Valley, where more than $50 million worth of horticultural investment has been in the pipeline, which would have generated investment of about $250 million a year. Yet for two years this Minister has dithered and has not been prepared to take a flexible approach. He knew that there was excess water in the Cudgegong Valley and an overallocation in the Macquarie Valley. The obvious solution was to manage the two valleys together. Headlines in the media suggest lost opportunities and growers are asking why it took so long. The Minister should not get too cocky about his belated attempt to regain credibility after two years by announcing a minor adjustment to his policy. In any event, that policy will last only until June this year.

The Minister has another think coming if he is of the view that people will invest $50 million to $60 million on the basis of action that will expire at the end of June. It is ironic that the same water the Minister has been denying the horticultural industry in the Cudgegong Valley is flowing into South Australia. The water that could be used in New South Wales will be used in South Australia because the South Australian Government has a different approach to that of the Minister. The Minister is exporting jobs and investment and giving them to other States. I should like to quote from a letter sent to me by the Executive Officer of the Mudgee Region Business Centre, Margaret Thomas, who stated:

The loss of around 300 potential jobs and $80m in investment is not underestimating the impact of the economic damage the current water licensing difficulties is causing to this region.

That is only one region. Unlike the coalition, which has a balanced approach to water flows between the environment and industry, this Minister has no commonsense or balanced decision making about water allocations. In short, he has lost the confidence of rural producers in New South Wales. He has done more to damage the relationship between government and farmers than any other single person, and he did not even need John Laws to do that. Kimberley Maxwell Yeadon has a narrow focus and is implementing an inflexible political agenda, regardless of its impact on the economy. He is doing all this under the guise of helping the environment, when in many cases he is actually harming the environment by flooding it with excess water.

At a time when the Premier is promoting a pro-food strategy for New South Wales, this Minister, through his misguided water policies, has been actively cutting back on the production of food and fibre in New South Wales by denying food producers the one ingredient they need when they need it - water. Ian Douglas, President of the Ricegrowers Association of Australia, in referring to the current Minister's water policy, said:

It totally contradicts the Premier's announcement establishing Pro-Food NSW to identify new food growing areas, expand the MIA, allocate Government and private resources and help develop new processing and marketing opportunities.

That was in the Rural News of October last year. In this context it is worth remembering that in the relationship between water allocation and production in the rice industry every 1 per cent of water resource not available to rice growers costs the
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industry $3 million in lost production. In a letter dated 8 October to the Minister, the Chairman of the Twynam Pastoral Company said:

Your department could have and should have been updating allocation levels over the last two months. The lack of doing so has cost this State productivity and jobs. It is important for farmers to prepare for summer crops now. One month ago yes, now NO.

I wish to quote further on the Minister's mismanagement of water allocation. I refer to an excellent article in the Sydney Morning Herald of 16 September 1996, in which Garry Donovan, Executive Director of the New South Wales Irrigators Council, said:

Volatile water policy is causing Asian markets particularly, and domestic supermarket chains, to waver in contract negotiations because of alarming signals about price stability and continuity of supply.

New South Wales rice growers have also slammed the Minister's water policy. They have complained that farmers are being kept in the dark at the very time they need to decide how many hectares to plant. The Executive Director of the New South Wales branch of the Ricegrowers Association of Australia, Mike Hedditch, has complained that the Minister has implemented a stupid notion of wet and dry season caps which have created confusion and uncertainty. He said that the major problem is that this takes a retrospective view of climatic conditions after irrigators have made decisions on their cropping programs. Similar concerns have been expressed by Ian Donges, President of the New South Wales Farmers Association. He pointed out that the Minister is adopting a system of averaging water allocations, where they will be able to tell irrigators at the end of the season how much water they needed for that season. It is hard to believe that anyone could take such an unintelligent approach, but that is the Minister's approach.

To compound the problem, the Minister has placed an embargo on the issuing of new water licences in New South Wales. This is an extremely blunt instrument because it does not allow for changing circumstances in various catchments where water is available and new industries need to develop. It is all right to have a cap or an embargo short term, but it is not acceptable long term because it distorts allocation of resources, both economic and natural, such as water. One must have flexibility to have change. If there is excess water, one needs to be able to access it. If there is a shortage of water, proper measures are required. But that also has not been the Minister's approach.

I now turn to the Minister's handling of water prices. One would have expected his actions to have been driven by Australian Labor Party policy. So what does ALP policy say? It depends on which policy one looks at because there are two. One was put out before the election last year and was written by Richard Amery as the shadow minister. The other policy was put out just prior to the election and no-one saw it, certainly not the water users. The policy document sold to water users - a fairly benign document - recognised that as far as pricing was concerned, prices ought to be set at a level that is not too onerous for users, as full user-pays or cost recovery would be. That is an interesting comment when one considers the number of times the Minister has said that the basis of his water policy has been to achieve full cost recovery.

The initial Australian Labor Party policy was that one did not need to look at full cost recovery. Indeed, it went further and said that infrastructure debt costs should be met by the State as a whole, as it does for public transport, hospitals and other individual authorities. From reading the original Labor Party policy one could assume that a Labor government would not have embarked on massive price hikes in August 1995 of the order of 86 per cent to 90 per cent, which were introduced after Labor came to office. Even the latter policy of March 1995, the one just prior to the election, referred to privatisation being a terrible thing in the United Kingdom because the price of water had increased by 5 per cent. The Labor Party has only been in office 10 minutes and it has put up the price of water by 86 per cent. An important point relating to the Minister's approach to the implementation of water pricing is that he introduced it as a blanket policy across the State. I refer to a press release dated 25 October by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal. It stated:

Because of the fundamental differences in water availability, cost of supply, and environmental conditions between regions of New South Wales, water charges should also vary between regions.

Yet the Minister implemented a blanket policy across the State of charging $1.35 per megalitre for all water users on regulated rivers. He indicated clearly that he was prepared to implement a policy that ran counter to what the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal was recommending. The coalition says that the Minister for Land and Water Conservation has got the blanket approach wrong and that the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal has also said that what he has done is wrong in principle. This gives the lie to the Minister's outrageous claim on 26 June last year that the tribunal endorsed his $1.35 per megalitre charge. Far from endorsing it, the tribunal told me that it could not do anything about the charge because it was a ministerial decision. Afterwards the tribunal
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said to me that it should not have been a blanket policy.

The Minister has not been consistent in principle with what the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal is recommending. To justify his water pricing hikes no doubt the Minister will say that he is implementing the agreement of the Council of Australian Governments signed off by the coalition Government. Actually it was not signed off by the coalition Government. If the Minister looks at the facts he will see that the COAG agreement on water pricing shows that he has been misrepresenting everybody, including this Parliament, on that issue. Examination of the communique released on 25 February 1994, when the coalition was in government, revealed that only Queensland, South Australia and Victoria endorsed water-pricing principles based on full cost recovery. They did that with reservations. New South Wales and Victoria specifically did not endorse full cost recovery when the coalition was in office.

The Carr Government signed off on endorsing the principle of full cost recovery on behalf of the New South Wales Government at the COAG meeting held in Canberra on 11 April 1995 - after the Carr Government came to office. Full cost recovery was endorsed by the Carr Government. The coalition Government agreed to the public release of a report; that is all, no more and no less. The Carr Government endorsed full cost recovery as a concept. I believe that the Minister misled the House on this important issue. If the Premier has altered this State's ability to control its destiny over water pricing, then that is something he and his Government have done, and it should not be attributed to the previous Government.

Last year the Minister told the House that even with his $1.35 per megalitre price hike New South Wales was still only at 30 per cent of full cost recovery. If the Minister is correct, and I doubt it, one can assume that we could be looking at a threefold increase in the price of water by 2001. The last price hikes imposed by this Government were done without any knowledge of what it meant to industry's viability and without any rural community impact statement. These hikes would affect not only business viability but also the price of food, which over time would rise significantly. The Government's so-called water reform package is ostensibly driven by COAG decisions. I argue that the linkages between the two are tenuous and selective. The two issues addressed in the Government's reform package released in August 1995 are water charges and environmental allocation. It is a fact that the 1994 COAG agreement on water policy was heavily qualified in April 1995 with a key recommendation from the working group that:

. . . the costs of public benefits/impact management which are unable to be attributed and charged to specific beneficiaries/impactors be treated as community service obligations.

That CSO concept was talked about and recommended by the working group. Furthermore the chair of the working group, Sir Eric Neal, talking about full cost recovery at a Tamworth water forum in September 1995, stated:

It therefore enshrined in the principles the need -

[Time expired.]

Mr YEADON (Granville - Minister for Land and Water Conservation) [9.11 p.m.]: If the health of our rivers and the sustainability of irrigated agriculture in New South Wales were not issues of paramount importance, this motion would be simply laughable. Frankly I am amazed that those opposite can sit and point the finger at me, when I, on behalf of the Government, am the first person to take an active interest in the future of this State's most precious commodity - water.

[Interruption]

You people opposite squibbed, you did absolutely nothing in the eight years that you were in government. Let us all remember that it was the New South Wales Opposition which, when in government, sat around for eight years and continued to over-allocate water from rivers. The former Government thought it was protecting its constituencies, but it was wrong. The former Government sat around and did nothing - and this is not my opinion alone, it is the message I consistently receive from rural New South Wales when I am out and about.

Mr Cochran: They kick you out of the place every time you go out there.

Mr YEADON: I had a very enjoyable day in the Monaro electorate about a month ago. I was very well received, indeed. I am told by people in rural New South Wales that our rivers and lands were deteriorating rapidly - and they were; and they still are.

Mr Cochran: Who told you, Jeff Angel?

Mr YEADON: No, your constituents. I was at Braidwood a month ago and had a close and qualitative look at some issues in the Monaro electorate which prevail there as in most electorates. The former Government's inaction was chronic, to such an extent that 260,000 hectares of land are affected by dry land salinity in New South Wales
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and a further 5 million hectares - 6 per cent of the State - at risk of dry land salinity. New South Wales is estimated to lose $65 million per year in irrigated production as a result of salinity problems.

[Interruption]

The honourable member for Murrumbidgee is talking to his colleagues. He knows, as well as I, that 17 per cent of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area is affected by degradation, and 34 per cent within that 17 per cent is non-arable. That comes from the report on the state of the environment endorsed by the Federal Minister for the Environment, Senator Robert Hill. The growth in dry land salinity in New South Wales alone could add an extra 2 million tonnes of salt a year to streams in our section of the Murray-Darling Basin. The Murray-Darling Basin Commission found that every ten minutes a semitrailer-load of salt passes the Murray River monitoring station at Morgan in South Australia. That report from the Murray-Darling Basin Commission found that salinity in the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee rivers is rising by 1.5 per cent every year.

The Opposition was content to sit back and watch blue-green algae grow - and let me tell you, its water management practices meant it had ample opportunity to do just that. In the middle of its term New South Wales rivers became notorious, receiving world-wide headlines exclaiming shock at the largest ever event of blue-green algae - over 1,000 kilometres long. That is an absolute shame. Our water resources are too important for us to let this happen again. I do not resile from the fact that there has been a significant change in attitude towards rivers since the Carr Government was elected. These changes should not have come as a surprise; the Fahey Government was not doing a good enough job. In fact, water resource management had reached a crisis point in New South Wales. The Government's approach was clearly outlined in its election platform.

The Government has always believed that, as one of the world's driest nations, Australia faces unique water challenges; challenges that the Government is not afraid to face. We cannot continue to treat water as an infinite resource, it is that simple. As a result of this simple equation, a number of different policies are being implemented which are all aimed at ensuring consistent outcomes: the sustainability of our agriculture and the health of our rivers. That is one thing that people on the other side of the Chamber need to understand. At the end of the day that is not some fashionable, dreamy initiative or debate, it is about sustainable agriculture, sustainable primary production, and the future health of constituents, particularly those of the honourable member for Murrumbidgee.

It is about time the honourable member for Ballina and his colleagues recognised that the future viability of agriculture is dependent upon the viability of natural resources that underpin it and sustain it - water, soils and their ultimate interaction. While the honourable member for Ballina is calling for a ban on helium balloons at sporting functions to protect the dolphins - certainly a worthy cause - massive areas of New South Wales are facing serious degradation problems exacerbated by the former Government's inaction. I ask the honourable member for Ballina to pay a little more attention to the big picture.

Mr DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member for Ballina will have the opportunity to reply later in the debate.

Mr YEADON: While productivity remains high in some areas of the State, in others people are struggling to sustain, and to be sustained by, their traditional farming enterprises. Coalition members from country New South Wales know that because they are sitting there looking at it. They know it as well as I do. Significant irrigation areas of the Murray-Darling Basin, this nation's food basket, are unsustainable.

Mr Cruickshank: Rubbish!

Mr YEADON: Seven per cent of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area is affected; 34 per cent within that 17 per cent is non-arable. Coalition members should start to comprehend and understand it.

Mr Cruickshank: You do not understand anything about it.

Mr YEADON: Yes I do. You do not. You bury your head in the sand.

Mr DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! If the honourable member for Monaro wishes to debate the issue he can do it outside the Chamber.

Mr YEADON: Our challenge as the Government of the day is to optimise agricultural productivity - I emphasise that - but to do so within the bounds of sustained natural resource health. I cannot understand why the desperate need for re-evaluation is not clear to members opposite. We simply cannot continue to manage the State's natural resources in the ad hoc way they were doing in government. The question I have for the House is: how can they bury their heads in the sand and refuse to recognise the true interests of the constituents that many coalition members purport to represent? They are not representing their constituents. They are selling them down the river. Surely they must
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understand that government policy in natural resources must be about more than a quick-fix solution. I cannot stress this enough: we as a government are not afraid to make the hard decisions for the future of the State and for the future of the constituents of members opposite.

Natural resource management is perhaps the Government's key illustration of its dedication to addressing issues that have long been neglected by those opposite. Far from running contrary to the Premier's pro-food strategy, our reforms underpin that strategy. Investment in agriculture will be attracted to a State which can demonstrate that its resources are being used sustainably. Investment will not occur in circumstances in which water supply is of poor quality, is wilfully overallocated, or is unreliable. It is that simple. Unlike members opposite, the Government has a vision for sustainable natural resource management for New South Wales and a vision for sustainable primary production. Our vision focuses on three key outcomes: a healthy and vibrant natural resource base for the benefit of future generations; industries using natural resources being efficient and competitive in the future; and a social structure that supports, and is supported by, all of those outcomes.

Mr Fraser: Come out and talk to the real people, Kim.

Mr YEADON: I am out there all the time, unlike you people when you were in government. You never went near anybody. Every time I roll up at places such as Braidwood and areas down into the Riverina - all areas within the State - people say, "Minister, it is delightful to see you. We have not seen a Minister here for decades." Opposition members should nominate the coalition Minister who visited Braidwood.

Mr DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! The Minister will address his comments through the Chair.

Mr YEADON: There was not a single one. We are at a critical turning point in natural resource management in this State. Reform is not easy; in fact it is difficult - difficult because the honourable member for Ballina and his colleagues were too weak to even start the reform process, let alone take it anywhere. Yet all the alarm bells in rural New South Wales had been ringing for a considerable period. We have indeed moved quickly to address the declining state of rural water. We still have a long way to go. The problems created during the past 100 years cannot be fixed in 15 minutes. For the benefit of the honourable member for Ballina I will now outline some of the considered measures the Government has undertaken. New South Wales, as a player in the Murray-Darling Basin ministerial council, is implementing an interim cap on diversions within the basin.

I reiterate that all States agreed to cap diversions for an interim period at 1993-94 levels of development. I add that though this cap limits the amount of water available, it does not limit the ability for industry development using options such as water efficiency measures or purchase of water on the transfer market - something the Government will also be reforming to the benefit of irrigators. That is another thing coalition members did not address. A case in point is the Cudgegong Valley, which was named by my colleague. The Government has freed up the transfer market in the wine-growing districts around Mudgee and the Cudgegong. People travelling to that valley will find significant areas of new vines being established. Honourable members opposite should do themselves a favour and have a look. In September 1995 I released a comprehensive water reform package.

Mr D. L. Page: It was two years too late.

Mr YEADON: Too late? You spent eight years doing nothing. It initiated immediate action in the Gwydir and Macquarie valleys. It was in the main an outline of the direction this Government intends to head. It signalled consultation and the process we will implement, which will determine a healthy balance of our water resource between users and the environment. Establishment of a high-level water task force from the Department of Land and Water Conservation is progressing the issue of water access rights, freeing up the water transfer market to allow for new industry and development. That is a key issue. Under the system that the coalition predominated over and did nothing about there was no ability for new development because we had reached saturation point for water use.

Mr D. L. Page: Not in every valley. That is what you do not understand.

Mr YEADON: Each valley will be dealt with on its merits.

Mr D. L. Page: Ah!

Mr YEADON: Okay, Mr Smartypants, what about in those valleys where it has reached saturation? How are you going to ensure new development? You had no policy, you had no approach, you had no ideas, you had no vision - you had nothing.

Mr DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! The Minister will address his comments through the Chair.

Page 7248

Mr YEADON: New South Wales is also committed to implementing Council of Australian Governments reforms to water management. I would have expected that those opposite would join in supporting our commitment to these reforms, given that they signed us up to the process of water pricing. Game, set and match. They signed us up and they did nothing. They wanted to look like they were doing something, but they were doing nothing. These reforms are integral to every water user in New South Wales. Two years ago, shortly after the Government was elected, the Premier and Ministers went on a drought tour. Everywhere we went people said, "Thank God there is a new Government because the coalition Minister responsible for water" - the then Minister for Conservation and Land Management, the honourable member for Upper Hunter - "was a really nice guy but he just would not make a decision. He was doing nothing. George cannot make a decision." [Time expired.]

Mr SMALL (Murray) [9.26 p.m.]: In the 12-odd years that I have been a member of this Parliament I have never been so insulted. That address by the Minister for Land and Water Conservation was the most appalling I have ever heard. He criticised farmers, timber industry workers and the rural community. He said that coalition members had neglected rural areas and had been inactive. The speech was a disgrace. I am pleased to be able to speak in support - even if it is only for five minutes - of the shadow minister for land and water conservation, the honourable member for Ballina. I have been on the land for some 45 years and been involved with development in irrigation, rice, cattle and wheat. It was disgraceful that the Minister should have put down country people in the terms he used.

Mr Yeadon: I put you down, not country people.

Mr SMALL: You are just a new boy on the block. You have been here for two years. You have caused disaster in this State. You are the most unpopular Minister. I have never heard such untruth as the claim that people are pleased to see the Minister. People would be only too pleased to see him to hear him explain the problems he has created. Looking back over the years I proudly recall land and water management plans, irrigation privatisation, tree planting and other cultivation, and pasture development through improved fertilisers releasing nitrogen and phosphates into the soil. It is a disgrace that the Minister, a member of the seaboard Labor Government of today, should make allegations about previous governments and other members of Parliament.

Our forefathers worked hard to develop the land and establish an irrigation system. Their efforts helped develop New South Wales and Australia, fed our people, and secured the export income earning capacity of this nation. But the Minister puts them down. The Minister has reached a cap agreement whereby the amount of water used is identified but not exceeded. The Minister has introduced not so much a cap but a cut, given that the amount of water identified as being within the Murray River system is 92 per cent, not 100 per cent, of the water being used.

The Minister has already lost four senior personnel, but those who have not yet left him have explained the situation to me. The Minister has taken 8 per cent of production from the Murray River system and 19 per cent out of the Murray irrigation system. That means that a total of $300 million has been stripped from eight shires and 12 towns in that area. The Minister wants to destroy industry and create unemployment. He has proven he has no idea of good management. He cannot manage his portfolio. The Minister is being destructive.

Since the day the Minister took over the portfolio he has reduced land use and the amount of water available. Families who are conscious of the need to help the environment but who are trying to survive are suffering from reduced production. Thousands of years ago Wakool, Swan Hill and Lake Alexandrina in South Australia were part of the seabed. Irrigation areas which were opened up, whether by good or poor management, contained natural salt. Irrigation has resulted in increasing levels of salt in soils, but that problem is being managed by farmers in a unique way with initiative and efficiency. Under former Ministers and through the initiatives of the Department of Water Resources wonderful things happened. This Minister is a disgrace. I support this censure motion.

Mr GAUDRY (Newcastle) [9.31 p.m.]: This morning as I drove to the city from Newcastle I had the advantage of listening to Dr David Suzuki, the noted environmentalist and scientist, who is dedicated to sustainability of world resources. An issue of great concern to Dr Suzuki is degradation of land and water resources. The honourable member for Murray quite rightly pointed out the impact of 200 years on the very fragile continent of Australia. The Minister should be applauded for dealing with the problems of land degradation and depletion of our water resources.

The Minister and his department have taken the hard decisions to look at water resources. They recognise that water is a finite resource whose sustainability must be ensured, and that if agriculture
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is to continue in a fragile resource area we need to look at water delivery capacity to ensure sustainable product. For the last few years our society has been confronted with the undeniable fact that that finite resource is hitting the wall. As a member of the land and water committee and the environment committee and as someone involved in examining water resource issues in this and the previous Parliament, I found nothing more striking than the condition of the Darling River. A few years ago when I flew over that area I saw blue-green algal bloom for 1,000 kilometres along the river. Water resources in this country have been pushed to a point which necessitates effective management. I am sure this House will congratulate the Minister on the move to a much more effective water resource regime in this country.

Far from condemning the Minister's handling of the water portfolio, this House should be commending him on the work and dedication that he has put into working with the community, with water users and the department to establish a proper natural resource management regime in this country. Since this Government came to power honourable members have examined the decline of our rivers and their sustainable management. At the same time the Government has recognised that we need a vital rural economy. As the Minister said, when he and the Premier visited rural communities they were given a clear indication that those communities were keen for reform in this regard.

It may have been difficult for diverse water users to come to terms with that, but certainly they accepted the need for effective management. Back in 1994 governments throughout Australia endorsed an agreement through the Council of Australian Governments - COAG - on water reform, including pricing and environmental flows. From that time the Minister, his ministry and departments have been following that principle through in a logical fashion to ensure effective resource management, sustainable agriculture and an effective pricing mechanism that reflects the user-pays principle. There is no doubt that the time has come when that has to occur. [Time expired.]

Mr CRUICKSHANK (Murrumbidgee) [9.36 p.m.]: I have never heard so much rubbish in all my life as what I heard from the Minister. Poor old Bryce is mouthing a lot of good motherhood stuff. The trouble is, Bryce, the cockies thought of it long before you ever got hold of it.

Ms Hall: On a point of order. The honourable member is addressing an honourable member by his first name rather than in the correct fashion.

Mr DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! I uphold the point of order.

Mr CRUICKSHANK: The honourable member for Newcastle did not object. You have made your point, useless though it may have been. It grieves me to have to speak in this debate about the most disliked Minister ever to visit the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area. I will confine my comments to the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area because I know the area and I know the people. I also know members of the Australian Labor Party there. The Minister for Land and Water Conservation often refers to the welcome he receives in the MIA. I think that the ALP in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area might have something to say about that. No other Minister has been so despised in the MIA as the Minister who is the subject of this motion today. He and I were members of the same committee for four or five years and I thought he was not a bad sort of bloke - until he was appointed Minister. How power corrupts! This know-all Minister was offered all the help under the sun by my colleagues and he spurned it all; he would not take advice from anyone. This great centralist, an avowed Stalinist and admirer of Stalin -

Mr Yeadon: No, I am not a Stalinist.

Mr CRUICKSHANK: You told me, Minister. Do not say that you did not say it. To put this Minister in charge of irrigation is to insult the farmers, irrigators and the people of New South Wales. It is an insult that someone with a shop-steward mind and no imagination whatsoever should be put in charge. He thinks he is helping the future of irrigators in this State. As I said earlier to the honourable member for Newcastle, the irrigators thought of it long before he did. The Minister said in this Chamber that the former Government did nothing. That is rubbish. We rectified 45 years of Labor rule in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, 45 years of untold corruption and manipulation. It was not what one knew but who one knew that mattered. If a farmer wanted a bigger farm or more water -

Mr Yeadon: I hope you propose to publicise this back home.

Mr CRUICKSHANK: The local community knows about it and that is why they welcomed the major reforms introduced by the Greiner-Murray Government in an attempt to rectify the situation after 45 years of Labor rule and patronage in that area. The former Government sought to rectify the situation brought about by the Labor Party. There was no sinking fund and no money to repair the structures. Nothing was ever done; it was all straight
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out of the pot. When the former Government came to office it found a $30 million bill sitting in a bottom drawer in the office of the Minister for Water Conservation. It related to money owed to the Treasury as a result of the auction system for water pricing in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area. The Minister, in concert with his ideology, wants to bring the whole lot back to Macquarie Street where he can control it; where he can say what will happen.

The Minister thinks he has all the answers to salination, the environment and sustainable agriculture. They had been thought of long before he came on the scene. I wonder whether the Minister has seen the thousands and thousands of trees that have been planted in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area. They were not planted by the Government; they were planted by the irrigators. The Minister spoke about water being a finite resource. We know it is a finite resource. When the former Government came to office it instituted the transferability of water rights, which was a great way to make better use of water. The former Labor Government would not allow it but those rights are now freely tradeable, one to the other. If the Minister does not regard that as efficient use of water, he does not know anything about it. [Time expired.]

Mr MARKHAM (Keira) [9.41 p.m.]: I express my amazement at this motion. It is quite unbelievable that the Opposition would talk about mismanagement of rural water policy. Let me examine the Opposition's proud record! First, under its administration there was the 1,000 kilometre-long, blue-green algae outbreak along the Darling River.

Mr Cochran: Who wrote this?

Mr MARKHAM: Do not ask me who wrote it. I went out to have a look at the outbreak because the Aboriginal communities along that river were complaining about mismanagement of the Darling-Murray river system.

Mr Cochran: You would not have a clue. What are their names? Name them.

Mr MARKHAM: The Barkindji tribe. Do you know what the Barkindji tribe is?

Mr Cochran: I have never heard of it.

Mr MARKHAM: That is right. The honourable member for Monaro is denigrating the Barkindji tribe in this House tonight by saying that it would not know what it is talking about.

Mr Cochran: I said that you would not know.

Mr MARKHAM: You said that it would not know what it is talking about. That is what is wrong with the Opposition. When in office it did not know what to do. We now have a Minister who knows what to do and those opposite are wasting the time of this House with an absolutely idiotic censure motion. The Minister for Land and Water Conservation has probably done more in two years than members of the Opposition have done in 50 years. We have been in this country for 209 years and it has taken 209 years for us to ruin the river systems. Members on the opposite side of the House have done nothing to help. They continue to ruin the New South Wales and Australian river systems because they do not care; they do not know how to manage and they do not care. All they are interested in is greed and profit. The Minister has been consulting with the community and has set up committees.

Mr Fraser: Inept Labor administration.

Mr MARKHAM: The honourable member for Coffs Harbour has no brains.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member for Keira will address his remarks through the Chair and will disregard the interjections.

Mr MARKHAM: The member for Monaro should not criticise this Government in regard to river management. What did the former coalition Government do about the Snowy River? It did nothing. The honourable member for Coffs Harbour has no brains, so how would he be able to interject? I do not think he has been on the other side of the Great Dividing Range to see what is going on, unlike the Minister for Land and Water Conservation who has put in place programs to make sure that in years to come the river systems will be closer to what they were 209 years ago.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member for Monaro has not spoken in the debate, but will have an opportunity to contribute to the debate, as I will give him the next call.

Mr MARKHAM: The water quality and environmental flow issues are further examples of the Government's commitment to proper consultation with the community. Shortly the Government will release a major report on water quality and river flow objectives for rivers across the State which will be available for community comment. That is more than the Opposition would do. This will be a critical issue for water users and the ongoing health of our rivers, and can be settled only after solid community debate. I do not pretend that consultation can overcome all the differences of opinion in relation to water resources management.
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However, the consultation process provides opportunities for the Government to seek community feedback, communicate the reasons for the reforms, talk about the facts of key decisions and gives stakeholders the chance to gain a better understanding of each other's position. It is in fact a sign of good management.

Honourable members opposite would not know how to go about it. What a waste of the time of this House. There are so many issues in this State that need to be addressed and the Opposition has introduced a censure motion against one of the most progressive Ministers to have had responsibility for land and water conservation issues in this State. He knows more about the issues than any member opposite, so far as I am concerned, and he has more interest in what is going on. [Time expired.]

Mr COCHRAN (Monaro) [9.46 p.m.]: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. In the last few days I have travelled along the Darling River from Menindee to Wilcannia and through to Brewarrina. I met and spoke with many of the irrigators along the way. In consultation with the shadow minister for land and water conservation, I conveyed to them the fact that the Minister for Land and Water Conservation has absolutely no idea, no concept whatsoever, of water management in this State. I also struck one of the most extraordinary suggestions I have heard in my nine years as a member of Parliament. When the Minister for Land and Water Conservation was at Wilcannia, the local government authority - the Central Darling Shire Council - complained about the water supply. The Minister suggested that they pump the water from Menindee to Wilcannia, back against the flow of the river. I am surprised. If that was the advice of the Minister, I do not think he knows which way the river flows.

In response to an interjection by the honourable member for Keira, Opposition members know why the Snowy River has no water. If the honourable member goes to Hansard in 1989 he will see that as the member for Monaro at that time I raised the issue of the Snowy River and the fact that there was no water in it. We knew that there were depleted flows in the Darling River. We knew that the only way to supplement the water going across the South Australian border was by means of a diversion of the Snowy in the upper region of the Murrumbidgee River through the Murray to make up for the lack of water in the Murray. We well knew what was going on and we raised that issue in 1989.

Since then I have depended on the Minister for Land and Water Conservation to do something, through the Federal Government, both Labor and the current Government, to reinstate the water flow in the Snowy River. It is up to the Minister to do something about it. I appreciate the opportunity you have given me, Mr Speaker, which is an ex gratia gift of time. I am fully aware of what you did and I appreciate it because this is an important issue and one which the Minister will appreciate when he is out of government in 1999.

Mr YEADON (Granville - Minister for Land and Water Conservation) [9.51 p.m.], in response: This just goes to show that in two years the Opposition has learnt absolutely nothing.

Mr Cochran: We are going to send this to Laws.

Mr YEADON: Please do. New South Wales has reached a situation where the use of water has been taken to its absolute maximum. It is essential now to implement a system to ensure the sustainable use of water which, in turn, will ensure sustainable primary production in this State. To take a broad picture, historically water use in this State has gone through three stages and has now reached the fourth stage. The first stage was the discovery of our land, which includes our water systems. The second stage was the use of those rivers, primarily in inland New South Wales. The third stage moved to the regulation of a significant number of the State's major rivers.

We have now reached the fourth stage where the use of the water resource in this State has been taken to its maximum capacity and, indeed, in some valleys beyond that. It is essential now to put in place a management regime that will ensure two things. Firstly, it must ensure that our primary production is based upon the sustainable use of our natural water resource and, secondly, it must ensure that mechanisms are in place to enable the entry of new players. The situation that we confront at the present time is that as a result of the maximisation of that water use there are major problems in many valleys across the State. New players cannot come in and find water which they require to undertake their productive systems.

The Cudgegong Valley is a prime example of that situation. We need to ensure that this State has an environment in which new production can be undertaken - not just cropping and agriculture but grazing, which by and large already is carried on across New South Wales, new agriculture and horticultural initiatives, grapes and olives being key initiatives - and beyond that make provision for primary production such as mining. Another example is the Cadia Mine near Orange. The proponents of that operation had to purchase half a dozen parcels of property to transfer the water entitlement to their mining operation. Cadia Mine purchased half a dozen parcels of land for which it
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has no use other than to obtain the properties' water entitlements. It is now saddled with those half a dozen parcels of land for which it has no use and no-one else is able to access them. The land could be used by other producers for grazing or a range of other activities. That is an untenable situation.

This State needs an environment in which new players can come into the game. The only way that will occur is, firstly, by ensuring that the fundamentals are in place to provide for sustainable river management and, in addition, access rights are available for irrigators and extractors so that they have the ability to trade in that commodity, the natural resource of water. A reform process is needed that will rationalise the environment, ensure that the fundamentals for river health are in place and build upon that very solid foundation. The only way that can be achieved is by having a very solid foundation. It will then be possible to ensure that people have proper and appropriate access rights for extraction. That is what this Government is about.

That policy is in the interests of the constituents that those opposite purport to represent, but they have not learnt anything in the last decade. They have not learnt a damned thing about what is required to ensure a sustainable, manageable environment for the use of our most important and scarce natural resource - water. To go to the specifics raised by those members opposite who have spoken in this debate, the present Murray-Darling Basin ministerial cap on extractions is just that: it is a cap, not a cut. In fact, this has been a record year for irrigators. As one example, cotton and rice growers are starting to reap the benefits of a bumper harvest. Those industries anticipate yields in New South Wales of $904 million and $280 million respectively. Those are April 1997 figures. Most regulated valleys in the State had the benefit of 100 per cent allocations of water this year. I defy any member opposite to dispute that.

Mr Cruickshank: You were told.

Mr YEADON: The honourable member for Murrumbidgee, who is interjecting again, as is his wont, went on about the centralist approach of this Government. Contrary to what members opposite are bandying about, I am pleased to inform the House that the Government has conducted comprehensive consultation with water users, namely, irrigation representatives, and this commitment is and will be ongoing.

Mr Cruickshank: That is nonsense.

Mr YEADON: Members opposite have made this accusation about a whole range of areas. Another issue that springs to mind immediately is native vegetation management in this State. The allegation was made that the Government was not consulting and had a centralist approach.

Mr Cruickshank: Absolutely; you do.

Mr YEADON: That is not the case. The Government introduced State environmental planning policy 46 as an interim measure. It has now conducted a comprehensive consultation process and is moving forward into a permanent framework for native vegetation management that is based on consultation and on a regional approach. It does not take a blanket approach to New South Wales but is based on regions to take account of the unique and specific situation that applies in each geographic area. The same approach will be taken in regard to water. The Government will deal with water reform in a valley-by-valley approach, look at the circumstances of a particular valley, determine what is required in that valley to ensure sustainable agriculture and sustainable primary production, in consultation with the people in the valley, and move forward to implement a scheme that will ensure future sustainability. The Government will do the same with water as it did with native vegetation.

The rules for cap implementation were negotiated and agreed upon for all of the State's regulated rivers, including the Murray and the border rivers - the Murrumbidgee, the Lachlan, the Namoi, the Gwydir and the Macquarie valleys. While I believe that the majority of New South Wales producers agree with the cap principles, concern has been expressed that any water not used in New South Wales and saved as a result of the cap implementation should not go towards feathering the nests of farmers in Victoria and South Australia, and I could not agree more. This State will not enter into a reform process that will result in the benefits of our work being transferred to other States so that they can extract more water from the rivers in those States. How can members opposite ignore the severe problems in the rice-growing districts? I refer to the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, 17 per cent of which has been degraded. Four per cent of the Coleambally Irrigation Area has been degraded. About one-third of those areas are no longer arable. [Time expired.]

Mr D. L. PAGE (Ballina) [10.01 p.m.], in reply: I sincerely thank the honourable member for Murray, the honourable member for Murrumbidgee, and the honourable member for Monaro, for supporting my motion albeit unexpectedly. The best I can say about members of the Government who
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spoke in the debate is that they delivered largely hollow rhetoric, as did the Minister. He seems to think that he can explain away all his policy decisions on the basis that he is the only Minister who has ever considered sustainable management of resources. Everyone who has ever thought about these issues understands the importance of sustainability. Everyone in the agricultural sector understands that to have long-term sustainability of agriculture you must have long-term sustainability of the environment. It is quite insulting of the Minister to come into this place and say that everyone involved in the past, until he got here, had no understanding of what was going on and made a lot of decisions that were anti the environment. The blue-green algae outbreak was an environmental disaster, but it occurred when the State was suffering from one of the worst droughts in our history. The Minister should not use that as a lever to justify his policies, which by his own admission and actions in the past two or three weeks were wrong.

Mr Yeadon: We have always had droughts, but we have never had blue-green algae like that.

Mr D. L. PAGE: What you have done in regard to Cudgegong is an admission of the very point the Opposition is trying to get across: the Minister's policy and his interpretation of the Murray-Darling Basin cap has been totally inflexible. In December last year, while the Victorians were taking 200 per cent of their allocation, you restricted our allocation to 100 per cent.

Mr Yeadon: Does that make it right, Don? No.

Mr D. L. PAGE: What it means is that there was a surplus of water at the time, but because of your inflexible approach Victorians had access to water, and therefore investment and income, while our people on the other side of the same river did not have access. You have been totally inflexible in the way you have approached it.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Minister will remain silent. The honourable member for Ballina will address his remarks through the Chair.

Mr D. L. PAGE: The fact that in the past couple of weeks the Minister has conceded that surplus water in Cudgegong can be used for horticultural pursuits is the first indication we have had from him in two years that his approach hitherto has been inflexible and wrong. I welcome the decision, but the Opposition sought it ages ago. The overriding point I make is that the terms of the motion are about managing our water system not only in a sustainable way, but in a flexible way that will provide for a proper balance of both the environment and industry. I am concerned that this Minister seems to have been captured by the idea that the Murray-Darling Basin cap has to be, and a lot of people in the environmental movement believe it should be, permanently stuck at the 1993-94 levels of development. If the Minister is contemplating going down that route, I would urge upon him that it is an unsustainable policy in the long run because one has to have flexibility to cope with change.

I note that the Minister referred in his contribution to the need for flexibility, but he forgot to tell us that he has placed an embargo on licences. He cannot have a flexible policy if he has an embargo on licences. People on the north coast in my electorate are seeking water licences to develop new horticultural industries that have a lot of potential, such as coffee growing and other industries. Some people who have licences are not using water, yet the Minister has placed an embargo on new licences, so no-one can get a new licence. The Minister has to produce a more flexible policy than the policy he has had in the past, which is the essence of the motion. Whilst he is not taking a flexible approach, other governments involved in the Murray-Darling Basin system, in particular, are taking a more flexible approach and New South Wales is losing jobs and investment to other States. There is plenty of evidence to suggest this is the case, and I went through some of it in my earlier remarks.

I place on record that I believe environmental flow is a very important issue and that it must be addressed. Whilst there needs to be a much better basis for protecting environmental flows, one needs to understand the facts. We must ensure that we do not move to unilaterally declare, on an ad hoc basis, arbitrary measures to satisfy ill-defined and unsubstantiated environmental requirements. We are still awaiting the report of the Minister on the state of our rivers. Hopefully we will have it within the next couple of months. The Minister has implemented a whole range of decisions on environmental flow but we do not have the fundamental document that tells us the state of our rivers.

Mr Yeadon: What about the report on the national state of the environment endorsed by your colleague Senator Hill, which states that -

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Mr D. L. PAGE: The Minister knows exactly the report I am talking about. I am not talking about that report. A much more sophisticated report has been commissioned, and he knows only too well what I am talking about. It should have been ready and available to the public and the Government in June last year, yet it has not been available. It is obviously taking a lot longer to bring to fruition than was initially thought. That is understandable, because it is a complex issue. But the Minister is making decisions without having full regard to the facts.

One person who is very knowledgable in the area of water policies, the only person in the Southern Hemisphere who is on the World Water Council, is Professor John Pigram. He used to be a Labor man, but he has completely turned away from the Labor Party because of its approach to water, which he has described as very inflexible because of the way in which the Minister has approached the problems. What he said to me about the Minister is unprintable. The Minister talked about being welcomed with open arms by everyone in the irrigation areas. When I visit the irrigation areas people tell me what a terrible bloke the Minister is because he will not listen to them and because he is wet behind the ears. In fact, his own Australian Labor Party people got him in the back room and told him that he was wet behind the ears and that he did not know what he was doing. They hit him around the face a bit, sent him back out and smacked him on the bottom.

The Minister is laughing, yet it is true. That is exactly what happened. The Minister upset his own people, not to mention those who oppose him. The honourable member for Murrumbidgee referred to State-owned corporations. We are now returning to the bad old days: everything will be controlled from Macquarie Street. The Minister claimed that the coalition did nothing when it was in government. But it took the enterprising step of privatising Murray Irrigation, which is now the biggest privately-owned irrigation company in the world. Who developed the land and water management plans?

Mr Yeadon: The local community.

Mr D. L. PAGE: Exactly, the local community, with assistance from government. One thing the Minister has possibly not thought about in relation to the land and water management plans is the SOC arrangement. If the Minister continues to run these irrigation areas and the plans can be overturned by decisions made in Macquarie Street, it will be difficult for those in the local community who have devised plans, perhaps over four or five years, to commit themselves to their implementation.

Brett Tucker, the Executive Officer of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area Council for Horticulturalists, is one of the smartest people in the industry. He told a local newspaper that it would be utterly ridiculous for authorities in Sydney to implement a management plan that locals have spent five years developing. In fact, a resolution of the annual general meeting of the horticultural council stated that it is highly likely the land and water management plan will be discarded by the community if an appointed board is responsible for implementing a plan that has been generated by the community. The Minister has made token representations to the locals, but everyone knows that everything will continue to be controlled by Macquarie Street. Environmental problems in our rivers are not new. The honourable member for Keira referred earlier to problems relating to the Murray and Darling rivers. In fact, some rivers did not even run in the old days. [Time expired.]

Question - That the motion be agreed to - put.

The House divided.

Mr Armstrong Mr O'Doherty
Mr Beck Mr D. L. Page
Mr Blackmore Mr Phillips
Mr Brogden Mr Photios
Mr Chappell Mr Richardson
Mrs Chikarovski Mr Rixon
Mr Cochran Mr Rozzoli
Mr Cruickshank Mr Schipp
Mr Debnam Mr Schultz
Mr Downy Ms Seaton
Mr Ellis Mrs Skinner
Ms Ficarra Mr Slack-Smith
Mr Fraser Mr Small
Mr Glachan Mr Smith
Mr Hartcher Mr Souris
Mr Hazzard Mr Tink
Mr Humpherson Mr J. H. Turner
Dr Kernohan Mr R. W. Turner
Mr Kinross Mr Windsor
Mr MacCarthy Tellers,
Mr Merton Mr Jeffery
Mr Oakeshott Mr Kerr

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Ms Allan Mr Martin
Mr Amery Ms Meagher
Mr Anderson Mr Mills
Ms Andrews Ms Moore
Mr Aquilina Mr Moss
Mrs Beamer Mr Nagle
Mr Crittenden Mr Neilly
Mr Debus Ms Nori
Mr Face Mr E. T. Page
Mr Gaudry Mr Price
Mr Gibson Dr Refshauge
Mrs Grusovin Mr Rogan
Ms Hall Mr Rumble
Mr Harrison Mr Scully
Ms Harrison Mr Shedden
Mr Hunter Mr Stewart
Mr Iemma Mr Sullivan
Mr Knight Mr Tripodi
Mr Knowles Mr Watkins
Mr Langton Mr Whelan
Mrs Lo Po' Mr Woods
Mr Lynch Mr Yeadon
Dr Macdonald
Mr McBride Tellers,
Mr McManus Mr Beckroge
Mr Markham Mr Thompson
Mr Collins Mr Carr
Mr Peacocke Mr Clough

Question so resolved in the negative.

Motion negatived.


Mr SPEAKER: I report the receipt of a message from the Legislative Council agreeing to meet the Legislative Assembly in the Legislative Council Chamber on Wednesday, 9 April, at 3.30 p.m. to choose a person to hold the place in the Senate rendered vacant by the resignation of Senator Robert Leslie Woods.

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