Full Day Hansard Transcript (Legislative Council, 24 October 2006, Corrected Copy)

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

Tuesday 24 October 2006
______

The President (The Hon. Dr Meredith Burgmann) took the chair at 2.30 p.m.

The Clerk of the Parliaments offered the Prayers.

The PRESIDENT: I acknowledge that we are meeting on Eora land.

CLERK OF THE PARLIAMENTS

Retirement

The PRESIDENT: It is with some regret that I inform the House of the impending retirement of the Clerk of the Parliaments, Mr John Evans. After 35 years service in the Legislative Council, the last 17 years as Clerk of the House, John will cease duty on Monday 29 January 2007 prior to proceeding on six months long service leave. His last day of service will be 28 July 2007. No doubt members will be later afforded an opportunity to pay recognition to his services to the House as the sitting year draws to a close. Recruitment action for a new Clerk will commence shortly.

ASSENT TO BILLS

Assent to the following bills reported:

NSW OMBUDSMAN

Report

The President tabled, pursuant to the Law Enforcement (Controlled Operations) Act 1997 and the Ombudsman Act 1974, a special report entitled "Law Enforcement (Controlled Operations) Act Annual Report 2005-2006," dated October 2006.

Ordered to be printed.

LEGISLATION REVIEW COMMITTEE

Report

The Hon. Penny Sharpe tabled, on behalf of the Chairman, the report entitled "Legislation Review Digest No. 15 of 2006," dated 24 October 2006, together with minute extracts for Legislation Review Digest No. 14 of 2006 and minutes extracts for a report entitled "Strict and Absolute Liability: Responses to the Discussion Paper", dated 17 October 2006.

Report ordered to be printed.

CRONULLA RIOTS REPORT

Production of Documents: Return to Order

The Clerk tabled, pursuant to resolution of 19 October 2006, documents relating to the police report into the Cronulla riots received on 20 October 2006 from the Director General of the Premier's Department, together with an indexed list of documents.

Production of Documents: Claim of Privilege

The Clerk tabled a return identifying those of the documents that are claimed to be privileged and should not be tabled or made public. The Clerk advised that pursuant to standing orders the documents are available for inspection by members of the Legislative Council only.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Withdrawal of Business

Private Members' Business item No. 159 outside the Order of Precedence withdrawn by the Hon. Melinda Pavey.

Private Members' Business item Nos 46, 65, 93 and 96 outside the Order of Precedence withdrawn by Ms Lee Rhiannon.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Order of Business

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: I seek leave to move a motion that a motion, notice of which was given by me this day, relating to an order for papers regarding a police report into the Cronulla riots and subsequent disturbances, be called on forthwith.

Leave not granted.

PORTS CORPORATISATION AND WATERWAYS MANAGEMENT AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

The Hon. MICHAEL COSTA (Treasurer, Minister for Infrastructure, and Minister for the Hunter) [2.47 p.m.]: I move:

I seek leave to incorporate the second reading speech in Hansard.

Leave granted.

Ports Corporatisation and Waterways Management Act

'stand alone declared Authority'

Maritime Transport and Offshore Facilities Security Act

Ports Corporatisation and Waterways Management Act

Protection of the Environment Operations Act

Passenger Transport Act

Ports Corporatisation and Waterways Management Act

Ports and Maritime (Administration) Act

Ports Corporatisation and Waterways Management Act

The Hon. MELINDA PAVEY [2.47 p.m.]: All is not what it seems with the Ports Corporatisation and Waterways Management Amendment Bill, and that only came to light at the last minute of last week. There are genuine concerns about the honesty of the Government in introducing this bill, and no doubt the Greens will want to say something about that in this debate. The requirement for urgency for the bill is hidden in the last paragraph of the Minister's second reading speech, which states:

That statement reveals that this legislation is required to give certainty to leaseholders of land under the jurisdiction of NSW Maritime to issue development consents. The bill validates retrospectively all approvals that have been issued by the New South Wales Maritime Authority with the necessary legal authority. In other words, the bill clearly is an attempt to fix up the Government's incompetence.

If we want to talk about incompetence, we can talk about the Ministers who have been responsible for the corporatisation of New South Wales ports and the New South Wales Maritime Authority—and what a list of Ministers with dubious distinctions have been in control! The Ministers included Kim Yeadon, who was dumped from the ministry; the current Minister, Joe Tripodi, need I say more; the Minister for Roads, the Hon. Eric Roozendaal, who was given the Ports portfolio on his elevation to Cabinet, and his performance during the budget estimates showed that he had no control of and no understanding about what he was expected to do; and Carl Scully, who was given the Ports portfolio on becoming a Minister in 1995. Four pretty ordinary Ministers have been in charge of the New South Wales ports. Is it any wonder that the bill is being rushed through without proper consultation and with no honesty to the Opposition or the people about its need?

The Government advised the Opposition that the bill was just a tidy up, a clarification, to streamline administrative procedures relating to port safety operating licences. It argued that the bill was a tidy-up to allow the Minister rather than the Governor to issue, renew or cancel a port safety operating licence, to set out the principal functions of NSW Maritime and to insert administrative provisions regarding the delegation of functions. That is the major sticking point. The bill also confirms the validity of certain consents, permits and approvals issued by NSW Maritime and its predecessors and renames the Ports Corporatisation and Waterways Management Act as the Ports and Maritime Administration Act.

By way of background, in 1995 the Labor Government introduced the Ports Corporatisation and Waterways Management Act, which replaced the Maritime Services Board with three statutory port corporations, which are now the New South Wales Maritime Authority. Since then there have been a number of changes to the roles and responsibilities of the Maritime Authority that needed to be incorporated into the bill. I have no problem with all of that. The Act gives the Governor the responsibility for issuing, renewing and cancelling port safety operating licences under the recommendation of the Minister. The Government argued that it wanted to streamline the administration of that process by placing the authority directly into the hands of the Minister for Ports and Waterways. The Opposition has no problem with that.

The bill sets out the principal functions of the Maritime Authority, permitting the authority, in keeping with its modern role, to provide advice to the Government on ports and maritime policy, to manage its property and to undertake other activities delegated to it by the Minister. The bill inserts the administrative provisions that clearly state the delegation of the Minister and the chief executive officer of the Maritime Authority. The Opposition's major concern with the bill is that since 1997 leases and development applications in relation to land under the jurisdiction of the New South Wales Maritime Authority have not been valid. Officers within the Maritime Authority have signed off on approvals and leases without having the power to do so. Essentially, this bill fixes up that anomaly. A new clause 17 will be inserted in schedule 5 to the principal Act. Subclause (2) of that clause provides:

Any relevant instrument purportedly granted, given or issued pursuant to a delegation made by the relevant Minister to the head of a maritime agency is not invalid (and is taken never to have been invalid) by reason only that:

(a) there was no statutory authority for the delegation, or

(b) the relevant instrument was not granted, given or issued in the name of the Minister, or

(c) the relevant instrument was granted, given or issued by a member of staff of the maritime agency.

An upper House call for the production of documents that was instigated by the Greens revealed that in the past 12 months approximately 24 leases or development approvals for structures on land falling under the New South Wales Maritime Authority had been enacted. The Government argued that it would be too difficult to produce all leases since the establishment of the New South Wales Maritime Authority in 1997. However, the Opposition is concerned that with the passing of this bill all leases that have been signed will be immediately validated. If something unusual has happened within the administration of New South Wales Maritime Authority—and as I said earlier, there has been a pretty ordinary lot of Ministers in charge of the authority—and inappropriate approvals have been given, the leases will be immediately validated and any inappropriate approvals will remain. However, the Opposition wants certainty to be given to those affected by the Government's incompetence and believes it would be unfair to create further concern for leaseholders.

The Opposition and members of the crossbench have been placed in a difficult position. Ms Sylvia Hale has placed questions on notice about this matter, and I am sure she will refer to those in greater detail in her contribution. Interestingly, those questions were due to be answered today. But surprise, surprise, many of the questions remain unanswered. It is difficult to accept the Government on face value with this bill. As I pointed out, it was not until the very last moment of his speech in the other place did the Minister get to the main point of the bill when he addressed the delegation by officers to the approval process. Not a very straightforward or honest way to deal with the matter. The Opposition has sympathy and concern for the confused people of New South Wales who have been affected by the Government's incompetence, and it is important that I place those concerns on the record to highlight how sloppy the Government has been in allowing this situation to develop. It has taken nine years for this problem to be addressed—nine years of incompetence—and that is typical of this poor Carr-Iemma Government.

The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS [2.57 p.m.]: I am very concerned about the Ports Corporatisation and Waterways Management Amendment Bill, which is a typical example of how the Government works. The Greens have asked the Government some questions about leases that it is not happy with. The Government should have provided answers to those questions today but it has not done so. It has given responses, rather than answers: basically it has fobbed-off the issue. The bill is supposed to validate what the Government has done, and that is interesting. The Opposition has been put in the position of either supporting the bill and validating the leases, or simply leaving people in limbo. My view is that any bad behaviour by the Government or those applying for leases should be made public. We should not be asked to give a tick to practices that we do not know were legitimate. No member of this House, no member of the legal system, would stand in the way of anyone who made a legitimate request for a legitimate lease that was legitimately granted. If, however, there have been dodgy practices, we should not be asked to validate them and pass the bill, sight unseen, no questions asked. Nor should we tolerate the fact that the Government has failed to answer questions asked of it. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard Questions and Answers No. 0164, Ports and Waterways—Authorisation of Development Consents/Refusals.

Leave not granted.

I will read it. The document states:

In regard to a memorandum dated 16 August 2006 in which the Acting Chief Executive of New South Wales Maritime stated that the Minister had authorised him to exercise the function of consent authority for development applications on New South Wales Maritime land:

1. Which Minister authorised Mr Moore to act as the consent authority for development applications relating to New South Wales Maritime land?

2. When did the Minister and/or Mr Moore become aware that there had been no authorisation for Mr Moore to sub-delegate that authority?

3. Were development consents or refusals signed without proper authorisation? If so.

a. over what period?

b. how many consents or refusals were issued in this period?

c. what are the particulars of each unauthorised consent refusal?

d. were any consents or refusals illegally made during this period?

4. Has the power of sub-delegation since been granted to Mr Moore?

a. If so, when did this occur?

b. If not, has the sub-delegation been issued?

c. If so, to whom?

5. How many development consent refusals have been forwarded to Mr Moore since 16 August 2006?

6. a. Does the memorandum apply retrospectively to development consent/refusals granted before 16 August 2006?

b. If so, from what date?

7. If consents have been signed retrospectively, what is the legal authority permitting retrospective consent?

(1) to (3) Mr Moore has been acting as Chief Executive Officer of the Maritime Authority. It has been both my practice and that of previous Ministers to delegate to the CEO various functions vested in the Minister.

(4) No new delegation has been extended by me to the CEO of the Maritime Authority in the period you are referring to.

(5) I am advised that none have.

(6) Refer to answer to questions from (1) to (3).

(7) Not applicable.

Basically, the Government is saying nothing. The information given to crossbench members at the briefing appeared to be quite innocuous. The Government, which once again is trying to get through these retrospective consents, is making out that this bill is routine housekeeping. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard the crossbench briefing note.

Leave not granted.

As the Treasurer will not permit me to incorporate the note, I will have to waste the time of the House by reading it onto the record. The crossbench briefing states:

CROSS BENCH BRIEFING

Ports Corporatisation and Waterways Management Amendment Bill 2006

MAIN PURPOSE OF PROPOSAL

• allow the Minister, rather than the Governor, to issue, renew or cancel a port safety operating licence;

• set out the principal functions of New South Wales Maritime;

• insert administrative provisions regarding the delegation of functions;

• confirm the validity of consents, permits and approvals issued by New South Wales Maritime and its predecessors; and

• rename the Act as the Ports and Maritime (Administration) Act.

BACKGROUND

JOE TRIPODI

MINISTER FOR PORTS AND WATERWAYS

That information does not state what the bill does in substance, which is to retrospectively approve a number of things. When the Greens requested details from the Government it rapidly introduced this bill and provided the Greens with an innocuous little briefing paper. As the Hon. Melinda Pavey said, that is the way in which this Government does things. We should not say, "We cannot possibly invalidate these things", as these issues should be judged on their merits. The Government should be held accountable for any bad practice and not simply pass legislation and wonder later whether something could have been done. The Government would then be shutting the stable door after the horse had well and truly bolted. I oppose the bill.

I understand that Ms Sylvia Hale wants to defer the bill for similar reasons. There have been rumours that Macquarie Bank, which owns a number of entities, has had things passed very quickly, and that other people have not had things passed so quickly, which is strange. I oppose this appalling bill, which is typical of the underhanded way in which this Government works.

Reverend the Hon. FRED NILE [3.05 p.m.]: The Christian Democratic Party supports the Ports Corporatisation and Waterways Management Amendment Bill, which will make a number of administrative amendments to the Ports Corporatisation and Waterways Management Act 1995 to improve the efficiency of the legislation. The bill allows the Minister, rather than the Government, to issue, renew, or cancel a port safety operating licence; sets out the principal functions of the New South Wales Maritime Authority; inserts administrative provisions regarding the delegation of functions; confirms the validity of consents, permits and approvals issued by the New South Wales Maritime Authority and its predecessors; and renames the Act as the Ports and Maritime (Administration) Act.

Concern has been expressed about an important aspect of this bill, which confirms the validity of consents, permits and approvals issued by the New South Wales Maritime Authority and its predecessors. As other honourable members have said, we are able to defeat this bill by opposing it. It could be said that the Government is not concerned about all those who have been affected and who have legally received valid consents, permits and approvals. However, it has since been shown that those approvals might have been carried out in line with the legislation. The bill gives the Governor responsibility for issuing, renewing and cancelling port safety operating licences, which might involve some technicalities. If we oppose the bill it will create chaos in New South Wales and affect many thousands of people, and I do not believe that is fair to them. I am not really worried about the Government or its reputation, but I am concerned about the rights of citizens in this State who have followed all the correct procedures.

In improving procedures it is necessary to update other aspects of the legislation because of the tremendous growth that has occurred in various ports in this State, which is most encouraging. Obviously our ports are a key part of the State's logistics chain as they enable the movement of freight out of Australia to overseas markets such as Japan and China, as well as incoming freight from other countries that benefits the people of New South Wales and Australia. I believe that more than $6 billion of trade now goes through our ports.

Expansion has occurred in the Port of Botany, the second largest container port in Australia. As a boy I remember holidaying with my family at Kurnell. In the early 1940s we could not get to Kurnell by road; we had to go across the bay by a large launch that carried 30 or 40 people. We would often see sharks following the launch across the bay, which at that stage was tranquil, quiet and peaceful. When my family moved from Kings Cross to Mascot, Botany Bay became a playground for my brother, my sisters and me. We regularly spent time at Cooks River, which at that stage was very clean, and we played on the old steel bridge that crossed the river. The river was then diverted and that bridge was removed. Tremendous changes have occurred at Botany Bay and Port Botany in response to the growth of New South Wales and its expanding industries and trade.

I note that in the past financial year, trade through Sydney's ports totalled 25.9 million mass tonnes, an increase of 3 per cent on the previous financial year. The year 2005-06 also saw record growth in total container movements of "1.4 million TEU containers"—an average size shipping container—an increase of 5 per cent on 2004-05. The same growth has occurred in the Port of Newcastle, where there has been tremendous expansion. In 2005-06 the Port Kembla Port Corporation achieved $4 billion worth of trade, which amounts to trade growth of 6 per cent on the previous year.

The ports of this State are playing an important role in our economy and they must be managed efficiently. We believe that this bill will assist large industry involved in importing and exporting and simplify the system of granting consents, permits and approvals by the Maritime Authority of New South Wales. We hope the bill will eliminate problems that beset that process in the past. The Christian Democratic Party supports the bill.

Ms SYLVIA HALE [3.11 p.m.]: The objects of the Ports Corporatisation and Waterways Management Amendment Bill are:

(a) to change the name of the Act, and

(b) to provide that the Minister, rather than the Governor, may issue operating licences to Port Corporations; and

(c) to expand the statutory delegation powers of the Minister, and

(d) to give the Maritime Authority a statutory power of delegation, and

(e) to set out the principal functions of the Maritime Authority, and

(f) to confirm the validity of certain instruments issued under non-statutory delegations.

The Bill also amends other Acts consequentially.

It is the last object that has caused honourable members in this place and the Greens the greatest concern. I believe that the Government introduced this legislation for one principal purpose: to rectify, via this retrospective legislation, the possibly unlawful, and therefore invalid, exercise of delegated authority within the Maritime Authority of New South Wales that has occurred over a decade or more.

The legislation confirms retrospectively the validity of an unknown number of invalid development approvals issued by the New South Wales Maritime Authority, and the harbourside leases that rely upon those approvals. I believe that this legislation has been brought before Parliament because the Greens exposed the fact that the Maritime Authority had no basis for issuing certain development consents and other instruments. On 19 September I submitted a series of questions without notice to the Minister for Ports and Waterways, and I subsequently also sought the tabling of papers relating to the delegated authorities.

The Hon. Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans detailed the questions I asked on 19 September. They related to a memorandum dated 16 August 2006 in which the Acting Chief Executive of the Maritime Authority of New South Wales, Mr Moore, stated that the Minister had authorised him to exercise the function of consent authority for development applications on Maritime Authority land.

Some of my questions were general but others were extremely specific. Question No. 3 asked whether development consents or refusals were signed without proper authorisation. I think the answer to that question is obvious in view of the provisions in this bill. We also asked over what period any development consents or refusals were signed without proper authorisation and how many consents or refusals were issued in that period. We asked for the particulars of each unauthorised consent or refusal and whether any consents or refusals were made illegally during this period. Question 6 (a) asks:

(b) If so, from what date?

The Greens also sought other information. The answer to those questions—particularly question No. 3, which asked over what period the consents and/or refusals were issued, how many were issued, what the particulars were and whether any were made illegally—reveals the absolute contempt in which the Government and the Minister hold Parliament. The Minister's answer was that Mr Moore had been acting as Chief Executive Officer of the Maritime Authority and that it had been both his practice and that of previous Ministers to delegate to the CEO various functions vested in the Minister.

The Minister did not even pretend to answer the question. He did not even pay lip service to providing information about the period for which we are now being asked to grant retrospective delegation. As I said before, this is a prime example of the contempt in which the Government holds the Parliament, and the Government's obsession with secrecy. It has refused to provide what I believe is significant and germane information about the bill. We must assume that the number of consents and refusals is quite considerable and that the Government has thrown a veil of secrecy over the period and the number of consents in order to obscure some sinister purpose. I do not know what other construction one can possibly put upon it.

Yesterday I received a response to my questions. In that response the Minister did not answer my questions as to whether there are invalid leases, how many there are, and over what period they were issued. He ignored those questions totally. Yet at 11.27 on the night of Tuesday 17 October the Minister for Ports and Waterways introduced this bill in the lower House. Schedule 1 [9] to the bill seeks to retrospectively validate any instruments that are purported to have been granted or issued by the Maritime Authority without legal authority. It does not identify how many instruments are to be validated, who issued them, or over what period they were issued. The bill simply asks Parliament to give blanket retrospective approval, sight unseen, to an unknown number of instruments issued by unknown officers of the Maritime Authority over an unknown period.

In the Greens' view Parliament has a responsibility to make itself aware of the consequences of the legislation it passes. No-one in this House knows what the consequences of passing this bill will be because no-one knows what invalid instruments it will validate. The Government and the Maritime Authority failed to ensure they were acting lawfully when exercising delegated authority to issue development consents. The Minister now asks Parliament to retrospectively approve all those consents and other instruments without any scrutiny whatsoever of what instruments are to be validated.

The Greens believe that a retrospective blanket validation of invalid decisions should not be undertaken without detailed scrutiny of the likely effect of such retrospective legislative action. The Greens believe that the House should not give retrospective approval without having detailed knowledge of exactly what is being approved.

The Minister asks us to trust him that there is nothing untoward in any of those instruments. He says that this is merely a technical problem and that Parliament should move quickly to remove uncertainty. While I have some sympathy with wanting to remove uncertainty, I am concerned that the passing of this bill will not do that. I am concerned about how the bill has been drafted, particularly schedule 1 [9], which deals with retrospective validations. Schedule 1 [9] validates:

What exactly is meant by "purportedly granted, given or issued"? This appears to me to be a very broad and poorly defined phrase. If an officer of the Maritime Authority told me over the phone "You'll be right. We'll look after you", could that be considered the purported granting of an instrument that would be made valid by this bill? This is not merely a hypothetical question. An article by Susan Wellings in last Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald about the status of existing leases for private jetties on the harbour carried the subheading "Despite verbal assurances many waterfront owners are deeply worried". Do the verbal assurances by the Maritime Authority referred to in that article fit within the definition of "purported granting of an instrument" under this bill? We do not know because, rather than supply a list of the instruments affected by the bill, the Minister has asked us to take him on trust. Like most people, I am very concerned about the idea of taking Mr Tripodi on trust in relation to this or, indeed, any other matter.

Sydney Harbour leases and approvals are a very hot topic. The lifting of the moratorium on new marina developments, the implementation of the Sydney Harbour Access Plan, and the delays, confusion, and disputes over the new commercial lease policy have put harbourside leases into play, and there is more than one species of shark currently circling the harbour. To understand the amount of money, influence and angst involved, one has only to refer to that Sydney Morning Herald article. The harbour lease issue is described in that story as "a tale of love and hate, of fury and betrayal with millions of dollars at stake". The Herald article quotes one real estate agent as putting at up to $2 million the value of adding a private jetty to a harbourside property.

It is a matter of public record that the Macquarie Bank has recently been acquiring marinas in Sydney Harbour, and development proposals from Rose Bay to Rozelle Bay are currently on the drawing boards, causing significant community concern around the harbour. The Rozelle Bay development, for example, attracted a crowd of approximately 200 concerned residents to a recent public meeting. I am also aware from sources within the industry that the great hero of struggle-street, Alan Jones, is actively lobbying the Government on behalf of the development interests and owners of some of Sydney's most expensive real estate. We all know how irresistible his lobbying efforts can be for government Ministers of all stripes.

And into this feeding frenzy of money and influence, this tale of fury and betrayal, waltzes Minister Joe Tripodi with this bill, asking that the Parliament trust him and retrospectively validate, sight unseen an unknown number of instruments issued by an unknown number of officers, over an unknown period of time, worth an unknown amount of money. In this context the trustworthiness of the Minister is clearly an issue.

In the area of developments, authorities and approvals Mr Tripodi has a long and well-documented history. The history is well documented because this Minister has the unenviable record of being subject to two, if not three, investigations by the Independent Commission Against Corruption [ICAC]. From his inaugural speech to the Parliament in 1995 when Mr Tripodi thanked the infamous property developer, Pat Sergi, whom he described as a friend he intended to keep for a long time, Mr Tripodi's relationship with property developers and lobbyists has raised concerns. These concerns surfaced again in the ICAC inquiry into the Orange Grove development, in which his relationship with developers, particularly Mr Nabil Gazal and Mr Sam Bargshoon, was a key component of the investigation and in which counsel assisting the ICAC was quoted as describing Mr Tripodi's evidence as "not reliable". The concerns surfaced again recently in relation to the activities of a development company in which he owned shares.

The Hon. Michael Costa: Point of order: I do not see that these matters have any relevance to the bill. If the honourable member has an issue with the honesty of Minister Tripodi she ought to deal with it by substantive motion and have it debated, rather than use a coward's way to attack someone who has not got the opportunity to defend themselves. I also suggest that if the honourable member wants to say these things she has the option of saying them outside Parliament and face the appropriate legal consequence.

Ms SYLVIA HALE: To the point of order: The Greens sought to obtain from the Minister the specific nature, number and timing of approvals of the instruments for which retrospective validation is being sought. That has not been provided and we are being asked by the Government and by the Minister to take on trust his assurances that all will be well; there is nothing untoward and nothing underhand in any of this.

The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Penny Sharpe): Is the member speaking to the point of order?

Ms SYLVIA HALE: Yes, I am. The point of order is that my remarks about Mr Tripodi's track record and his trustworthiness are totally central to whether this Parliament should pass this bill.

The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Penny Sharpe): Order! The member's remarks must be relevant to the bill.

Ms SYLVIA HALE: Central to the consideration of this bill is whether we should take the good intentions of the Minister and his department on trust, given the singular failure of the Minister to answer very specific questions about what the Parliament is being asked to validate. It seems to me by asking that of the Parliament the Minister is asking us to accept his trustworthiness. I therefore think it is totally appropriate for us then to look at how trustworthy the Minister is.

The Hon. Michael Costa: Point of order: The reality is that the honourable member is flouting your ruling.

The Hon. Melinda Pavey: She is not.

The Hon. MICHAEL COSTA: She is. She is making references to Mr Tripodi's credibility based on a number of assertions. She selectively chose to refer to ICAC but not to the results of the ICAC investigations, which showed he was cleared on all matters. The bill relates to "the Minister in charge of the Maritime Authority", not to a specific Minister, and that ought to be ruled upon.

The Hon. John Ryan: To the point of order: The expectation in a second reading debate is for robust debate. I have no doubt that what the honourable member has said to date constitutes robust debate. Some of what the Treasurer said in his point of order is an attempt to reply to some of those issues, and has nothing to do with a point of order at all. The honourable member has spoken in reasonably general terms. In relation to her reference to the ICAC matters, it was not relevant to point out that he had been cleared. As I understand it, her point was that ICAC had made adverse comments about his trustworthiness.

The Hon. Michael Costa: No, she never said that.

The Hon. John Ryan: That is the point she made, and that was certainly not relevant to the outcome of the ICAC inquiry. In any event, the Minister about whom she is speaking is the relevant Minister who is sponsoring this legislation. She has spoken in general terms about issues germane to this legislation.

The Hon. Michael Costa: What is your point of order?

The Hon. John Ryan: My point of order is the one the Treasurer raised, and I do not think I need to remind him of it. He said she was not being relevant. I am arguing in detail that she is being relevant and keeping well within the bounds of what would be considered robust debate. As yet I do not think she has moved beyond the general guidelines that normally cover second reading debates on matters like this.

The Hon. Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans: To the point of order: The retrospective validation, which is an unusual step at the best of times, goes to the credibility and honesty of people involved in the process. If something is going to be approved retrospectively one has to have trust in the person who gives that approval. In a sense, the honourable member is giving a history of Ministers who have held this portfolio and supervised decisions that will retrospectively be approved or not approved. As such, what the honourable member is saying about the credibility of the Minister is absolutely germane to the Minister's retrospective approval or otherwise of what other Ministers have done. Thus it is quite important that this matter be addressed, and the Government should be stopped in its attempts to prevent these matters being aired in the relatively dispassionate way in which the member is listing known facts.

The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Penny Sharpe): Order! I have heard sufficient on the point of order. The member's remarks must be relevant to the debate. The member is close to casting aspersions on members of the other place, which she cannot do unless by way of substantive motion.

Ms SYLVIA HALE: What is being debated is: How reliable are the Minister's undertakings? How much trust can we put in his assurances that he will do the right thing?

The Hon. Greg Pearce: None.

Ms SYLVIA HALE: None whatsoever. I agree. In this context, it is interesting—

The Hon. Ian West: Point of order: I refer to Standing Rules and Orders of the Legislative Council, and in particular to Rule 91 (3). It quite clearly states:

A member may not use offensive words against either House of the Legislature, or any member of either House, and all imputations of improper motives and all personal reflections on either House, members or officers will be considered disorderly.

The member is out of order, and I ask the Chair to rule accordingly. The member should stick to the point.

The Hon. Greg Pearce: To the point of order: I note the ability of the Hon. Ian West to read the standing orders. This bill is about giving the Minister, instead of the Governor, the power to issue, renew or cancel safety operating licences. This is a matter of extraordinary significance. It relates to confirmation of various consents, permits and approvals that have already been issued. This debate is about the credibility of the Minister and about his being given these additional powers on a matter as crucial as port safety. It is absolutely relevant for the member to canvas whether or not the Minister can be relied upon in exercising those discretions.

The Hon. John Ryan: To the point of order: The member has been robust, but as yet she has not come close to crossing the line and making a personal reflection on the Minister. Nor has she accused him of any improper motives. She has not actually accused him of any area of corruption. She has said that he is unreliable and untrustworthy. These are comments made regularly in this place. One need only go to the speeches of Labor members to find that those adjectives are regularly used in regard to members of the Opposition, the Federal Government and so on. They are common enough expressions made in second reading speeches, and in my view are well within the parameters of robust debate.

The Hon. Michael Costa: To the point of order: It is clear the imputation was that the Minister was dishonest and could not be trusted with the powers to be conferred by the bill. That is a clear imputation of the Minister being dishonest and corrupt, and it is out of order. The member is not addressing the substantial issue of the bill, which relates to the power to be conferred on a Minister. On other occasions in this House I have made the point that robust debate is fine, but what the member is saying is going to the Minister's character and integrity.

The Hon. Greg Pearce: He has no character or integrity.

The Hon. Michael Costa: That is the point.

The Hon. Greg Pearce: It is the point.

The Hon. John Ryan: Further to the point of order: If the Minister is worried about Mr Tripodi's honesty, I do not know where that is coming from. The word "dishonest" has yet to be used other than by the Minister.
The Hon. Michael Costa: Untrustworthy. What does that mean?

The Hon. John Ryan: Untrustworthy does not mean the same thing as dishonest. It is perfectly legitimate for a member to refer to a Minister as being untrustworthy. Those are two different things. Not trustworthy is closer to unreliable; it does not necessarily mean dishonest.

The Hon. Michael Costa: The member said we cannot trust the Minister with the powers, and made references to ICAC. Don't give us that! You know exactly what she means.

The Hon. John Ryan: She quoted a report from ICAC that said his evidence was unreliable. That means untrustworthy.

The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Penny Sharpe): Order! President Johnno Johnson ruled with regard to offensive words:

Member should not use offensive words against a member of either House of the Legislature or towards any member, and imputations of improper motives and personal reflections on members are deemed disorderly. These rules are designed to guard against unbecoming language and insults and accusations in debate.

The member's remarks clearly breach that ruling. I call the member to order and ask her continue.

Ms SYLVIA HALE: What I have done is refer to a comment by counsel assisting the Independent Commission Against Corruption that describes Mr Tripodi's evidence in relation to the Orange Grove development as unreliable.

The Hon. Michael Costa: Point of order: The member is quite clearly canvassing the ruling of the Chair. I ask you to call the member to order.

The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Penny Sharpe): Order! I have ruled on the point. The member may continue, but she should ensure her remarks are relevant and she should not cast aspersions on members of the other House.

The Hon. John Ryan: She has not.

Ms SYLVIA HALE: I am saying that at the heart of the bill is the degree of reliability we place upon the Minister's word. I have noted that in places such as ICAC the Minister's word has been found to be not reliable. That was followed by very misleading statements by the Minister in regard to other matters. Recently, there was the question of his activities in a development company in which he owned shares, Westside Property Developments.

The Hon. Ian West: This is outrageous!

The Hon. Michael Costa: Point of order: Madam Acting-President, you have ruled on this issue. The member continues to flout it.

The Hon. Greg Pearce: No, she has not. It is the first time she has mentioned it.

The Hon. Michael Costa: It is not. It is the second time, because she mentioned Pat Sergi before. The member is clearly flouting the ruling. I ask you to call her to order.

The Hon. John Ryan: To the point of order: The matter that the Minister—

The Hon. Michael Costa: This is a joke! Just get on with the bill.

The Hon. John Ryan: You are so painful! If you find this so difficult, as a member who regularly—

The Hon. Michael Costa: We want to be out of here by the end of the year. Get to the point.

The Hon. John Ryan: As a member who regularly insults members on this side of the Chamber, I do not think the Minister has the right—
The Hon. Michael Costa: I have not called anybody corrupt.

The Hon. Greg Pearce: Except Joe Tripodi. You said Joe Tripodi was corrupt.

The Hon. Michael Costa: I did not. You are the one making the imputation.

The Hon. John Ryan: The matters which Ms Sylvia Hale is raising now have been raised in the public arena and discussed frequently in the public arena, and Mr Tripodi has in fact responded to them, and so on. They relate in part to his administration of personal affairs, but also have regard to his administration of the Housing portfolio during the time that he was housing Minister. That is a matter that is a public affair, and the member was making a point by testing the reliability of public utterances made by the Minister with previous public utterances made by the Minister. As yet, I do not think there has been anything untoward in that regard. It is a common enough feature of debates in this House that a member will compare what one Minister says about one issue and what the Minister says about another issue. As yet, the member has not accused the Minister of any sort of dishonesty or impropriety or corruption; she was simply continuing to question how reliable are public utterances he makes in the public domain. That is a reasonable point to be made—

The Hon. Michael Costa: You have made your point of order.

The Hon. John Ryan: It was your point of order. I am simply responding to your point of order. One of these days you will get to know about debate in this House.

The Hon. Michael Costa: You won't be here long enough, so don't worry about it.

The Hon. John Ryan: Nothing that the member has said yet, although coming close, has crossed the line and been inappropriate.

The Hon. Michael Costa: To the point of order: One of the matters Ms Sylvia Hale is canvassing is in fact before ICAC at the moment. I ask, in the interests of fairness, that you rule on this matter in the terms of your previous ruling, that is, that it has nothing to do with the bill that is being debated. It is an imputation against the integrity of the Minister who has presented the bill.

The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Penny Sharpe): Order! Ms Sylvia Hale should not flout the ruling of the Chair. I ask the member to confine her remarks to the bill.

Ms SYLVIA HALE: I believe that germane to this debate is the reliability of the Minister; whether his word can be relied on and whether in fact he is prone to issuing misleading statements. I have quoted the questions that were asked, and earlier in my contribution I quoted the nonsense answers, or in fact the non-answers, that were received. It is not as though the Minister does not have a track record of making misleading statements. For example, in relation to his buying and selling of surplus public housing stock, the Minister admitted that he had made a misleading statement when he claimed—

The Hon. Michael Costa: Point of order: This is getting beyond a joke. Ms Sylvia Hale is clearly flouting your earlier ruling. The references are very personal. They are imputations about a person's character and outside the standing orders.

Ms SYLVIA HALE: To the point of order: I am merely attempting to talk about statements that the Minister has admitted were misleading. I am not conjuring up statements. It is not some sort of imputation; it is a straight reference to the Minister making a misleading statement about his involvement in the buying and selling of surplus public housing stock. It is totally appropriate that we consider that in relation to this bill.

The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Penny Sharpe): Order! The matters being raised by the member have no relevance to the bill. Her comments must remain relevant at all times, otherwise I will call her to order.

[Interruption]

The Hon. John Ryan: If she gets thrown out for this, mate, we wouldn't be able to speak at all in this place.
Ms SYLVIA HALE: I acknowledge the interjection. This is a Minister who is now asking this Parliament to give blanket retrospective approval to consents and leases worth millions of dollars, with no scrutiny of those consents and leases. I believe that this House has a responsibility to exercise some level of due diligence when passing legislation. To pass this bill in the current environment of lobbying and jockeying, with the amount of money involved and with some of Sydney's richest and most influential individuals and corporations circling, on the basis of trusting the judgment of Joe Tripodi would appear to the Greens to be a serious dereliction of that duty. Therefore I foreshadow that I will move that this debate be adjourned until Tuesday 14 November 2006.

I wish to move that way because that will give the Minister approximately 2� weeks to provide substantive answers to the questions that have been put on notice. It is quite possible that everything is above board. I do not know. Who knows? One does not know anything. The whole point of this debate is the sheer veil of secrecy, the ignorance in which the Parliament is being kept. I am not requesting that this bill be defeated at this stage; I am merely saying that it should be adjourned until Tuesday 14 November. The Minister and his department have received adequate notice of the questions that have been placed on notice. By delaying debate for 2� weeks we will give the Minister the opportunity to provide the answers that have been requested.

If the Minister fails to provide those answers, or if he fails to provide them in a manner that is satisfactory or in as much detail as requested, I suggest that every suspicion that we have about this Minister and about the propriety of his actions is well founded. However, if he can provide the detail that we want, I believe Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile and other members of this House will have no problem with the passage of this bill, and neither will the Greens. I believe it is asking too much to ask us to pass this legislation—which requires the Parliament to do so many things about which it knows absolutely nothing and about which both the Minister and his department have failed to inform the Parliament, despite specific requests. I move:

That this debate be adjourned until Tuesday 14 November 2006.

Question—That the debate be adjourned—put.

The House divided.

Ayes, 5

Mr Breen
Dr Chesterfield-Evans
Ms Hale
Tellers,
Mr Cohen
Ms Rhiannon

Noes, 24

Mr Brown
Mr Catanzariti
Mr Clarke
Mr Colless
Mr Costa
Ms Cusack
Mr Donnelly
Ms Fazio
Miss Gardiner

Ms Griffin
Mr Lynn
Mr Mason-Cox
Reverend Dr Moyes
Reverend Nile
Mr Obeid
Mr Oldfield
Ms Parker
Mrs Pavey

Mr Pearce
Ms Robertson
Mr Ryan
Mr West

Tellers,
Mr Harwin
Mr Primrose

Question resolved in the negative.

Motion for adjournment of debate negatived.

The Hon. GREG PEARCE [3.52 p.m.]: I will speak briefly in support of the comments made by the Hon. Melinda Pavey during her excellent contribution to this debate. Having listened to the last part of the debate, it is obvious to me that there is an issue relating to the role of the Minister. The integrity of the Minister relates not only to the public interest but also to public confidence and, more generally, the economic prosperity of this State. The manner in which the ports portfolio has been managed in the past has revealed inadequate strategic planning and integration of ports with transport networks.

In the other place the Minister for Ports and Waterways cited figures relating to trade and made the point that the ports are integral to maintaining the strength of the New South Wales economy. I will not deal in detail with those figures except to say that they emphasise the paramount importance of ports and underline the basis for doubt on the part of the Opposition and many members of the community that this Government has the ability to properly administer this State's ports or the portfolio. Concerns have also been expressed about the massive increase in trade through Port Botany as a result of recent expansion and its concomitant impact upon surrounding areas as well as transport generally. People who use the M5 East know that already it has reached its capacity and that the increased traffic associated with Port Botany will only exacerbate the M5 East's problems.

The Government's policy is for 40 per cent of containers to be transported by rail. However, successive Ministers have failed to implement an integrated ports development, and that is not new. Papers provided several years ago by the Government relating to the approval of the ports expansion strategy by Cabinet in 2003 show that Cabinet considered a report from Mr Chris Wilson, who was then the Director, Major Development Assessment of the then Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources. Mr Wilson noted, when considering concerns related to the development application and the environmental impact statement for Port Botany at that stage, that there was inadequate supporting information on the wider strategic issues, particularly transport. He also noted that any consent for the port's expansion, regardless of whether a commission of inquiry was undertaken, would not address the significant off-site issues that exist.

In the same bundle of papers, Mr Greg McDowell, Manager, Project Development of the infrastructure co-ordination unit of the Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources, also expressed concern about the basis relied upon by the Government to determine its policy. He queried whether we really want to keep concentrating economic activity in the Sydney Basin, thereby creating further pollution, traffic and other environmental pressures, because that was what the expansion of Port Botany would do. He also questioned whether the expansion of Port Botany should proceed or whether the Government should instead consider ports development in Newcastle and Port Kembla. Although those views concern wider issues, they relate to the whole question of whether this Government can be trusted to undertake the management of vital ports in New South Wales.

I could cite many concerns expressed by other commentators and experts relating to rail freight and the failure of this Government to integrate the planning of ports development with the New South Wales transport network. Most honourable members would have read an article in the Sydney Morning Herald on 14 October by Michael Duffy dealing with the works undertaken by the Patrick Corporation in expanding its operations at Port Botany. He noted that notwithstanding that the port has the most up-to-date equipment one could expect in port operations, in his view the State Government had let down everyone else. He referred to the proposal to move 40 per cent of containers through Sydney by rail, with which everyone agrees, and noted with some concern that only half that rate has been achieved. That is a major problem that the Government has not addressed in relation to Sydney's ports development.

The Minister in the other place was very proud of the growth of the port, something that is fundamental to the future prosperity of New South Wales. The figures for the increase in traffic through the three ports are quite extraordinary and reflect the growth of New South Wales, in spite of any proper integrated planning by the succession of Labor Ministers who have had responsibility for ports and planning. The bill deals with some administrative issues. Perhaps Ms Sylvia Hale misunderstood the legal nature of the description of the need to address purported consents and purported decisions that may have been made. Certainly the Opposition does not have any opposition to addressing any administrative oversight; that is not to say that we in any way excuse the Government for its inability to properly manage this portfolio.

Pursuant to sessional orders business interrupted.

QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
_________

YOUNG DRIVER EDUCATION AND ROAD SAFETY

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Roads. Is the Minister aware that P-plate driver fatalities in New South Wales are up by 74 per cent for the first nine months of this year compared to the same period in 2005? Is the Minister further aware that of the 33 P-plate driver deaths this year, 26 or almost 80 per cent, were male? In order to prevent more young deaths on our roads, particularly among males, will the Minister commit to implementing driver education in high schools, subsidising defensive driver courses for young drivers and implementing more graphic road safety advertising after 8.30 p.m. in order to properly educate young people of the real dangers of driving?

The Hon. ERIC ROOZENDAAL: The issue of P-plate drivers is in the minds of communities at the moment because of the tragic accident on the far North Coast. I pass on my sympathies and those of the House to the families and friends of those four young boys who were tragically lost. I cannot fathom the amount of grief felt by the families and friends in that community from that really tragic accident. The Government is acutely aware of the disproportionate representation of young P-plate drivers in road fatalities. That is one of the major reasons the Government has undertaken a number of initiatives in recent years to try to improve safety for young drivers. First, there has been a restriction on the number of high-performance vehicles—V8s, turbos, superchargers, and high-performance six-cylinder vehicles—for P1 drivers. Indeed, for a provisional licence driver who loses his or her licence or has it disqualified, there is a 12-month limit of one passenger in the vehicle. Of course, there is a zero blood-alcohol limit for all learner and provisional licence holders.

The Government has developed the graduated licensing scheme, which requires novice drivers to pass through four tests and three licensing stages before obtaining an unrestricted drivers licence. That contrasts dramatically with the way I received my unrestricted drivers licence some years ago. I had to drive around on P-plates for only one year and then received an unrestricted drivers licence, compared to three years that young drivers are required to drive today. In addition, free parent workshops are held across the State to help parents who act as supervising drivers to encourage learner drivers to become safer drivers. P-plate drivers are restricted in the speeds they can legally travel—P1 licence holders are restricted to 90 kilometres an hour, P2 licence holders are restricted to 100 kilometres an hour.

The Government in an endeavour to improve safety for young drivers constantly reviews road rules. Unfortunately, neither the Government nor I can be behind the steering wheel of every car driven by a young person. I have asked the Roads and Traffic Authority [RTA] to consider further changes to the rules for P-plate drivers to enhance road safety. The RTA will be looking at increasing the number of hours that L-plate drivers have to log from 50 hours required driving to around 120 hours driving. That will go a long way towards improving driving experience. The RTA is also considering new rules for L-plate drivers to log up 20 hours of driving at night, to give them some experience of night driving, which is a very different environment from daytime driving.

It is important for us to send a strong message to young drivers that they should not be reckless. It is part of being young that from time to time a person may act in a reckless way as they mature. Unfortunately, that reckless behaviour sometimes has terrible ramifications for drivers and perhaps passengers. The RTA spends about $3.7 million each year on young driver education, and did so in the last financial year. That funding includes $2.2 million for the delivery of road safety education in our schools as part of a mandatory curriculum.

STATE WAGE CASE

The Hon. PETER PRIMROSE: My question is addressed to the Minister for Industrial Relations. Will the Minister advise the House what impact the State wage case has had on workers since it was handed down?

The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: I thank the honourable member for his ongoing interest in workplace matters. In July the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission granted a $20 increase to the minimum wage for workers protected by State awards. I am pleased to announce that hundreds of thousands of workers under the protection of the fair and proven State industrial relations system in a wide range of occupations have now received their pay rises enabling them to meet cost of living increases. Almost two-thirds of those workers are either part-time or female and are employed in industries with limited scope for bargaining. While workers in the retail, clerical and hospitality industries are already up to $300 better off, that is all thanks to the State wage case.

Unfortunately almost half a million award-dependent workers in New South Wales who are employed by corporations have not been so fortunate. Those employees have been conscripted into the complex and unfair Debnam and Howard WorkChoices regime through no wish of their own or their employer. They have had to endure an enforced wage freeze by the Howard Government for 16 months, as interest rates and prices continue to increase. In fact, an Australian Bureau of Statistics report has found that real wages have fallen by $11 during the past year. Many New South Wales families are going backwards and are struggling as a result of the attack on their workplace conditions and entitlements by the Howard Government.

Regrettably those workers are now at the mercy of the Howard Government's Fair Pay Commission, which on Thursday will finally decide if they deserve a pay increase. But it is highly questionable if they will get a fair result as fairness is no longer considered under the commission's statutory requirements. As honourable members may recall, the Howard Government sought to deny a wage increase to lowly paid workers in the State system by attempting to have our wage case deferred until the Fair Pay Commission handed down its first wage determination. That would have effectively imposed a further four months wage freeze on those in the community who can least afford it. We have already been confronted with the attitude of the Howard Government towards Australia's lowly paid workers.

Professor Ian Harper, the Howard Government's appointment to head the commission, has confirmed that under WorkChoices minimum wage rises may not flow through to the different awards and that real wages could fall. That is real evidence that WorkChoices is going to bite harder and the basic living standards of workers are going to be stripped away. We should, of course, not be surprised by that admission as the Fair Pay Commission was created for that very purpose. The Howard Government has contested wage increases during the past nine Federal wage cases. Had their arguments prevailed the Federal minimum wage would be $50 a week less than it is today—and remember, the Fair Pay Commission is the outfit whose commissioners could not even be bothered turning up for its recent public hearings.

Unlike the Commonwealth, the Iemma Government takes wage cases seriously and believes wage increases to the lowest paid and most vulnerable members of the work force should be fair and meet cost of living increases. Thankfully, in New South Wales we have a system that regularly reviews award rates. The New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission will continue to deliver fair and decent wage outcomes—a fair system that is not supported by the New South Wales Opposition under Peter Debnam. Peter Debnam spinelessly committed to handing over workers in New South Wales to the costly and unfair Commonwealth industrial relations system if elected next year. He will not stand up for families in New South Wales; he is more interested in pleasing his political masters in Canberra. The Iemma Government urges the Fair Pay Commission to award a fair and reasonable increase in line with our State wage case, which awarded $20.

DROUGHT TRANSPORT SUBSIDIES

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Primary Industries. As the Minister has given plenty of advice on what the Federal Government should do to help drought-ravaged farmers, will this Government now match the Federal Government's commitment to extend exceptional circumstances until March 2008 under its drought transport subsidies? Will the Minister also review the capping of drought transport subsidies in New South Wales, which currently are set at $20,000, given that intensive industries can spend up to $300,000 per annum on transport?

The Hon. IAN MACDONALD: I am sure the honourable member would be aware that last Friday in Parkes the Premier made a commitment to extend this Government's drought policies from 30 November until 1 May next year. Opposition members must remember that both the previous Premier and the current Premier made it clear that this Government will support the farming community throughout the drought. The Government stated clearly that in early May next year it would review its policies. If the drought, God forbid, is continuing at that point, the Government will extend its drought subsidies for a further period.

The Government will continue to review its policies. It has been careful and clear in what it has done. It has been clear about its transport subsidies. There have been over 80,000 applications and grants to farmers to assist them with various transport needs. This transport subsidy—which is the most popular, used and extensive subsidy available to drought-ravaged farmers in this country—will continue until 30 May next year. Transport subsidies apply to a number of other areas, for example, water cartage and getting stock to market. All those measures are in place. If we examine the figures we find an extensive use of these subsidies, which I think are most realistic and helpful for farmers at this time. I refer to that part of the honourable member's question relating to extending and perhaps reviewing the capping. At this point I have no intention of doing that.

The Hon. Duncan Gay: So that is a no?
The Hon. IAN MACDONALD: No.

The Hon. Duncan Gay: It is a no?

The Hon. IAN MACDONALD: The honourable member should wait; I will deal with that issue in a moment. I will have a good look at what is going on in some of these other areas with the purpose of implementing other creative measures to help farmers. This Government is already considering a raft of proposals and I have presented the Treasurer with a number of them. I am sure those proposals will resolve these issues.

CASINO TO MURWILLUMBAH RAIL SERVICES

LISMORE AND BYRON BAY SPECIAL EVENT AND LATE NIGHT BUSES

The Hon. PETER BREEN: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Roads, representing the Minister for Transport. Is the Minister aware that radio commercials extolling the virtues of train travel in New South Wales are quite misleading in that they suggest that train travel is reliable, widely available and part of an integrated public transport network? How does the Minister explain these radio commercials to people on the North Coast between Casino and Murwillumbah, who have now been without a commuter train service since 18 May 2004? Given that the North Coast train will service the population of Byron Bay and Lismore, does the Minister agree that a properly funded rail service would reduce road traffic to and from the coast and reduce the possibility of fatal car accidents such as the one that killed four young Lismore schoolboys on Saturday night? Will the Minister consider special event buses and late night buses between Lismore and Byron Bay pending a properly funded commuter rail service?

The Hon. ERIC ROOZENDAAL: I will refer the honourable member's question to the appropriate Minister.

HEALTH CARE

The Hon. EDDIE OBEID: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Health. Will the Minister acquaint the House with NSW Health's efforts to adapt to the changing health care needs of our diverse population?

The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS: The development of innovative ways of responding to the ever-changing health care needs of our diverse population is an ongoing challenge—a challenge that dedicated NSW Health staff is keen to meet. Last Friday I had the good fortune of attending the Baxter 2006 NSW Health Awards, which showcased the wonderful capacity of the health system to embrace change and to improve patient care and safety. Over the past year dynamic developments have taken place in the area of patient safety, clinical excellence and clinical innovation and many of these innovations were highlighted at the awards.

The New South Wales health system cannot afford to remain stagnant, which is why landmark initiatives such as those developed under the Clinical Services Redesign Program and the inspiring achievements showcased at the Baxter awards represent unprecedented progress in NSW Health. It was my pleasure to present all the awards on the evening to the winners and to announce and present the final award—the New South Wales Health Minister's Innovation Award. I would like to highlight to the House the five projects that were finalists in this category.

Nimbin On-Line aims to enhance access to drug and alcohol services among young people in Nimbin. The project team set up an online Internet forum so that students of Nimbin High School could have access to real-time online counselling and information from health professionals in the drug and alcohol field. Students are able to log on to the Internet anonymously at a prearranged time and post messages that are immediately answered by a health professional. In the last 18 months of operation 152 students have participated in a total of 3,030 hits. An Issue of Vital Importance, Pressure Sore Prevention, is an intensive care unit initiative in the Northern Sydney Central Coast Area Health Service that dramatically minimises the incidence of pressure sores suffered by patients. Laminated information cards are placed in each clinical area to guide practice.

Another finalist in the category was a project called TABLETS. Ryde Hospital emergency department reported that a large number of patients were arriving at hospital via ambulance without information on their current medications. In conjunction with Ryde Hospital, the Ambulance Service introduced a clearly labelled, self-sealing plastic bag designed to hold a large quantity of home-based medications. This initiative results in a dramatic increase in patients arriving at the hospital's emergency department with their current medication regime, providing vital information to hospital staff.

Northern Sydney Central Coast Area Health Service introduced a project called GRACE, or geriatric rapid acute care evaluation, which prioritises the journey of acutely ill nursing home and hostel patients to optimise their acute management and treatment. The initiative has seen an increased number of residents maintained in the community and a reduction in the length of hospital stays from 7 to 4.2 days. Total bed days have also been reduced from an average of 536 bed days a month down to 300 a month. The winner in the category was i Handover, an initiative of Nepean Hospital in Sydney West Area Health Service. This project improves continuity of care by adopting new technology to increase patient safety and patient care. It is primarily used by junior medical officers at Nepean where a new structured process and web-based handover system has had a major impact on how junior medical staff perform patient handovers, resulting in improvements to the continuity of care.

The standard of care expected by NSW Health consumers is indeed high. The teams of motivated, committed professionals who transform ideas into reality, as demonstrated by the inspiring range of finalists and winners at the recent Baxter 2006 NSW Health Award ceremony, are yet more evidence that NSW Health is prepared to meet the challenge of responding to the ever-changing health care needs of our population.

BUS DIESEL EXHAUST POLLUTION

The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS: My question is directed to the Minister for Roads, representing the Minister for Transport. Why do diesel buses leave their engines running while waiting for long periods? Is it difficult to restart buses and, if so, why is this problem not remedied? If it is not difficult, what is the maximum time recommended for buses to remain idling, and what guidelines are issued to drivers in that regard? Is the Minister concerned that idling buses are a considerable source of fumes in some interchanges, terminals and narrow streets, a source of greenhouse gases and a waste of money? Will the Minister take steps to reduce bus idling and, if so, what steps will he take?

The Hon. ERIC ROOZENDAAL: I thank the Hon. Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans for his long and extensive question. I will pass it on to the Minister for Transport for a response.

SCHOOL ZONE FLASHING LIGHTS CONTRACT

The Hon. GREG PEARCE: My question is directed to the Minister for Roads. Why has the Minister neglected to announce the name of the company that was awarded the tender for the school flashing lights program, particularly given that he has announced when the rollout of flashing lights will occur, given the specifics of the technologies being considered and provided a detailed list of the first 100 school zones to receive flashing lights? Will the Minister now inform the House of the name of the business that was awarded the contract for the flashing lights program?

The Hon. ERIC ROOZENDAAL: I thank the Hon. Greg Pearce for his question on this very important initiative. Earlier in the year the Government announced our school zone safety package, which, as honourable members will remember, is an extensive package designed to improve and enhance school zone safety around the State. On Sunday I announced the rollout of new flashing lights technology to 100 school zone sites. Road safety experts according to safety criteria determined the sites. The plan follows the "Evaluation of flashing lights in 40 km/h school speed zones" report, which outlined the findings from a trial of flashing lights at 43 schools. The report found that flashing lights were effective in reducing vehicle speed around schools during the operation of 40 kilometres an hour speed zones, but that a small but significant speed reduction of between three kilometres and five kilometres could be expected at certain sites fitted with flashing lights signs compared with conventional signage. However, the operational performance of flashing lights units was considered to be poor despite trialling three different styles of flashing lights from different providers.

The message from the evaluation was that existing flashing lights technology could reduce speeds but is not sufficiently reliable. For this reason I instructed the Roads and Traffic Authority [RTA] to call for expressions of interest to develop a new electronic school safety alert system incorporating state-of-the-art features such as back-to-base fault reporting. Applications closed in July, and the RTA has assessed the proposals put forward. As I announced on Sunday, three types of electronic warning devices have been selected for school zones, with 100 schools to be upgraded by the end of the year. We will expedite those devices to the 100 schools of priority as identified through the road safety criteria determined by road safety experts.

Of the three different technologies, one sort is a high-visibility flashing school zone sign with a flashing "40" built into the device. It will be situated on the side of the road. The second technology is flashing speed warning signs that will hang off masts suspended above the road directly in the line of sight of motorists. The third technology is high-visibility lights to be built into the road pavement within a school zone. This is similar to the technology used on airport runways and is highly visible to drivers. We will rely on road safety experts to determine the most appropriate technology for each individual school zone.

This program will be a major enhancement to school zone safety, which has always been a priority of this Government. The rollout of the 100 high-visibility technology systems will cost $7.2 million and will be funded from the RTA's road safety budget and revenue from speed cameras that will be situated in school zones, as was announced earlier this year. A panel that includes the NRMA will evaluate the effectiveness of this technology during the first year of operation. This work was done through a notification of intent process, which complied with all appropriate probity and procurement guidelines. In addition, the process has been subject to scrutiny by a qualified independent probity auditor employed specifically to oversee it. My advice is that the RTA is finalising the commercial arrangements with proponents. Once those commercial arrangements are finalised the RTA will release to the community the name of all successful proponents.

The Hon. GREG PEARCE: I ask a supplementary question. Will the Minister for Roads elucidate his response by answering the question and telling the House who was awarded the contract?

The Hon. ERIC ROOZENDAAL: I feel sorry for the Hon. Greg Pearce, who did not listen to my answer. The contracts have not yet been finalised. We have finalised the technology and the rollout timetable. The RTA is finalising the commercial arrangements and, as I said, when that is done we will release the proponents' names immediately.

[Interruption]

The PRESIDENT: Order! I remind members that this interchange is not being recorded by Hansard. I will wait until there is silence before I give the call to a member to ask the next question.

LIFE PAROLEES LIFETIME SUPERVISION LEGISLATION

The Hon. GREG DONNELLY: My question is addressed to the Minister for Justice. Will the Minister advise the House of what the impact could have been had the Opposition's attempts to block the recent lifetime supervision legislation been successful?

The Hon. Melinda Pavey: Here comes grandpa!

The Hon. TONY KELLY: Thank you. That is in Hansard now.

The Hon. John Ryan: Point of order: I suspect it is likely that the Minister for Justice is about to reflect on a vote of the Legislative Council. If that is the case, I do not think the question is in order.

The Hon. Michael Costa: To the point of order: The Minister for Justice had not even commenced his reply. How can the Hon. John Ryan take a point of order on him?

The PRESIDENT: Order! I will not listen to anyone until there is silence.

The Hon. Greg Pearce: The Treasurer is correct: The Minister for Justice had not commenced his answer. However, the point of order related to the validity of the question, which was out of order in that it reflected on a decision of the House and contained argument and imputations.

The PRESIDENT: Order! The standing orders state that a question, indeed debate, must not reflect on a decision of the House. The question did not reflect on a decision of the House; it referred to what might have happened but for a decision of the House. The question is in order.
The Hon. TONY KELLY: I thank the Hon. Greg Donnelly for his question. Last Thursday the Government successfully introduced laws for the lifetime supervision of those on lifetime parole. A life parolee is a person originally sentenced to life imprisonment who has had his or her sentence redetermined under the former Coalition Government's "truth in sentencing" legislation. There are presently four lifetime parolees in New South Wales, including convicted child killer John Lewthwaite. In addition, there are more than 20 offenders still in lifetime custody with redetermined sentences involving life parole.

The community expects that if offenders are on lifetime parole they will be supervised for life. Under the new laws, offenders will have to report regularly to a probation and parole officer, reside at an approved address and be subject to other conditions, such as drug and alcohol testing and psychological counselling. The Commissioner for Corrective Services will also be able to impose additional supervision obligations, such as electronic monitoring, in order to complement the conditions imposed by the State Parole Authority. Without these amendments, offenders such as Lewthwaite could end up back in the community unsupervised and unmonitored following their release from custody.

These are tough, fair and sensible measures to ensure the safety of our community—tough, fair and sensible measures that some Opposition members in this place tried to oppose. Last Thursday evening the Hon. Catherine Cusack and her colleague the Hon. John Ryan went out of their way to try to delay the bill becoming law. Yet the very next morning the current Leader of the Opposition—and I am referring not to the Hon. David Clarke but to Peter Debnam—welcomed these changes on Sydney radio. Is Mr Debnam the Leader of the Opposition or not? Are the wets of his party now openly challenging his direction in protest at the heat they are feeling from the blowtorch of the Hon. David Clarke? Once again it appears the ability of the Opposition to form sensible and cohesive policies is being undermined by its internal factional fighting.

The PRESIDENT: Order! I call the Hon. Eric Roozendaal to order for the first time. I call the Hon. Catherine Cusack to order for the first time.

The Hon. TONY KELLY: These laws are designed to ensure the safety of the community, and whilst the Opposition delays, the Iemma Government makes no apologies for getting on with the job.

PARLIAMENT BUDGET CUTS

Mr IAN COHEN: My question is directed to the Treasurer. The Treasurer's $1.4 million cut to the Parliament's budget includes a refusal to fund a $496,000 budget shortfall from 2005-06, arguably incurred as a direct result of applying the 1 per cent efficiency savings to the whole of Parliament's budget that year, despite the fact that expenditure on honourable members is determined by an independent body and is not subject to ministerial direction. Why will the Treasurer not commit to reversing his decision not to fund last year's budget shortfall in recognition of the fact that any shortfall is a direct result of this inequitable treatment?

The Hon. MICHAEL COSTA: It is extraordinary that of any party in this Parliament the Greens should make claims about the expenses of running Parliament. In fact, it could be argued that the public scrutiny that has been placed on the Parliament is largely due to the malicious and false accusations made by the Greens over a number of years about the entitlements of honourable members and conditions in this place. Earlier this year I can well remember when Ms Lee Rhiannon on the television program A Current Affair attacked this Parliament and its members for enjoying dining room subsidies. It is a great hypocrisy today for the Greens to ask a question about expenses within Parliament. The Greens want to have their cake and eat it too.

As I understand it, the most vocal opponents to finding efficiencies within Parliament, and to pointing to the Government's sensible arrangements of sharing and ensuring that efficiency measures are equal across the public sector, have been the Greens. They ought to be very careful because some of us have long memories about the many occasions on which they have attacked this institution and its members because of conditions that have been provided in the past. The Greens are absolute hypocrites. The fact is that the Presiding Officers are responsible for managing the resources of Parliament within the allocated budget.

BURDETT STREET, HORNSBY, RESPITE FACILITY

The Hon. JOHN RYAN: My question is directed to the Minister for Disability Services. I am still getting over that incredibly stout defence of Parliament by the Treasurer. Does the Burdett Street respite facility in Hornsby currently have any blocked beds? Should this facility, which is run by the Department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care, support five people with high needs? How many of these temporary respite beds are currently blocked with people living in them permanently? Have parents had their respite cancelled by the department? What action has the Minister taken to support families who rely on that facility for support?

The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: I think the honourable member is aware that more than 300 respite beds across New South Wales are in centres operated and funded by the Government through the Department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care. From time to time, as a result of a crisis or unexpected breakdown in support arrangements, respite beds become temporarily unavailable. When this occurs, the department works with the families involved to find alternative support arrangements. As at 30 June 2006, 60 people were temporarily occupying a bed in respite services. In other words, there were approximately 60 blocked beds.

The Government understands the importance of respite care for people who care for a person with a disability and is committed to expanding these services. That is why the Government's Stronger Together initiative has committed to provide an additional 450 new respite places for children and young people and 810 new respite places for adults by 2011. This will represent a total investment over the five years of $62 million in additional funding. The range and number of respite places will be expanded to ensure that respite is both flexible and responsive to the needs of the family and those of the person with a disability. This builds on a previous commitment of the Government in 2005-06, in a joint initiative with the Commonwealth, to invest $48 million over three years for respite for older parent carers of people with a disability. This funding will deliver 2,373 flexible respite places over three years and will enhance the current capacity of centre-based respite. The question related to the Burdett Street facility, and I will get complete details on that and provide them to the honourable member as soon as possible.

BALLINA BYPASS

The Hon. PENNY SHARPE: My question is addressed to the Minister for Roads. Will the Minister provide the House with the latest information on the upgrade of the Pacific Highway at Ballina?

The Hon. ERIC ROOZENDAAL: I commend the honourable member for her interest in this matter. The Government has invested billions of dollars in upgrading the Pacific Highway, in projects that have made an enormous difference to the New South Wales economy, North Coast communities and New South Wales road users. I advise the House that in a significant milestone for the people of Ballina the pre-construction work has now started on the Ballina bypass, a very important part of the Pacific Highway upgrade. It will deliver a further 12.4 kilometres of dual carriageway. The initial works are necessary to start stabilising the underlying soft soils in a number of critical sections in preparation for the construction of the bypass.

The 12.4 kilometre Ballina bypass will be significantly shorter than the current 19 kilometre route through the urban areas of Ballina, and will offer significant travel time savings for Pacific Highway traffic. The initial contract will see construction of earth embankments that will carry the bypass across a floodplain where extensive settlement is anticipated. These initial works will be carried out in the vicinity of Teven Road and Emigrant Creek at Cumbalum. Due to the deep, soft soils along the bypass route, we can expect a high level of compaction. Settlement of up to 4.5 metres is possible around Emigrant Creek north and up to three metres around Teven Road. The upgrade will significantly improve safety and relieve traffic congestion on this section of the Pacific Highway. This option will provide uninterrupted flow for highway traffic and continue to provide effective highway access for local traffic.

In an Australian engineering first a specialist technique known as vacuum consolidation will be used to remove air and water from the soil as part of the pre-construction work. One of the main challenges in constructing the 12.4 kilometre Ballina bypass is the need to stabilise the underlying soft soils in a number of critical sections. This technique will cut the time needed to stabilise the underlying soft soils. The work will take place to the south of the Ballina bypass's northern crossing of Emigrant Creek, consisting of a high level embankment to form the southern bridge approach. Vacuum consolidation works by removing air and water from a vacuum-sealed drainage blanket constructed over the soft soils. The drainage blanket rests on top of the soil and collects the water as it is removed from the underlying soil. This process will be used in conjunction with conventional pre-loading and by using this new technique construction time will be significantly shorter.

Roads and Traffic Authority operations were awarded the $20 million contract for these initial works with the approved Ballina bypass extending from the intersection of the Bruxner and Pacific highways north through to Ross Lane. The New South Wales and Australian governments will spend a further $1.3 billion upgrading the Pacific Highway in the three years to 2009. The job of upgrading the Pacific Highway is one of the greatest infrastructure projects in the history of New South Wales, and the Iemma Government is working with the Federal Government to make sure the job gets done and that New South Wales has a four-lane highway from Sydney to Queensland. This is part of the ongoing commitment of the Iemma Labor Government to improve the Pacific Highway for the benefit of the community and for local communities on the coast.

ICE (CRYSTAL METHAMPHETAMINE)

Ms SYLVIA HALE: My question is addressed to the Minister for Health. Given that the Premier has finally acknowledged the growing scourge of the drug "ice" what will the Minister for Health do to ensure that ice addiction is treated primarily as a health problem rather than one where the only response is to punish users? What are the Minister and the Government doing to ensure the safety of welfare workers across the State who regularly encounter people suffering from the psychotic effects of ice?

The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS: I am astonished that a member who asks a question of that nature would not be aware of all that the Government has done. The aggressively phrased question contained all sorts of implications, as though we have done nothing about it. The member obviously has not been following the discussion that has been taking place, otherwise she would not have asked the question.

Ms Sylvia Hale: The question asked what you are doing.

The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS: Obviously the member has not been aware of what I have been doing and what the Government has been doing. Instead, she puts forward an aggressively phrased question, which is full of rhetoric and accusation, but certainly indicates her ignorance about what we have done. The Government recognises the importance and seriousness of this issue to the community. On a number of occasion I have made the point that ice users often end up in emergency departments, and in too many cases they assault police officers, ambulance officers, nurses, doctors and other persons.

The Government has already done a lot to combat the use of this drug, and last week the Premier ramped up our initiatives to attack the ice plague. He wrote to the Prime Minister and to Premiers, inviting them to attend a leadership forum, partly on ice, urging real progress on a plan of action that covers how the drug gets into this country, the best international law enforcement options, how to prevent the illegal manufacturing, and a consideration of heavier penalties and the broader health and social implications of the use of ice. In response to that request, the Prime Minister told 2GB radio on 19 October:

I will do anything additional that is needed. I agree with him—

That is, the Premier—

that this is a problem. I understand his concern, and I'm willing to work with the New South Wales Government.

Less than 20 minutes later he said:

I don't know what more we can do.

Well, there is plenty more that the Commonwealth do. A Commonwealth representative can attend our ice forum, where he or she will hear from experts and find out. The member asks for the initiatives. She would know that I have launched a number of initiatives, including clinical guidelines late last year, for health workers to be able to manage people in this condition. She would know about the psychiatric emergency centres, which have already been established in four hospitals, and of plans for a further five, to be able to deal with the psychotic episodes in particular of ice users. She would know about the campaign that we have launched now in the media targeting young people, particularly in clubs and in bars, through the Internet and through various other means that will get to young people, identifying the consequences that ice use can have, and also at the same time advising people what to do in the event that they come across someone who may be potentially intoxicated by the use of the drug ice. The member would also know about the clinics that we have established in Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital.

Ms Sylvia Hale: They are not specialist clinics.

The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS: Yes, they are, Sylvia, you stupid woman! Honestly!

The PRESIDENT: Order!
The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS: They are specialist clinics. I announced them. If the member is going to ask questions, she should listen to the answers and stop making silly interjections, which just compound her level of ignorance. If the member had bothered to research this issue, she would know about these things. If the member wants a collection of my press releases on the issue, I will supply them to her. But she should not stand in this place and ask inane questions, and then compound them with ridiculous interjections.

ROAD FATALITIES AND ROADS AND TRAFFIC AUTHORITY ROAD REBUILDING TARGETS

The Hon. DAVID CLARKE: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Roads. Is the Minister aware that the recent tragic accident involving the death of four boys on the North Coast of New South Wales occurred 500 metres north of a recognised blackspot? Is the Minister further aware that in this year's New South Wales budget papers specific accident blackspot treatments have been replaced by crash-related treatments? Given that 60 per cent of New South Wales road fatalities occur in country areas where road quality is poor, and that the Auditor-General recently found "The RTA is rebuilding at less than half its long term target, and has not met this target at any time this decade … this presents a risk that roads may become unsafe or unreliable", when will the Minister and his Government recognise the correlation between poor road quality and motorist fatalities, and return the Roads and Traffic Authority to its core business of road building?

The Hon. ERIC ROOZENDAAL: We have seen a new low today. The local community, family and friends are still grieving over this terrible tragedy. It is not surprising to me that they got David Clarke to ask this question—not surprising!

The Hon. Greg Pearce: Don't politicise it.

The Hon. ERIC ROOZENDAAL: Don't politicise! How dare you say, "Don't politicise!" The honourable member linked this tragedy on the North Coast in an attempt to score cheap political points. I say to you, "Shame!" I think it is worth making the point—

The Hon. Duncan Gay: Point of order: Madam President, I ask you to draw the Minister back to the question—a quite proper question—and ask him to stop playing politics and playing the man on what is a very important question on a very important issue.

The PRESIDENT: Order! I remind the Minister not to be diverted by interjections.

The Hon. ERIC ROOZENDAAL: In relation to this specific accident, it is worth noting that the Roads and Traffic Authority [RTA] did reduce the speed limit on that stretch of road, after consultation with Byron Council, some time ago—

The Hon. Charlie Lynn: That is correct—about five months ago.

The Hon. ERIC ROOZENDAAL: I am advised by one of the honourable members it was some months ago, down from 100 kilometres an hour to 80 kilometres an hour. I will not speculate further on that accident; it is really a matter for the Coroner. I note the media reports, and believe it is appropriate that we wait for the full police investigation. The accident occurred on a straight stretch of road late at night. That is all I will say about that.

This financial year $25.5 million has been allocated to improve 101 sites identified under the RTA's Crash Reduction Program, traditionally known as the Blackspot Program. The program's primary focus is reducing crashes across the New South Wales road network. I am advised the Crash Reduction Program has provided road safety improvements to over 600 identified sites at a cost of more than $103 million since 2001-02. The Government will do all it can to improve road safety, but we cannot be behind the wheel of every car, and ultimately drivers need to take responsibility for their actions when they are driving. We know the three major factors contributing to the road toll are speed, fatigue and alcohol. Speeding is a factor in at least 36 per cent of fatal crashes in New South Wales. No other single factor has a greater contribution to road trauma in our State. Driver fatigue is a factor in at least 19 per cent of fatal crashes, and alcohol contributes to at least 16 per cent of fatal crashes.

The Crash Reduction Program is an important and effective part of the RTA's overall road safety program. The Iemma Government has delivered the State's biggest ever roads budget, allocating a record $3.3 billion for road spending in 2006-07. More than $750 million is being spent on maintaining the State's road network, and $1.6 billion has been allocated for road construction this financial year. This year the Government will spend more than $114 million on road safety programs, and road safety campaigns alone. I note the hypocrisy of the Coalition, which of course has clearly advocated it will disembowel the RTA in the unlikely event that it ever gets into government.

PANDEMIC INFLUENZA PREPAREDNESS

The Hon. TONY CATANZARITI: My question is addressed to the Minister for Health. What is the latest information on the preparedness of New South Wales for an outbreak of pandemic influenza?

The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS: I am pleased to inform the House that Exercise Cumpston—a national pandemic influenza exercise—took place across Australia between 16 and 19 October. This exercise simulated the early stages of a possible influenza pandemic and its impacts on Australia, testing not only New South Wales Health's preparedness for such an event but also the overall emergency management objectives of New South Wales and indeed Australia. The exercise cultivated interagency understanding of the New South Wales Human Influenza Pandemic Plan, assessing the ability of the State Emergency Operations Centre to support an operation in which New South Wales Health is the combat agency.

Exercise Cumpston also tested the communications systems between the Public Health Emergency Operations Centre, the Health Services Disaster Control Centre, and the State Emergency Operations Centre. New South Wales Health in particular had the opportunity to test the pandemic response strategies described in the New South Wales Human Influenza Pandemic Plan and the New South Wales Health Interim Pandemic Influenza Action Plan, and issues of interjurisdictional communications in the event of an influenza pandemic.

New South Wales faced many challenging tasks within the exercise, including consideration of screening for disease in incoming travellers; repatriation of Australians from pandemic-affected countries overseas; provision of appropriate accommodation for stranded travellers or those being placed in home or hotel quarantine; tracing people who had potentially been exposed to the disease and notionally providing medication and support for those people to stay at home; keeping the new disease from infecting others in healthcare facilities; communicating with the Commonwealth and other jurisdictions, to provide a nationally consistent response; providing information to households and businesses regarding preparation for later stages of an influenza pandemic; and distributing the State and national medical stockpiles of essential medications and medical equipment.

Whilst the final evaluation report is pending, initial advice is that New South Wales' planning for an influenza pandemic is suitable and robust. The plans were supported by up-to-date standard operating protocols, and communications between different levels of government were generally good, facilitating a smooth response. Remote communications, using the Internet, email, teleconferences and video teleconferencing, highlighted the immense potential and value of these technologies in an infectious disease emergency. New South Wales' infectious disease surveillance arrangements are considered comprehensive and timely. In particular, New South Wales has a robust operational plan for distributing essential medications and medical supplies from central stores to regional areas. We also have a well-understood plan for operating emergency screening of potentially infected persons at all public hospitals and clear communication mechanisms for operational decisions made at the strategic level during an influenza pandemic. Initial comments from the New South Wales representative at exercise control in Canberra, Dr David Cooper, were as follows:

I congratulate all those involved in Exercise Cumpston on their excellent performance, a performance that shows New South Wales is prepared for an influenza pandemic and other infectious disease emergencies.

FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION

Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES: I ask the Minister for Disability Services, representing the Attorney General, a question without notice. Is the Minister aware of the practice of female genital mutilation as documented by Minority Rights Group report No. 47, entitled "Female Circumcision, Excision and Infibulation", which describes this practice as akin to torture? Is the Minister aware that reports indicate that in New South Wales at least 40 women are treated at Sydney's Auburn Hospital alone every year as victims of this practice? Given the number of cases in this one Sydney hospital, will the Minister indicate why prosecutions under section 45 of the Crimes Act have not been initiated against any of those involved in perpetrating this practice against women, as denigrated by the Minister for Women? Will the Minister consider introducing legislation to compel doctors, nurses and others in positions of responsibility that discover cases of female genital mutilation to report these cases to police?

The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: Clearly, the honourable member's question deals with a very serious matter, a matter sometimes, but not always, in the public debate. I will seek an answer from the Attorney General. I expect that he will be able to provide a prompt response to the honourable member.

GREATER SOUTHERN AREA HEALTH SERVICE AND VISITING MEDICAL OFFICERS ON-CALL SERVICES

The Hon. MELINDA PAVEY: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Health. Is the Minister aware of discussions between the Greater Southern Area Health Service and visiting medical officers in Queanbeyan relating to concerns regarding rostering and clinical governance? Has the Labor member for Monaro informed the Minister of those meetings and the concerns of visiting medical officers? If so, what actions will the Minister take to address these issues and prevent the visiting medical officers from walking off the job?

The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS: The chief executive of the Greater Southern Area Health Service advises me that a new medical work force framework commenced in the Queanbeyan hospital emergency department in early October to address concerns raised by general practitioner visiting medical officers [GPVMOs] regarding the provision of on-call services. I am advised that the health service consulted extensively with the GPVMOs, the Rural Doctors Association and the Australian Medical Association in the lead-up to the introduction of the new framework. The new model resulted in suitably skilled career medical officers providing 24-hour services in the emergency department with GPVMOs providing second on-call back up. I understand that the GPVMOs have raised concerns regarding the potential loss of professional skills under the new framework. The chief executive of the health service assures me that the resolution of the matter is of the utmost concern to the area executive. To this end, I understand that a meeting has taken place between the area executive, the general practitioners and the Australian Medical Association.

STRONGER TOGETHER DISABILITY PLAN

The Hon. KAYEE GRIFFIN: My question is addressed to the Minister for Disability Services. Will the Minister inform the House about the latest measures to provide in-home care for people with a disability in New South Wales?

The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: The Iemma Government has commenced rolling out 70 additional Attendant Care Program places for people with a disability across New South Wales. Funding of $5.3 million is being provided this financial year as part of the initial roll-out of the Iemma Government's 10-year disability plan Stronger Together. Many people with disabilities want to live in their own homes with the support of families, carers and friends. The Attendant Care Program provides 35 hours per week of personal care and support at home. This is practical, compassionate assistance and it is the support that people with a disability have been telling me they want. A total of 56 people have so far been assessed and recommended for the new places, with 26 living in rural New South Wales and 30 in metropolitan areas, of whom 45 are aged 17 to 50 and 11 are older than 50.

The majority of these people have spinal injuries, with most others having some form of degenerative disease, such as multiple sclerosis or motor neurone disease. The recipients get to choose their own service provider and are encouraged to participate in the training of their carers to ensure services meet their needs. These 70 new places are just the start. By 2010-11 we will more than double the current Attendant Care Program places to help 634 people. This will represent a total investment of $66 million over five years. Stronger Together includes historic extra funding of almost $1.3 billion over its first five years, and features increases in services and supports for people with a disability, as well as for their families and carers, throughout New South Wales. Unfortunately, honourable members will be aware that the New South Wales Opposition and its leader, the member for Vaucluse, Mr Debnam, have refused to support this expenditure on people with a disability.
[Interruption]

You keep saying that, John, but I am waiting. I am waiting, and so are people with a disability. Under Peter Debnam, the Coalition is, as the Liberal member for Hawkesbury declared the other day, a single-issue, extremist party. Disability is not a priority for the New South Wales Coalition. It has offered an alternative package worth just $69 million, or 5 per cent of the Iemma Government's plan. With that budget the Coalition would deliver wholesale cuts to services. Our Stronger Together plan and these 70 new attendant care places will provide real, practical, compassionate assistance for people with a disability.

WOLLONDILLY SHIRE COUNCIL MAYOR NO CONFIDENCE MOTION

The Hon. CHARLIE LYNN: My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Local Government. Is the Minister aware that at last week's meeting of Wollondilly Council a motion of no confidence was passed in Mayor Phil Costa with the support of local Labor councillors? Is he aware that local councillors are disappointed with Phil Costa, who campaigned as an Independent candidate and was elected to the mayoral position in that capacity? Is the Minister further aware that local councillors have voted to restrict the duties of the mayor as they do not believe he can now represent the wider interests of the Wollondilly shire as a result of his deception? Will the Minister instruct the mayor to stand aside, and encourage Councillor Michael Banansik, who is widely respected by all councillors, to nominate for the position now that Phil Costa has been outed as a Labor stooge? We can only afford one Costa in this Parliament!

The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: I should say I thank the honourable member for his question, but I really think to do so would probably dignify the question too much. For a start, there is room for many more Costas. At least another one would be very useful. The honourable member's question appears to relate to matters connected with the responsibilities of the Minister for Local Government with regard to attempts by an elected council to limit the delegated authority and powers of a mayor. For want of a specific response from the Minister for Local Government, my own view is that on the surface the comment is inappropriate. I would be surprised if it is not politically motivated, given that some of the extremist mates of the Hon. Charlie Lynn dominate Liberal Party affairs in Wollondilly.

The Hon. Duncan Gay: Whose faction is he in?

The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: The Coalition has always been very confused about factions, but if they know one thing it is that one of their own parties is being subjected to a power grab by an extremist faction that has managed to string out many members opposite like turkeys awaiting Christmas, as one member of the other place suggested last week. The honourable member's question calls in part for a specific response from the Minister for Local Government. I will pass that component of the question on to the Minister, who I am sure will provide a detailed and very serious reply, and will not, unlike the Hon. Charlie Lynn, stray into political comment.

If honourable members have further questions, I suggest they place them on notice.

BURDETT STREET, HORNSBY, RESPITE FACILITY

The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: Earlier today the Hon. John Ryan asked me a question about blocked respite beds at Burdett Street in Hornsby. I advise the House that there are no blocked beds at Burdett Street. However, it is expected that one bed will be occupied by a young person, who will have an extended stay in that respite facility. That is likely to affect some other clients of the department. The department is working with families to make alternative and suitable respite arrangements.

Questions without notice concluded.

PORTS CORPORATISATION AND WATERWAYS MANAGEMENT AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Debate resumed from an earlier hour.

The Hon. TONY KELLY (Minister for Justice, Minister for Juvenile Justice, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Lands, and Minister for Rural Affairs) [5.01 p.m.], in reply: I am surprised that the Opposition claims not to have been advised about this bill. I am informed that the Opposition was advised in detail about the intent, purpose and importance of it in three separate briefings on 18 October 2006: during briefings with staff from the office of the Leader of The Nationals, Andrew Stoner, and staff from the office of the Leader of the Opposition, Peter Debnam, and during discussions with staff from the office of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Barry O'Farrell.

I am also surprised that the Hon. Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans is unhappy with the cross-bench briefing note that clearly and prominently states, "The amendment bill will … confirm the validity of consent, permits and approvals issued by NSW Maritime and its predecessors." The New South Wales Maritime Authority routinely issues approvals under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act for jetty and wharf infrastructure located below the mean high water mark in Sydney Harbour. The authority and its predecessors have long had delegated power to deal with these routine matters without the need to obtain ministerial consent for each and every approval.

I understand that while at one time the New South Wales Maritime Authority received legal advice that the delegation given by various ports Ministers was legally valid, it also is the case that there is no express statutory basis for such delegations to be made. For that reason there is some uncertainty about the legal status of past approvals that have been issued by the New South Wales Maritime Authority and its predecessors. The Government is concerned that the owners of private jetties may be exposed to opportunistic legal action by individuals who are pursuing their own hobbyhorses. The Government sees no reason why the owners of jetties should be forced to argue legal technicalities when their jetty was erected with the approval of the New South Wales Maritime Authority.

It has been a simple matter in the bill to address any ambiguity about the status of past approvals. The ambiguity applies only to relatively non-contentious approvals. Contentious approvals, such as commercial marinas, are normally handled by other consent authorities, such as councils, and are not affected by this bill. I am advised that since the current legislative framework has been in place—that is, since 1 July 1995—330 development applications have been granted by the New South Wales Maritime Authority and its predecessors and that in the same period approximately 270 permits, authorisations, approvals and notices have been granted under part 3A of the Rivers and Foreshores Improvement Act.

I am advised that in three respects this bill prevents opportunistic legal action being taken against the owners of jetties, et cetera, that have been approved in the way I have described. First, it will prevent a person from challenging an existing water-based structure on the grounds that there was no express statutory provision for a Minister to delegate the function of issuing the approval or permits to the New South Wales Maritime Authority or its predecessors. Second, it will prevent a person from making a legal challenge on the basis that the approval permit was not issued in the name of the Minister. Third, it will prevent a person from making a legal challenge on the basis that the approval permit was granted by a member of the staff of the maritime agency rather than the chief executive of the agency or the Minister of the day.

If there is any other deficiency in the approval permit, it will not be protected from legal action by any provision of this bill. The three deficiencies nominated are of such a minor technical nature that any legal challenge against a jetty or similar water-based structure on that ground would be nothing more than opportunism to advance some individual's private hobbyhorse. The Government is not prepared to allow the owners of jetties and other water-based structures to face the costs and hurdles of legal action on such spurious grounds. I commend the bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time and passed through remaining stages.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Postponement of Business

Government Business Orders of the Day Nos 2 and 3 postponed on motion by the Hon. Tony Kelly.

ELECTRICITY SUPPLY AMENDMENT (GREENHOUSE GAS ABATEMENT SCHEME) BILL

Second Reading

The Hon. TONY KELLY (Minister for Justice, Minister for Juvenile Justice, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Lands, and Minister for Rural Affairs) [5.07 p.m.], on behalf of the Hon. Michael Costa: I move:

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

• rising surface air temperatures ;

• higher subsurface ocean temperatures;

• increase in average global sea levels;

• retreating glaciers; and

• other unambiguous changes to the world's physical and biological systems.

Electricity Supply (General) Regulations 2001

The Hon. DON HARWIN [5.07 p.m.]: I lead for the Opposition in debate on the Electricity Supply Amendment (Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme) Bill. While the Opposition will not oppose the bill, I note that yet again the Government has mismanaged the passage of legislation through the Parliament. In June 2005 the then Premier, the Hon. Bob Carr, committed the State Government to extending the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme from its legislated end date of 2012 to 2020 and beyond on a rolling 15-year basis. Only now, approximately 16 months later, has legislation delivering that commitment finally emerged from the maelstrom of legislation that is being introduced in great volumes as the conclusion of the session approaches. After a delay of 16 months, last week the Government felt the need to urgently rush the legislation through the other place in less than 24 hours.

The objective of the bill is to extend the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme until such time as a national emissions scheme is implemented. In assessing the merit of trading schemes it is important to consider their cost, complexity and context. An honest and transparent disclosure of the costs and implications of the schemes must be included in any public debate. Similarly it must be understood that such trading schemes are not a comprehensive solution in themselves and that they must be integrated as part of a broader range of measures to reduce emissions.

With a balanced consideration of cost, complexity and context the Commonwealth Government has chosen not to proceed with the national emissions trading scheme released at this time, although it remains open to the introduction of such a mechanism as global circumstances change. It is my view that a national scheme would probably be the most appropriate way to go when circumstances indicate that that should be so. In the energy white paper entitled "Securing Australia's Energy Future", released in June 2004, the Federal Government commented:

Australia will not impose significant new economy-wide costs, such as emissions trading, in its greenhouse response at this stage. Such action is premature, in the absence of effective longer-term global action on climate change, and given Australia is on track to meet its Kyoto 108 per cent target. Pursuing this path in advance of an effective global response would harm Australia's competitiveness and growth with no certain climate change benefits.

Should an effective global response be in prospect, the Government will consider least-cost approaches to constraining emissions. This consideration would encompass the possible introduction of market based measures (such as an emissions trading scheme) in the longer term, noting the potential for these to lead to a better resource allocation and provide industry and individuals with the greatest flexibility in determining how best to respond.

The New South Wales Labor Government is yet to disclose what costs the New South Wales scheme will place on consumers. However, following a report on the cost to consumers of greenhouse abatement schemes issued in November last year by the Energy Retailers Association of Australia, I have some idea of the costs. The report estimates that the annual cost of electricity in the national electricity market will increase by between $707 million and $965 million per year by 2010 as a result of greenhouse gas emission abatement schemes. The report concludes that the largest average increase in prices for residential customers will be in New South Wales, with increases ranging from $41.86 to $56.10 on a total annual electricity bill of around $1,070 in 2010.

The State Labor Government also makes little comment about the broader context of the scheme. That is probably because despite a great deal of noise, spin, colour and movement, it is actually delivering very little in results. On the issue of tackling greenhouse gas emissions the Government is failing to invest in new technologies, is demonstrating no clear leadership, and is bereft of long-term vision. What has happened to the State Government's commitment to produce an energy white paper? Bob Carr made a commitment to deliver such a paper more than 18 months ago, but as yet nothing has been produced. That is in contrast to the Federal Government, which produced a comprehensive plan for addressing greenhouse gas emissions in its energy white paper and has taken a very clear lead on many energy-related issues. The Commonwealth is showing strong leadership with a balanced understanding of both cost and context.

The Federal Department of Environment and Heritage's Greenhouse Challenge Plus is an integrated scheme enabling Australian companies to form working partnerships with the Commonwealth to improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Such partnerships work towards not only reducing emissions but also accelerating the uptake of energy efficiency, integrating greenhouse issues into business decision making, and providing more consistent and accurate reporting of gas emission levels. The Federal Government also runs a scheme designed to promote and encourage the commercialisation of renewable energy as well as another for greenhouse gas abatement for large projects. The Commonwealth also engages with important global partners such as the United States of America, China and Japan in the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate.

Investment is another crucial element in any comprehensive approach to the issue of greenhouse gas emissions. It is another area in which this State Government is lagging behind the Commonwealth and other State jurisdictions. The Federal Government is supporting the development of clean coal technologies through projects such as COAL21, and the Victorian Government is spending $83 million on researching geosequestration, recognising the potential contribution such an approach to the issue could make. Frustratingly, the Iemma-Costa Government is making no such investments in the development of new technologies in New South Wales. It has failed also to provide backing to the proponents of wind farms and other renewable energy projects. The renewable energy certificates available as part of the Federal Government's Mandatory Renewable Energy Target Scheme have been used up—in other States.

Almost 40 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions produced in New South Wales comes from power generation. A 1,000 megawatt coal-powered fire station produces more than four million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent each year, equal to the exhaust emissions from more than a million motor vehicles. It is time the State Government addressed this issue seriously with a detailed, comprehensive plan. Of course, if the State Government were really serious about effectively and meaningfully reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it would not pursue water supply management strategies for Sydney that require enormous amounts of electricity and thus more emissions. Unwilling to pursue environmentally responsible solutions to our State's water crisis, such as large-scale recycling and stormwater harvesting, the Iemma-Costa Government insists on pumping vast quantities of water from the Shoalhaven. That approach to the situation not only damages the ecology of the river but also requires significant amounts of electricity to power the pumping of water from the Tallowa Dam on the floor of the Kangaroo Valley to a height of more than 300 metres up the mountain to Fitzroy Falls.

The production of such electricity, as I have said, is the major cause of greenhouse gas emissions in New South Wales. The much touted desalination plant, which has been shelved but not ruled out, would make even greater demands on our energy supply. I ask honourable members to bear in mind that the proposed new regime of Shoalhaven water transfers, outlined in the discussion paper, would consume almost as much electricity and produce also as much greenhouse gas emissions as would a desalination plant because of the vast electricity cost of pumping water from Fitzroy Falls to Avon Dam.

It is extremely difficult to take seriously the State Government's rhetoric about reducing greenhouse gas emissions when at the same time its solutions to the water crisis demand more electricity—because, in turn, that would inevitably result in more emissions. That is a clear demonstration of a government that does not have a comprehensive, integrated and internally consistent plan for the management of the State. An effective and practical way of addressing greenhouse gas emissions is through a reduced dependence on fossil fuels and the adoption of alternatives, particularly biofuels. The Federal Government and the State Opposition have been advocates for biofuels for a long time and I particularly acknowledge the strong leadership of Peter Debnam and Andrew Stoner.

The Coalition long ago recognised the benefits of ethanol and has actively encouraged its adoption on many occasions, often without the support of the State Government. Ethanol reduces vehicle emissions, and it burns cleanly. When blended with fuel it dramatically reduces pollutant levels. A renewable resource, ethanol consumption also offers economic as well as environmental benefits. Fixed supply agreements provide growers with alternative and stable incomes and allow for the diversification of the regional industry base.

The Coalition recently made a commitment to expand ethanol usage to 10 per cent by 2011 through a strong marketing plan in co-operation with key industry groups and an upgrading of production and distribution infrastructure. The Leader of the Liberal Party, Peter Debnam, in his address to the NRMA Motoring and Services Alternative Fuels Summit, described ethanol as:

… a win-win for motorists, farmers and the community in New South Wales, where we have the worst air pollution in Australia and the highest cost burden on every family.

He explained that:

… greater use of ethanol-blended fuel would provide a more secure income for our farmers, decrease our reliance on imported petroleum products, result in lower fuel prices for motorists, create jobs in regional areas and reduce cancer-causing pollution.

It is a shame that the State Labor Government is not taking such a firm leadership position on the role that alternative fuels can play in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. I note that in recent weeks the private sector is seizing the initiative. In late September BP negotiated a deal with the Manildra company to provide three million litres of ethanol over the 12 months from 1 November. In announcing the deal the company cited the Federal Government's 2010 national biofuels target as a major incentive. BP is hoping to surpass the target by at least one year. Around the same time Holden Australia announced it would be attaching ethanol-friendly labelling to all its new cars while the Manildra group launched an education campaign on the benefits of ethanol.

It is a shame that the State Government is not undertaking such an education campaign, or that it is not taking more positive action to accelerate the adoption of ethanol. For example, incentives to ensure the availability of E10 in more service stations across the State would be welcome. The Coalition's action plan sets a target of 500 service stations selling E10 by 2011. The absence of investment and leadership by the State Government stands in sharp contrast to the positive relationship at a Federal level. It is a terrific example of the way in which government and industry can co-operate in the development of new technologies that contribute to the meaningful reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Manildra, located at Bomaderry near Nowra on the State's South Coast, is the largest industrial user and processor of Australian wheat for industrial and food purposes. In 2000 the group was successful in securing a grant of $1 million from the Federal Government under the Renewable Energy Commercialisation Program for the commercial demonstration of technologies with the capacity to deliver major reductions in energy use and produce greater cost efficiencies. As part of its management of the high volumes of effluent starch waste, Manildra successfully designed, developed and commissioned the most advanced starch-based ethanol distillery in the world. By integrating ethanol production operations into its processes, Manildra has been able to reduce the cost of producing a litre of ethanol by approximately 26 per cent.

The plant at Bomaderry is a fantastic example of a cost-effective, world-class technology development that can result from investment in research and development by a government-industry partnership. I know how much Federal member Joanna Gash and State member Shelley Hancock have put into the success of that partnership and how much they have worked to increase the awareness of the benefits of ethanol to both the general public and industry. I pay tribute to both of them. I also pay tribute to Manildra, a great corporate citizen in the Shoalhaven, and congratulate it on its biofuels leadership, which ultimately is in Australia's national interest.

As I said at the outset, the effective reduction of greenhouse gas emissions relies on a sound understanding of both cost and context. The Federal Government has developed a plan that is balanced and comprehensive, but the State Government is yet to show the same leadership, particularly in investment. The Coalition does not oppose the extension of the State's Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme, although it believes that its results are limited, and it is concerned that the actual economic costs of the program to consumers are yet to be disclosed. The Coalition does not oppose the bill but notes that it is long past time that the State Government developed a sophisticated, integrated and cost-effective approach to greenhouse gas emissions. The Coalition will not support amendments to a less than perfect bill; it will legislate for a better approach in government.

Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES [5.24 p.m.]: On behalf of the Christian Democratic Party I speak to the Electricity Supply Amendment (Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme) Bill, which amends the Electricity Supply Act 20002 to extend the duration of the New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme from 2012 to 2021 and to introduce steeper financial penalties for violations from the current level of $11.50 to $15.50 per tonne of carbon dioxide, adjusted regularly for the consumer price index over four equal rises. I wholeheartedly commend those purposes.

The bill seeks to extend the duration of the New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme from 2012 to 2021. The bill addresses carbon emissions produced mainly by electricity generators, retailers and other large electricity traders who are all called benchmark participants. Approximately 40 per cent of the greenhouse gases emitted in our State originate from these sources. These benchmark participants have set greenhouse gas emission benchmarks under the Electricity Supply Act 2002, for which financial penalties apply, if and when these targets are exceeded. The Christian Democratic Party approves of these increased financial penalties to give economic disincentives to companies that generate high-emitting electricity. The bill, however, does not reduce the overall emission target for the electricity sector, which in reality has undergone rapid growth in recent years. The continuing target of the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme is set at 5 per cent below the emissions that were emitted in 1990. That target has not yet been reached. By 2007 it is expected by the Environment Liaison Office to be exceeded by eight million tonnes, or the equivalent of 1.3 million vehicles.

The fact behind the spin is that emissions continue to rise on the back of an incredible boom in the sector, mainly powered by brand new coal-fired plants. These questions need to be asked: When, if ever, will the Government achieve the set overall emissions target? Does the Government have a year in mind when that goal will be achieved? Will it be 2015, 2025 or 2035? And when will it occur? I suspect, because of this Government's commitment to perpetuating coal-fired power, we will not see any abatement in emission levels for a long time—certainly not in my lifetime. New coal-fired power plants continue to be planned and to be built, each with a lifespan of decades.

Unfortunately, from my point of view—the view of someone who is committed and who acknowledges the reality of climate change—the Government's greenhouse policy is like the Roman God Janus: remarkably two-faced. The first, green, face heralds the Government's Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme. However, simultaneously, the opposing second face is covered in grubby black soot, with its commitment to polluting coal-fired power as opposed to nuclear or other zero emissions technologies such as solar or wind. Today in question time the Minister for Mineral Resources, the Hon. Ian Macdonald, lauded the Government's record in developing the coal industry. He proudly told the Chamber that coal exploration had doubled in New South Wales in the past six months, and he referred to the importance of further increasing the mining of coal.

Can the Government claim that it is tackling emissions when, to cite just one example, the Moolarben coal project is going ahead in the Mudgee region, which includes one underground mine and three open cut mines, and which will excavate 127 million tonnes of coal? That amount of coal will put approximately 330 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. If that were not enough, the exploration licence granted by the Government allows the mines to have their very own purpose-built coal-fired power station, which in itself would put 382 million kilograms of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The mine itself and the coal that it produces for the world will continue to produce emissions for a period longer than the four to 22 years that the mine will be operational.

The Government's attitude appears to be the attitude adopted by the Victorian Government many years ago. The then Premier, Henry Bolte, when asked about the enormous amount of pollution being put into the air through the brown coal electricity producing stations in Yallourn, made the remarkable comment, "Don't worry about this kind of atmospheric pollution, it will all blow away." Perhaps the Government thinks it can maintain its green image if it increases the mining and exporting of coal to the world. As long as that coal is not burnt on its back doorstep, it will just blow away. This discreetly ignores the fact that our home-grown coal burnt here, in China, in India, or anywhere else for that matter, contributes just the same as it would to the very nature of the global problem. Morris Iemma is intent on following Peter Beattie in this regard because they both realise the dollar value in their coal reserves on the international market. However, the difference is that Peter Beattie does not pretend to be a greenie on climate change.

The goalposts have changed. The debate is no longer about whether climate change is occurring; everyone has agreed that it is. Coal producers have admitted as much, as have the oil companies and the countries that have not signed the Kyoto agreement, including Australia and the United States of America. Hence, it is no longer good enough simply to acknowledge that climate change is real and think that makes one "green". The debate is now about how severe climate change will be, how soon its consequences will be felt and what exactly governments should do to respond to it. When it comes to the fine print, this Government continues the green spin while daily taking decisions that perpetuate New South Wales's booming greenhouse gas emissions for the next two generations.

The Christian Democratic Party supports the bill because we believe in continuing the Government's Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme that was initiated in 2002 and because we believe the scheme is prudent in the light of climate change and to reduce our reliance on coal-fired power. However, our support for the bill certainly should not be interpreted as approval of the Government's two-faced record on climate change or support for greenhouse gas emitting, coal-fired power.

The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS [5.30 p.m.]: The Electricity Supply Amendment (Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme) Bill addresses an important issue that the Australian Democrats take very seriously. We believe we must do everything we can to solve the problem of global warming. We are seeing it happen right now. More frequent and extreme weather patterns, melting polar ice caps, moving ice masses in Greenland and rising sea temperatures are realities. We are currently experiencing the worst drought on record. Those who have visited country New South Wales will appreciate the problems that the drought is causing in this State.

The earth's surface temperature rose 0.6 degrees centigrade during the twentieth century and scientists expect the average global temperature to increase by an additional two to six degrees in the next 100 years. This will mean disaster for humanity, a loss of plant and animal species, failed crops, rising sea levels and scarce water resources. It is difficult to believe the many tonnes of coal and the billions of barrels of oil—which were created over thousands of years—that are being expended so rapidly would make no difference to the world's ecosystem. The idea that that huge release of carbon would have no effect is almost absurd. Yet there are those who persist in believing that is the case and who, for venal reasons, attempt to perpetuate that belief.

If ever there were an absolute nonsense idea, the sequestration of carbon dioxide is it. Everyone knows that carbon dioxide in water fizzes out as soon as the pressure is released. It is also a fact that carbon dioxide in water disassociates to carbonic acid—HC0₃ plus H+—and that acidic change affects PH levels or may come out of the solution later. The idea that simply pumping it underground to make it go away is a nonsense. That would be admitted immediately were the process not favoured by the coal industry, which has enormous political power. I will draw an analogy with tobacco. Tobacco smoking killed thousands of people but the tobacco companies responded by calling for more research as a delaying tactic. That is what is happening with greenhouse gas emissions.

The tobacco industry's liars for hire developed public disinformation into an art form. The lessons learned from the tobacco lobby about running disinformation campaigns are evident in all areas of political life—which is why I return continually to this subject. Politicians have learned simply to deny what is obviously true and then claim that the issue is controversial, that no conclusion about it has been reached and that therefore the situation is uncertain. In that manner that which is true becomes, through the transmogrification of a bare-faced lie, untrue or controversial. I think the arguments about carbon dioxide and sequestration are now so far fetched that they rival the stories circulated by the tobacco industry.

Most scientists conclude that the evidence is getting stronger and that most of the global warming that has occurred in the past 50 years is attributable to human activity, such as burning fossil fuels and the corresponding deforestation, which caused emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The groundbreaking CSIRO report commissioned by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs entitled "Future Dilemmas" reveals that we are consuming energy at unsustainable levels. It is widely acknowledged that electricity generation accounts for a large chunk of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions at 33 per cent of the total output. Some 96 per cent of our energy comes from coal and only 4 per cent from other sources, including renewable sources.

I buy clean energy—and pay more for the privilege in my electricity bill—and I have noted with some discouragement that about 72 per cent or 78 per cent of all clean energy comes from burned forest floor waste, not renewable sources. Renewable sources include hydroelectricity, and I always wonder what volume of water was pumped in the middle of the night by carbon-fired systems. But I gather that the electricity generators may count hydroelectricity in only one part of the system.

I am also interested in demand management. I live in a flat that is identical to the flat on the floor above me. We have the same electrical and hot water systems. I was interested to find that simply by turning off the electric booster on my solar heater—it is not required for about 90 per cent of the year—and changing my light bulbs to energy-efficient globes I used half the electricity consumed by my neighbour. Identical households can halve their energy usage simply by turning off the hot water booster, using the airconditioner less and installing energy-efficient light bulbs. That says something about the importance of human behaviour—certainly in the domestic sphere in New South Wales—and the possibilities of education about energy conservation.

The greenhouse gas abatement scheme was established to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production and use of electricity. The scheme focused mainly on the electricity sector. Electricity generation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in New South Wales, accounting for 54 million tonnes, or 35 per cent, of the State's economy-wide emissions. Indeed, it should be noted that when the legislation was introduced in 1999 and was subsequently amended in 2002 I moved a number of amendments designed to strengthen the bills and to introduce a levy. The Government was most reluctant to introduce a levy—and indeed did not do so for some years. The scheme is meant to encourage participation in activities intended to offset the production of greenhouse gases and enforce a penalty regime designed to create incentives for retailers and large customers to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In July 2006 the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Research Economics [ABARE] released a report about climate change technology. In the report ABARE noted:

It was referring to the enhanced technology scenarios that ABARE examined in the report. In its reference case global greenhouse gas emissions were predicted to increase by about 76 per cent in the period 2001 to 2030, from approximately 9.4 Gt C-e—gigatonnes carbon-equivalent—in 2001 to 16.6 Gt C-e in 2030. By 2050 global greenhouse gas emissions are predicted to reach about 22.7 Gt C-e. However, Australia is currently enjoying the financial benefits of the resources boom—particularly in Western Australia and Queensland—of which coalmining is obviously an important part. Earnings from Australia's commodity exports are forecast to rise by 14 per cent to $140 billion in 2006-07 according to the September issue of the ABARE Australian commodities report.

The value of Australia's mineral and energy exports is forecast to be approximately $108 billion in 2004-05, a rise of 18 per cent from $92 billion in 2005-06. Coking coal is the biggest export earner, increasing 59 per cent from $6,318 million in 2005 to $17,076 million in June 2006. But the State Government keeps nudging to build new coal-fired power stations, with recent announcements of major coal exports to China, and BHP Billiton if pushing hard to expand its coalmining operations under the Nepean River.

It might be noted that involves a lot of longwall mining, which, effectively, is a wall that moves along underground as the roof of the mine collapses behind it. It is as if there is a total extraction. As the overburden—that is the rock and soil between the mine and the sky—falls behind the mining wall, cracks occur all the way from the mine to the surface. Water from the surface will go down through those cracks to the level of the mine. Effectively all the layers of the aquifers that were strata-ed like a layered cake are broken as if someone had made numerous vertical cuts of the cake.

Generally those aquifers are very important for flows of water. The whole lot is destroyed with longwall mining and becomes one layer down to the level of the mine stratum. Potentially that could mean the river and all its surface water disappear to a new level. The levels of water in most land systems are analogous to a sponge. A sponge can be tipped and water does not immediately fall, but lags. If the area is cut all the way down it will pool at the lowest point, which means that the higher ground has no water and will be turned into a desert. That is the trade-off between our coalmining and our long-term sustainable agriculture in many areas. The fight over water rights and accessibility, particularly in the blacksoil plains near Gunnedah—some of our most productive lands—are totally threatened by longwall mining because of cracks from the surface to the mine level.

A huge open-cut hole, such as in the Anvil Hill development in the Hunter Valley, cuts through all the layers of all the aquifers and the water flows to the central point. Indeed, I am told that cutting through strata for mining at the Mangrove Mountain area west of Gosford will wreck the water tables. Honourable members have to ask what the effect will be on the land from which the coal is extracted. Shareholders in BHP Billiton or other big mining companies can happily look at their dividends and see their share price increasing—and thank all those hardworking Chinese! However, if they want to look at our country's long-term interest they have to look again. This country has technology, particularly developing solar cells and solar hot water systems, but it is squandering its technological advantage by putting its money into coal loaders and putting its agricultural industries at risk for a quick buck. We must think beyond all the money we make from coal exports.

It would seem, with this Government's imminent approval of the Anvil Hill mine, and its general cargo-cult mentality of everything for the future and no insistence on higher targets, that at one level it has introduced this legislation and at another it is selling as much coal as it can. The support of John Howard for nuclear energy is also very disturbing. I am amazed that the media has not expressed more outrage at some quick energy results in a half-life of the tailings and waste of 240,000 years.

The bill amends part 8A of the Electricity Supply Act 1995 extending the operation of the New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme from 2012 to 2021, or until a national emissions trading scheme is established before 2021. With the Federal Government's stance on Kyoto, it may be that nothing will happen before 2021. Hopefully the Howard Government will fall soon and there will be a more enlightened policy in Canberra. In his second reading speech in the Legislative Assembly Joe Tripodi said that without this bill the New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme would end in 2012, leaving business without the certainty it needs to invest. He stated:

The Government has reviewed the penalty required to maintain the incentive to reduce emissions from electricity retailers, and will increase the penalty from its current level of $11-50 to $15-50 per tonne of carbon dioxide in four equal steps of $1 each, starting in 2010 and ending in 2013. I suspect that those penalties have not been collected and that supposedly modest targets have been set and agreed, within which it is an incentive to stay. The bill also contains a consequential amendment to the Electricity Supply (General) Regulations 2001 to ensure that both the current and new penalties will be adjusted correctly for inflation in accordance with movements in the consumer price index. In the Legislative Assembly Joe Tripodi said:

That is fine, but on the other hand the Commonwealth Government has refused to do so and this Government, with its coal exports and lack of mandatory support for things like solar power, is trying to play both sides of the equation. Certainly the damage that will be caused by excessive exportation of coal will far outweigh the good that will result from acceptance of this bill. The scheme administrator is required to keep a register of accredited abatement certificate providers and a register of greenhouse abatement certificates. I would like a reassurance from the Minister in reply that the problem of multiple registration of abatement certificates has been solved, but I wonder whether I will get it. The bill will also allow the scheme administrator to make available consolidated information compiled from the registers. The Minister said:

This will improve market transparency and correct an anomaly whereby members of the public could compile and publish this type of information but the Scheme Administrator could not. As greenhouse abatement certificates cannot be registered until after they have been created, information compiled from the register will reflect past events, not current ones.

As far back as 2000 I argued that reporting transparency is lacking and the lack of publicly available data often makes it difficult to assess how a particular project created New South Wales greenhouse abatement certificates, and the likelihood that the underlying emission reduction activity was additional. I raised this issue with a former Minister for Utilities, Kim Yeadon, and with Treasury in 2000. In 2005, during debate on a similar bill, I referred to research by the University of New South Wales Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets, which produced an analysis of the New South Wales Gas Abatement Scheme Certificate Registry for the 2003 compliance period. The key findings of this impressive think tank, comprising the Faculty of Engineering, the Faculty of Commerce and Economics, and the Australian Graduates School of Management, were that most 2003 New South Wales Greenhouse Abatement Certificate [NGACs] came from just a few types of projects.

First, waste coalmine gas and landfill gas projects were the main sources of New South Wales greenhouse gas abatement certificates for 2003, registering just over two-thirds of the total between them. Together with natural gas-fired plant they made up just under 84 per cent of the total, and these three with coal-fired plants made up just under 92 per cent of the total. Second, project accreditations for 2004 included more waste coalmine gas, landfill, demand site abatement, bagasse and fossil-fuel power stations as well as two new activities—sequestration projects and large user abatement certificates. Third, just over 40 per cent of the 2003 abatement certificates were from projects located outside New South Wales. Effectively, this means New South Wales taxpayers were subsidising abatements in other States. It goes on:

The Government also has moved amendments in this bill preventing the double counting of abatement certificates. This is an issue I have asked the Government to address in this Chamber on numerous occasions. Each time the Government has fobbed me off. I am asking it again, as I did earlier in this speech. I quote again:

The Environmental Liaison Office claims the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme has actually prevented New South Wales from achieving 5 per cent below the 1990 emissions target, and that without changing this target, emissions will exceed the target by 8 million tonnes, which is the equivalent of 1.3 million cars. The Environmental Liaison Office proposed that a new emissions target should be set by this bill at 20 per cent below 1990 levels, and that the new target should to be achieved by 2020. I refer to the Total Environment Centre and the Nature Conservation Council submission on extending the New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme Draft Policy Paper dated the 28 September 2006:

1. The Target

₂

2. Renewable Energy Target

3. Penalty

4. Additionality

Sunset clause

Mandatory requirements

5. Physical Emissions

In July 2006 the Australian Bureau for Agricultural Resource Economics stated in a report on technology on climate change:

Greenhouse gas emissions are expected to increase substantially by mid-century, given projected increases in global population and economic activity and continued reliance on fossil fuels to meet energy demands.

To be environmentally effective, any policy framework that aims to address climate change must involve major emitters, that includes polices by the rapidly growing developing countries. However, for most developing countries, climate change is not a primary concern given their more immediate concerns about poverty alleviation and economic development. As such, engaging developing countries on the climate issue is politically challenging and must be undertaken in the context of recognising the importance of developmental goals while simultaneously encouraging reductions in emissions. Technological development will be crucial to achieving significant mitigation in emissions growth while simultaneously allowing countries to pursue improvements in energy security and attain their economic and social development goals.

However, the development and uptake of low emissions technologies is associated with several cost and non-cost barriers, including high capital costs, pricing inefficiencies, lack of subsidiary markets and free-riding issues. Massive deployment of low and near zero emissions technologies would be required, greatly exceeding the degree of technological deployment considered currently. With the amount of money being made from the current resource boom, I doubt the commitment of any government to sacrifice short material gain to save us all from the long-term pain of global warming. While this bill is to be supported, I must say that I think it is a lot of huffing and puffing for not as much environmental benefit as we might have hoped for.

We really need a continuing and better-thought-out commitment to demand management in electricity, zero emission and sustainable electricity generation, as well as a commitment to transport objectives and policies that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I regard that as extremely important. It involves both fast rail and heavy rail to take trucks off the roads, and it involves wind power, solar power, perhaps even tidal power. Indeed, it requires a much different approach from that which this Government has taken. At the moment the Government is attempting to play both sides of the fence, approving large coalmines and small greenhouse gas abatement schemes.

The Hon. JON JENKINS [6.01 p.m.]: I have listened to the debate with some interest because I have a long-standing interest in climate change. Before I commence my contribution, I want to correct a couple of inaccuracies. Some speakers have said that Australia is in drought. Australia is not in drought. If one were to go to the Bureau of Meteorology web site, one would see the 10-year anomalies for rainfall. The south-east corner of Australia is in drought, a terrible drought; parts of New South Wales have received grossly less than normal rainfall. But the vast majority of Australia is not in drought. In fact, Western Australia was caught out in a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald. The vast majority of Australia has had either average or above average rainfall and it is only the south-east corner of our country that is in the grips of this terrible drought.

Reference has been made to the use of alternative sources of energy in our homes—solar hot water, long-lasting light bulbs and those sorts of things. In my view, one stumbling block to progress is the lack of government regulation in encouraging people to make their own houses as efficient as possible. I have often referred in this House to the fact that there are no regulations requiring the efficient design of houses and the use of proper installation, solar hot water and the like.

I commence by saying that some members may find some of my comments controversial, but political decisions based on the scientific theory of greenhouse gas and its effects on global warming will have long-term effects on the economy and the energy industry. Various groups, for political ends, have hijacked the debate concerning global climate change and the naturally occurring phenomena of climate change. A debate on climate change is important because governments are making decisions founded on assumptions based on the validity of one theory. Those policies will have long-range economic, political and financial implications. The climate change lobby deliberately confuses the difference between believing in climate change and believing in the cause of climate change. They class people who have some doubts about the anthropogenic nature of climate change as climate change sceptics. Let me put it on the record: climate change has always happened, climate change is happening and climate change will continue to happen in the future, regardless of human interference.

A few thousand years ago, the place where we are standing now would have been under the ocean. I do not know how much above sea level we are, but the ocean was 20 or 30 metres higher than it currently is and the seashore would have been somewhere around Parramatta. A few thousand years before that, Aborigines would have hunted kangaroo on the Great Barrier Reef, which would have been a sandy plain beside the sea. Places such as New York were under several kilometres of ice. Climate change is a naturally occurring event and it will continue to happen regardless of what we do. There is a deliberate campaign of misinformation. Our whole civilisation of the last 2000 years has occurred in a very recent period of earth's existence. When human civilisation evolved in the Nile delta, the area was a rainforest; it is now a desert. Climate change has occurred naturally and will continue to occur, and the misinformation that we can somehow prevent climate change is just bull!
One third of all Australian greenhouse gas emissions come from electricity production, most of it from burning coal. Coal is cheap and will remain in supply even after oil and gas supplies are depleted in approximately 100 years. Anyone can do a back-of-the-envelope calculation of our current oil usage and our known reserves. No doubt other members of this House have received some of these silly emails about how long oil reserves will last. In around 50 to 100 years we will run out of oil. The United States of America power providers, and China, are amongst the international community expanding coal-fired power stations. Australia has not ratified the Kyoto Convention. However, Australia wants to appear to be working to meet the Kyoto target and is introducing policies to reduce greenhouse gases by approximately 60 per cent by the middle of this century as an economywide target, compared with 2000 levels.

Investments in the energy sector will automatically be affected, bearing in mind the lead times for energy investment in baseline plant run for many tens of years. It takes a significant amount of time to develop environmental policies for power plants, and then to build the heavy infrastructure that is required. The uncertainty of climate change policy increases risk for investors and will cause delays in investment until a national policy is clearly defined. I suppose I am directing criticism at the Federal Government because we need a clear policy. But I understand the difficulty in determining a clear policy because some of the science underlying this is not certain. Companies that do not cut emissions sufficiently can buy a credit, and that will not resolve the issue of gas emissions. Whilst increasing the penalty for participants is a good idea, voluntary efforts and offset projects by companies should be given credit without excluding projects that began prior to the GGAS scheme, and those credits need to be well documented.

The Australian Federal Government bases its climate change policy on advice from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC]. The IPCC is a political, not a scientific, organisation. In fact, the document often quoted as being the IPCC report is not the IPCC report at all; it is the summary made by politicians of a scientific report. Anyone who takes the time to read the scientific report of the IPCC will find that it bears little resemblance to the summary report that is quoted by politicians. The global warming lobby has prevailed, despite the fact that a large sector of the scientific community remains unconvinced that significant human-caused global climate change is happening.

Some would say that the scientific debate on climate change is over, but that is simply not true. I will read the House some examples from the most recent climate change meeting in Stockholm, Sweden. Apart from a few exceptions, such as Jim Hansen, very few climatologists predict cataclysmic climate change. Rather, the media is confronted with an array of social engineers intent on using climate change as a tool to enact all sorts of social change. I digress a moment. I often quote the former Canadian Environment Minister—I think her name is Christine Milne—who is on the record as saying that it does not matter if the science of climate change is phoney, because it is the best way to achieve social justice and equity in the world. What a stunning statement, and unfortunately that is what a large part of the climate change debate is about.

I will provide the House with a quick review of a report from the latest meeting of international climatologists in Stockholm. The meeting was held in September, which is literally just a month or so ago. The science discussed at the meeting did nothing to reinforce the apocalyptic climate message in presentations such as Mr Gore's film but, rather, mostly contradicted it. The 11 to 12 September meeting, "Climate Change—Scientific Controversies in Climate Variability", was held at Stockholm's Royal Institute of Technology [KTH], which is Sweden's leading science and technology university, and was hosted by the institute's president. Its very title tells us that the issue is not settled among scientists. An audience of approximately 120 people from 14 countries heard various accounts of climate-change science rather than disaster-movie scenarios.

The conference's organiser, Professor Peter Stilbs, took care to invite a reasonably balanced range of speakers, including persons who argue that the key issue is adaptation to the dangers of natural climate change, including the threat of another ice age—which I will deal with later—and supporters of the view that dangerous human-caused warming is already upon us and that no expense should be spared in its mitigation. Those on the global warming anthropogenic side of the argument included Professor Bert Bolin, who is the first Chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC]. As though to demonstrate the way that emotion has replaced logic and rationale, in an extraordinary outburst against a speaker who was discussing the carbon cycle, Professor Bolin suggested that the speaker might improve his knowledge if he consulted a textbook. Professor Bolin threatened to withdraw from the meeting. Happily, others who were present at the meeting were undeterred, and the meeting continued.

Leading climate modellers Professor Hans von Storch and Professor Lennart Bengtsson described the attribution studies used by the IPCC to recognise the fingerprint of human-caused warming, but the computer models omitted certain climate forcings. Few at the meeting seemed convinced that they had significant predictive or attribution quality. The former research director of the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, Professor Sten Bergstrom, described the many vicissitudes of recent natural climate changes in Sweden that have included the presence of a more than one kilometre thick covering of ice as recently as 20,000 years ago over much of the country. When commenting about the difficulty of distinguishing possible human-caused changes from natural variability, Professor Bergstrom's conclusion was that the main problem is adaptation to today's climate. His view resonated strongly with many who were in the audience.

Many other feet-on-the-ground science results were discussed at the meeting—for example, the remarkable fact that global average temperature has been static since 1998, despite increasing carbon dioxide emissions. The realisation was not lost on many attendees that if current predictions are true, we cannot have static or falling temperatures. It was also noted that the short period of late twentieth century warming preceding this stasis, which was approximately 0.4 degrees Celsius, took place at a rate and to a magnitude that lies within natural climate variability. Contrary claims, including those of the IPCC, were based largely on the hockey stick or spaghetti diagram statistical depictions of climate history that have been completely and thoroughly scientifically discredited, as explained to the meeting by the Canadian mathematician Steve McIntyre.

Several presentations contributed to a strong impression that the global greenhouse gas cycle is inadequately understood with the result that we cannot determine whether all these significant sources, sinks and flows of greenhouse gases are known accurately enough to assess human causation. For example, in 2006 alone, trees, a new source for methane, which is also a major greenhouse gas, and a new sink, desert sand grains, were described for the first time at the KTH meeting by Dr Peter Stakalos. Because Scandinavian countries have a particular interest in climate events that affect the nearby Arctic polar region, which has been referred to during this debate, the Stockholm conference received a detailed briefing on recent warming that has occurred in the Artic region and in Sweden. The briefing was provided by Professor Erland Kallen, the Director of Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, who noted that late twentieth century Arctic warming does not exceed earlier warmings in magnitude, such as the one that peaked in the 1930s.

Despite all public alarmism that surrounds climate warming, the recent warming may have had an entirely natural cause. What overall conclusions may be drawn from the Stockholm meeting? From the papers presented, it is clear that the alarmist case for dangerous global warming rests on circumstantial evidence, inaccurate computer models and political activism. It is premature to conclude, as have member countries of the European Economic Community and other Kyoto signatories, that modern industrial carbon dioxide emissions pose the predicted grave hazard to the planet. It is entirely likely that warming produced by emissions may serve as a useful counterbalance to future climatic coolings that are bound to develop. For the information of honourable members, I note in this regard that the Russian Academy of Science has issued warnings of a forthcoming ice age, not warnings related to global warming. The proposition that climate-change science is conclusive and that all scientists agree, end of story, is simply not true. There are rabid scientists on both sides of the argument over which way the earth's climate will go. The simple fact is that we do not know.

Carbon taxes and other measures that are based upon the supposition that dangerous global warming is under way are quite unable to be justified on the basis of scientific evidence. This conclusion stands, even though we may invoke the precautionary principle, because our knowledge of natural climate changes tells us that future climate cooling remains at least as strong a hazard as is twentieth century warming. Australians and Americans have every reason to appreciate why their governments have eschewed the Kyoto accord and have been encouraging the development of the Asia-Pacific climate agreement: those governments have put the interests of their citizens ahead of speculative political do-gooding that leans toward expensive and ineffectual climate mitigation.

IPCC activity has been focused on comparing contemporary climate change with climate change that has occurred over the past 1,000 to 2,000 years. In geological terms of millions of years, that is simply too short and atypical a period from which to seek to understand climate change. Scientific data from sediment cores from beneath the deep-sea floor and from ice cores throughout Greenland and Antarctic ice caps have led to the following generally agreed inferences. Over the past 600,000 years, substantial glacial and interglacial oscillations have occurred on the 100,000-year scale. For more than 90 per cent of that time, the earth's mean temperature was cooler—much cooler than it is now—by about 0.05 degrees. Warm interglacial periods comprised less than 10 per cent of the time and on average lasted only 10,000 years. Our whole civilisation and modern society have developed during the warmest interglacial period, known as the Holocene period, that already has lasted 10,000 years. Superimposed on these longer-term climatic cycles are short-term cyclic isolations on all scales, such as sunspot cycles and several smaller 2,000 to 5,000 year cycles of unknown origin, albeit related to the earth's orbit and other celestial activity, and episodes of abrupt climate change occurring across almost the full glacial-interglacial range in a period ranging from as short as a few years to a few decades. We do not know the cause of abrupt climate changes, but we know they occurred because the evidence exists in geological records.

The Hon. Peter Breen: Volcanoes?

The Hon. JON JENKINS: Possibly. We simply do not know. However, if that had occurred, there would be sedimentary evidence in the ice cores, but there is no evidence. Changes in temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide, which can be measured in ice cores, occur in close parallels over both annual and long-term glacial-interglacial periods that are neither particularly high nor particularly fast changing. Indeed, temperatures in Antarctica for the three interglacial periods that preceded the Holocene were respectively approximately 5, 4 and 6 degrees warmer than today's temperatures. In other words, in the previous three warming periods, the Arctic region was 5, 4 and 6 degrees warmer than it is currently. Global average temperature has been reasonably static since 1998, despite increasing carbon dioxide emissions. Late twentieth century Arctic warming does not exceed earlier natural warmings in magnitude, as the peak that occurred in 1930 shows. The earth's geological record contains many examples of sharp temperature changes of 1 degree or more over periods as short as several years or several decades.

The Hon. Peter Breen: We have not reduced carbon dioxide.

The Hon. JON JENKINS: I acknowledge the interjection. Carbon dioxide has been present in the earth's atmosphere in orders of magnitude that are higher than it is at the present time.

The Hon. Peter Breen: Yes, but it had been reducing consistently for millions of years. We have stopped that reduction, that process. That is what we have done in the current age.

The Hon. JON JENKINS: Carbon dioxide has been present in orders of magnitude higher than it is currently, and we did not have runaway temperatures. General climate models are mere experimental tools that are based on linear models. Climate change policy is fundamentally flawed because it is based on uncertain models. Climate change science is so uncertain that we cannot predict accurately even 10 years in advance, let alone 100 years, whether average global temperatures will rise, as predicted by some computer models, or fall, as predicted by others. According to one computer model, the chaos theory, weather is a complex system with so many underlying variables that a computer system may not be able to reliably predict it.

Having put my thoughts on the record about climate change I will return to the main thrust of the Electricity Supply Amendment (Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme) Bill. The greenhouse gas abatement scheme allows a market mechanism by allowing trading of energy credits. That has several advantages including the advantage of allowing the market to seek out the lowest-cost ways of achieving any particular emissions cap. Firms are liable to be willing to pay for permits if internal costs of reduction are higher than the price of permits. The scheme allows a variety of technologies to be adapted to commercial competitiveness. Limited permits to emit greenhouse gases provide an in-built mechanism for adjustment assistance. The scheme can facilitate trading in future emission permits and its penalties encourage compliance.

However, there is a cost, as always. The cost for the Commonwealth, the New South Wales and the Queensland schemes respectively are $40, $14.30 and $13.10 per megawatt hour. The Victorian scheme's default penalty charge is an indexed $43 per megawatt hour. By 2010, when the schemes are at full maturity based on those premiums, the estimated annual cost in today's dollars is $222 million in New South Wales; $68 million in Queensland, which has a higher gas content; $146 million in Victoria; and the Commonwealth's Mandatory Renewable Energy Target Scheme will be about $380 million.

Those co-existing different regulatory regimes merely complicate the picture and add to investment uncertainty about future regulatory regimes. The technological techniques that power providers use to implement carbon dioxide capture and storage [CCS], or geological sequestration, are commercially available. However, electricity producers have not incorporated that technology when building power plants, but across the world they are building power plants that use conventional steam facilities that they say are carbon dioxide capture ready and are waiting for such time as the CCS is officially mandated.

The United Kingdom Government is about to officially recognise that there is an economic cost of pumping carbon emissions into the earth rather than the air with the release of the Stern review, which is expected to conclude that climate change policies need to promote long-term solutions rather than short-term solutions. However, the uncertainty of the situation with respect to national policy is counter-productive to long-term investment. It takes between five and ten years to get approval, to gather the necessary contracts and the preliminary requirements to build a power station. Presumably the power station will have a life expectancy of between 20 and 30 years. I have detailed already that almost every generator in New South Wales is very close to the end of its life. Yet, we have no long-term certainly about what power companies are expected to do with their power generation technology.

The bill does not solve any long-term issues; it has a short-term approach to problems. Market analysis of the first phase of the European Union's carbon emissions trading system found that the European Union is unlikely to meet its Kyoto Protocol emissions targets. The gas trading schemes have provided large profits for power generators that have no net effect on greenhouse emissions. The combined European Union 15 emissions were only 0.9 per cent below the 1990 levels, so those countries are way below their target of cutting greenhouse gas pollution by 8 per cent by 2012—they simply will not make it. That is the biggest failure of Kyoto: no-one was ever going to meet the targets.

Global population is increasing and so is the demand for electricity consumption. Global electricity consumption is projected to increase by 160 per cent by 2050. The greenhouse gas debate has now given nuclear power new credibility. The Federal Government has quietly promoted the nuclear angle, whereas Labor's position is that Australia should ratify Kyoto and its target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 60 per cent of the 1990 level. We simply cannot do it; it is not possible without completely turning society on its head. In the absence of a national carbon emissions trading scheme and in the absence of an international approach to carbon emissions, caution needs to be exercised when creating State-based energy legislation that will affect the competitiveness of Australia's trade-exposed energy-intensive industries. Therefore, until there is a comprehensive international action on emissions reductions the competitiveness of Australia's trade-exposed industries needs to be protected.

The foundations of climate change on which this bill are based are misleading and the goal of reducing greenhouse gases to extreme levels could impoverish the State and yet have no real effect on global emissions. The single biggest argument for alternative sources is not greenhouse gas emissions because we are wasting a precious and irreplaceable resource. For that reason alone we should be investing in alternative technologies. However, it is a shame that a better system could not be derived that encourages that investment. Schemes based on ethanol or biodiesel to replace fuels for transport completely ignore the fact that we would have to create an additional 30 million hectares of cultivated land to supply the base fuel. Schemes based on irregular wind power ignore the variability of supply, land usage and distribution problems, which are effectively insurmountable for base-load supply.

Photovoltaics at their current efficiencies may prove useable for small households but will never replace industrial and commercial use. Before jumping into the nuclear solution, Australia needs to explore other options such as geodynamics as an alternative source of renewable emission-free electricity, as deep below our continent lies the equivalent of 400 billion barrels of oil—free! We need to look at developing that hot fractured rock technology. However, the bill is not conducive to investment in research and development in the long term let alone long-term infrastructure. The bill could result in energy intensive industries relocating to less-regulated venues either in Australia or overseas and will result in little investment in alternative technologies. There is no single silver bullet and the final solution will involve a mix of both biorenewables—that is, ethanol and biodiesel—physical renewables—that is, wind, wave and solar—nuclear, geothermal, hydrogen generation and fossil fuels.

Mr IAN COHEN [6.26 p.m.]: The Electricity Supply Amendment (Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme) Bill introduces the greenhouse gas abatement scheme, which mandates that all major producers of greenhouse gases must earn or buy a certain number of greenhouse abatement certificates to offset the greenhouse gas emissions that they generate. That is a positive scheme, but it certainly does not go far enough. Earlier, honourable members, with one exception, said that there is a significant issue with greenhouse emissions and that there is a need for governments to act in a strong and forthright manner. The New South Wales Government, and dare I say the Federal Government, have had their head in the sand on this matter.

At this time in history we are reaching a crisis point on climate change. It is not time to tinker around the edges; it is time for real action on climate change. The general public has recognised that. However, there are always the climate change sceptics, like the Hon. Jon Jenkins and the Treasurer, who, I suggest, does a great deal of damage to the New South Wales Labor Government from his powerful position in the political system. Yet he is not recognised for that. As a result, he is a great ambassador for the coalmining industry, and I will address that matter later. It is that type of attitude that shows Labor shedding its green feathers. During Labor's 12 years in government in this State we have witnessed a lack of perseverance and certain people have been allowed to develop a diabolical, cynical and, might I say, bent attitude to greenhouse gas emissions, and have refused to act in a way that will significantly impact on climate change.

The purpose of the bill is to extend the greenhouse gas abatement scheme until 2021 and beyond, until the implementation of the National Emissions Trading Scheme. The bill increases penalties for electricity retailers and large electricity users who manage their own benchmarks but fail to meet them. The bill is aimed at ensuring that participants comply with emission reductions rather than choose to exceed emission targets and instead pay the penalties, which can work out to be cheaper. That occurs not only in the area of carbon trading; polluters believe it is easier to pay the fines. At the end of the day developers who make significant profits find it is easier to pay the fines for breaking zoning laws or restrictions imposed by State government agencies or local councils. That is what is happening with the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme, which means we will have no increased opportunities to resolve our pollution and greenhouse gas emissions problems.

There are loopholes in the law, and those who have significant financial clout can get away with polluting. The Government introduced the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme, or GGAS, in 2002 and that scheme will be in place until 2012. The bill extends the scheme until 2021. A first sighting of the bill makes one wonder why there is such an interest in a long-term extension of the scheme. The answer is simple. The scheme can be extended on a rolling basis over a period of 15 years, with the Governor terminating its operation if a national emissions trading scheme eventuates. In great part the open nature of the scheme provides certainty and incentives for gas-fired power generators and enables them to generate abatement certificates.

While gas-fired power generation is preferable to coal-fired power generation we must look towards cleaner, renewable and well-established technologies such as wind, solar, and wave power. The bill does not provide any additional incentives to make such technologies more viable. Those who are promoting gas-fired power stations need security and projected longevity to make it worth their while to set up and function into the future, which is all well and good. Many people who are concerned about greenhouse gas emissions see gas-fired power stations as a transitionary solution and not an end in themselves. We should be thankful that the Government is now looking at bridging the gap with gas-fired power stations rather than promoting coal-fired power stations before the election.

I am not confident that that will not be the case after the election and I would like to be proven wrong. With the reckless attitude of this Government and its extraction, export and coal-fired power production in New South Wales, there is no guarantee that we will not see coal-fired power stations in the future. I would like such a guarantee from the Government, but I am not confident about any government in the future. After the election I am sure we are likely to see a dominant majority Labor government. At this stage the attitude of the Government towards coal-fired power stations is cavalier to say the least. If there is no radical transformation in this area we could be in real trouble after the election. The bill should provide further incentives to make technologies such as wind, solar, and wave power fare more viable.

[The Deputy-President (The Hon. Kayee Griffin) left the chair at 6.35 p.m. The House resumed at 8.00 p.m.]

Mr IAN COHEN [8.00 p.m.]: I note that the Electricity Supply Amendment (Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme) Bill also seeks to increase the penalties for failing to comply with benchmarks. While this is a welcome step, the Greens believe that penalties will still not be high enough. I foreshadow that I will move amendments in Committee to increase these penalties further in order to ensure that electricity retailers and large users will not be let off the hook lightly with a slap on the wrist for adding to our greenhouse gas overload.

I do not have the percentages with me, but the aluminium industry—including aluminium smelters in the Hunter—uses more than 20 per cent of the electricity generated in New South Wales. It is a huge energy consumer. I have asked questions in this place as to why the aluminium industry does not pay its way but it seems that it has a prior agreement with the Government about the electricity rates it pays. That does not make a great deal of sense when consumers are trying to do the right thing. Coal-fired power plants generally run the smelters, and the industry is getting its power at very cheap rates.

There are transparency and accountability issues with the scheme. When a certificate is cashed in it is not apparent whether it was effective in abating greenhouse gases. There are also problems with the overall accounting of the scheme. There is a lack of publicly available data about how projects create the certificates. Another issue is the methods and equations that are used and how compliance is achieved.

The Greens welcome the changes to the scheme's administration in regard to the maintenance of a register of accredited abatement certificate providers and a register of greenhouse abatement certificates. Until now, this information was not easily available. I support moves towards greater transparency in the scheme. Although the Government has been patting itself on the back about action on climate change, the bill falls well short of the mark. The Minister's press release about the bill states:

The highly successful NSW Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme is to be extended a further nine years to take the equivalent of a million cars off the road.

However, this is not the case. The scheme will not lead to actual greenhouse gas reductions. Because the scheme deals with per capita greenhouse gas reductions and because these targets are not being increased, population growth will ensure that greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase. The Greens believe that, rather than per capita reduction targets, there should be an absolute greenhouse reduction target. This target should be 20 per cent below 1990 greenhouse levels.

The move to convert the per capita target to an absolute emissions target is supported by environment groups and the Australian Business Council for Sustainable Energy. Whilst an absolute target is the preferred option, I will move an amendment in Committee to increase per capita targets, because if per capita reduction targets do not increase, overall emissions will continue to rise with population growth. The benchmarks also need to be reviewed, taking government greenhouse commitments into consideration. Climate change science is evolving rapidly, with figures for necessary greenhouse gas reductions constantly being reviewed. It seems only reasonable that the Government should review its targets based on its commitments and on results that current targets are producing. The Greens will move an amendment to this effect in Committee.

There has been a market concentration in regard to the creation of New South Wales' greenhouse abatement certificates [NGACs]. In 2003 AGL, Energy Developments Limited, and Integral Energy created more than 70 per cent of NGACs. More than 45 per cent of all certificates were created by Integral Energy. It is clear that GGAS is not encouraging long-term sustainable energy solutions. Additionality is another major concern with GGAS. This was also an issue with the Commonwealth Mandatory Renewable Energy Target Scheme, but as the target has been exceeded and is now defunct it will not be as much of a problem in the future.

However, additionality is still a concern in other respects. For example, schemes that were voluntary prior to GGAS were made compulsory in 2002. Some of them still contribute abatement towards GGAS, even though they existed before the scheme was introduced. In other words, no new measures were adopted but NGACs are still being created. The Greens would support the insertion of a sunset clause for schemes that began before 2003 that are continuing to create certificates. Whilst we have not been able to draft an amendment to this effect due to time constraints, a 2010sunset clause would be appropriate. This would mean that a scheme that was voluntary initially would still be able to generate certificates for eight years and the existence of a sunset clause would favour new projects.

Another problem with the scheme is that it enables certificates to be created interstate. Whilst this applies only to projects that feed into the national electricity market, of which New South Wales is a part, it is problematic because New South Wales businesses, not businesses outside the State, should benefit from the scheme. It means that massive polluters such as the Hazelwood power station in Victoria, a brown coal power station, can create certificates by implementing some efficiency measures that abate its emissions to some degree.

Limiting the creation of certificates to within New South Wales would create an impetus for companies to find new ways of limiting emissions, rather than finding the lowest common denominator elsewhere in Australia. By not limiting certificate creation to New South Wales the scheme is limited to little beyond business as usual. A large number of certificates are created through actions that have to be carried out anyway. An example of this is biogas and methane avoidance, which could be a licence condition and therefore would already be mandatory. But it creates certificates even though this avoidance would have to take place despite GGAS. The Greens will move an amendment in Committee to tighten this loophole.

We need a mandatory renewable energy target. We need a strong Federal target, but in its absence the States should impose targets. South Australia and Victoria are doing this. The target should be 20 per cent by 2012. This is achievable. Australia and New South Wales are lagging behind the world in this respect. Nations and states around the world have introduced targets. I will mention just a few. Austria has a mandatory renewable energy target of 78 per cent by 2010. The European Union, which comprises 25 member nations, has a target of 21 per cent by 2010. California is a powerhouse economy on a global scale. I understand that its Governor, Arnie Schwarzenegger, told Al Gore that he would have to trade in his Hummer as a result of his own greenhouse gas and energy saving efficiencies. If Arnie Schwarzenegger can do it and can commit California to a 20 per cent reduction by 2017, why can we not do the same?

The Hon. Tony Kelly: His Hummer contributes most of that.

Mr IAN COHEN: I acknowledge the interjection by the Minister for Justice. Yes, his Hummer probably contributes significantly to the Californian energy equation. Texas has set a target of 2,880 megawatts by 2009 and Nevada 15 per cent by 2013. Another appropriate example, if one looks at the high-tech powerhouse of California and the emerging massive economy of China, is China's target of 10 per cent by 2020, which shows we are really having an impact. Denmark has set a target of 29 per cent by 2010, Portugal 45.6 per cent by 2010, Spain 29.4 per cent by 2010, and Sweden 60 per cent by 2010.

A Government responsibility is to provide for real support for renewable energy—real financial incentives. These targets will not result in job losses, but actually will create many new job opportunities. New South Wales and Australia are missing out as cutting edge technology moves offshore due to lack of support and incentives here. Clean energy creates more jobs than fossil fuel developments. A solid Australian solar photovoltaic industry could employ 80,000 people by 2020, with the right incentives. Australia has been, and should be, at the cutting edge. Many years ago I think the Fraser Government planned to go completely solar at Lightning Ridge but, instead, it built a massively long power line to that area. So Lightning Ridge is now connected to the grid with a massive waste of electricity being carried that distance.

The Hon. Tony Kelly: There is a lot of leakage in the line.

Mr IAN COHEN: I acknowledge the interjection. All lines running over New South Wales have an astronomical amount of leakage from power production. What is the answer? The answer is simple: it is decentralisation, having smaller community-based or even individual power plants and working on solar technology—wind, wave and many other opportunities that can occur with alternative technology. They are the job creators. It is not the centralised technology. As an executive from Enron said not so long ago, if we could find a way to own the sun, we would all go solar. I think the control of power generation by industry is what it is all about. There is plenty of opportunity, and a will in the community.

I have put solar hot water systems on houses. I have also seen people go off the grid or augment the grid. If people are not on the grid they can get various isolation supports from the agencies, but if they are on the grid they do not get much support. There are opportunities for every house to have a solar panel. Solar hot water systems that provide a massive savings on energy consumption in households could create a difference. Who does the significant task of bolting the systems onto the roofs of houses? Who manufactures them? The local people, working in the local community. That is the real way to achieve job generation, rather than constantly rely on centralised power sources.

According to Greenpeace, if we move early we can attract manufacturing facilities to Australia and create even more new jobs, including more than 10,000 new jobs in manufacturing, construction and maintenance and new jobs and investment primarily in rural and regional Australia. That is where the opportunity lies and where the jobs will be. We would have an endless energy supply, unlike fossil fuels, which one way or another will eventually run out.

I constantly hear misinformation, from the Federal Government down to some of the more absurd greenhouse sceptics in this House, that the nuclear option is the way forward. But if we look at the amount of energy consumption in mining, transport and manufacture—not to mention the security that is involved—to create a highly toxic product that can have up to 100,000 years lifespan, and all the associated activities need to secure that type of product, it is not advantageous. The advantage lies in decentralised systems and even large-scale wind and solar farms. We have the technology—it is now developing—and it is a tragedy that governments are so slow to act.

This Government is keen to see the Anvil Hill coalmine go ahead. Today the crossbenches were lobbied by people who were not just the average greenies. Of course, there are a lot of biodiversity issues with the Anvil coalmine site but because of its very special location in an area where animal species can travel through the Great Divide, it creates a very rare ecosystem. Horse breeding, wine, tourism and many other clean green industries would bring in a great deal of money. However, if people sit down to a nice lunch at a Hunter Valley winery and the wind blows coaldust across their food they will not return. They are the problems people face in the Upper Hunter at the present time because this Government is hell-bent on going ahead with creating such a massive additional mining operation in the Upper Hunter.

Al Gore made a very timely visit to Australia. His film, An Inconvenient Truth, is a very polished documentary that provides significant avenues to the broader community, making them accept that climate change is the biggest threat to our world. This issue should go beyond politics. We have had negligent leadership. Some honourable members have made many statements in this House about the lack of acceptance of greenhouse gas issues. A great deal of self-interest has been promoted in this House which ignores the fact that Australia has a very special responsibility with its coal production, transport, and export to create problems with global warming. The coal industry is a very powerful industry and a great generator of export finance but it does not create the jobs that many other industries do.

Eventually, coal will run out for the coal industry and easily accessed deposits will run out for the nuclear industry. Eventually it will cost more and more in energy and expense to extract uranium for export. Similarly it will cost more and more in financial and environmental terms until we get to the point where those limited resources will be depleted. Where do we go then? We have industries that will go on sustainably, if we could look beyond the mining mentality that Australia is the mine of the world. It is an exploitative industry and it is having a massive destructive impact on our global environment

On 4 November a Walk Against Warming will be held, and people and environment groups will mobilise. This is not just the fringe element, although I know many take great pride in stating that that is the case, and even Mel and Kochie from the Sunrise program are behind it. They are showing that this debate is truly moving into the mainstream. In Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, they say we are reaching the tipping point.

I know many keen greenies and avid scientists who believe that we have gone too far. I referred to the tipping point, but there are two of them: one is when we reach the point that the consequence is a devastating melting of the permafrost in Siberia, creating situations that we will not be able to retrieve by returning to the type of environment that we have experienced. Global warming is not a natural change. There have been catastrophes on a global scale, but global warming is not a natural change. In terms of history, industrialisation and humanity have produced a catastrophic event, so that in a relatively short period of time we see a massive transformation of this planet's elements, with the loss of a huge number of species and the creation of environmental refugees.

As a leading nation we are perpetrating quite inhumane actions and contributing to global warming that will bring about environmental changes such that our Pacific neighbours will have great problems surviving. As a coastal nation, I predict that we will be impacted, with an increase in violent climatic activity and increased cyclonic activity. I might be wrong, but I suggest that will be in the very near future. Due to poor planning laws some inappropriate developments, encouraged by the current planning Minister, are occurring up and down the New South Wales coastline, and that will lead to trouble in the not too distant future. We are a community that lives on the coast, and we are very vulnerable to climate change. Let us see what happens to real estate if that type of event takes place. I have mentioned in the House before that I was in Sri Lanka at the time of the tsunami. I was on the beach and saw—

The Hon. Rick Colless: That was due to tectonic plate movement, not global warming.

Mr IAN COHEN: I agree with the interjection of the Hon. Rick Colless. The tsunami catastrophe was due to the movement of tectonic plates. But when you see the whole ocean rising, be it by only a couple of metres, you realise the magnitude of such a catastrophe. I was only two kilometres or so from the train coming down from Colombo to the south-west coast to Galle. I did not see the event, but I saw the after-effects; the train looked like a matchbox toy, and several thousand people died in the catastrophe.

Those are the sorts of things that we need to seriously think about and be defensive about, rather than saying, "Oh, it's not proven yet." What has to occur for us to be convinced? How much evidence must we get before we will be convinced that climate changes are having a catastrophic effect on not only our society but also those in the Pacific and Indian oceans, where low-lying coastal communities already are suffering great hardship. Before they actually disappear, the viable agricultural land of those communities will be inundated due to rising sea levels. We need to take some degree of responsibility for that.

I am pleased that the New South Wales Government is urging the Commonwealth Government to adopt a national scheme to reduce greenhouse gases, without resorting to nuclear power. The idea that nuclear power is somehow a solution to climate change is a dangerous fallacy. Nuclear power will not reverse climate change. Even if the world's nuclear energy output doubles by 2050, that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by only 5 per cent. Replacing polluting coal power with another environmental disaster is not a way forward. Nuclear power production produces large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions at every stage of the cycle, from mining uranium through to decommissioning nuclear power plants. On top of that, we are left with a legacy of dangerous nuclear waste that will last many thousands of years.

The Greens do not oppose the extension of the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme. It is a scheme that we have supported in the past. But we offer only lukewarm support for this bill, as it does little beyond extending the scheme to ensure that operators of gas-fired power stations have some certainty when building projects. We need strong action on climate change now. The Government continues to twiddle its thumbs while the planet heats up, while the drought tightens its grip, while our rivers run dry. Quite clearly, we need to act, and we have to demonstrate statesmanship and leadership at both the State and Federal levels. That seems to be wanting at present. Over the next few years we will see whether governments of both persuasions are prepared to take note and act.

Interestingly, if action is undertaken, that will be of great benefit to society and to Australian industry. We have been at the forefront of solar power development, and we could take up that position again if government gives appropriate incentive to industry. Solar power and wind power are the way to go. The Greens consider this bill, which embraces the viability of gas-fired power stations, is a significant step at this time of change. However, without the follow-up of truly greenhouse-reducing, cutting edge, futuristic technology, I am afraid we will have a much poorer environment and much poorer living conditions within Australia and overseas. With that, the Greens support the Electricity Supply Amendment (Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme) Bill. We hope the Government can do much more.

The Hon. GREG PEARCE [8.26 p.m.]: I support the comments made by my colleague the Hon. Don Harwin. I am one of those who have long been interested in these issues. In my former life as a lawyer, and specialising in environmental law for a significant portion of that life, I had the good fortune and great experience of being a representative on Australia's delegation in the early 1990s at the preparatory meetings for the Earth Summit, which took place in 1992, and in negotiating the Climate Change Convention and the Biodiversity Convention statement on deserts and all of those other documents that were adopted back in 1992.

Contrary to a lot of the voodoo and doomsday positions taken in debate on these sorts of issues, and particularly the green-pink industry, which specialises in voodoo and doomsday, the world community has taken very significant steps in recognising, trying to understand and dealing with those issues. Indeed, this is a matter on which Australia has led the way. Ours is a very fine record. I think that is because Australia, from an informed position, adopts the precautionary principle and tries to lead wherever it can.

However, there are some problems with the scheme proposed by the bill. The fact is that Australia and New South Wales, in terms of both world economy and world output of greenhouse gases, are not of a size that enable us, by ourselves, to make any real change to what is happening. Certainly, we should continue to lead by example. But one of the key issues is to continue to inform ourselves on what we are trying to do. In his speech my colleague the Hon. Don Harwin posed a number of questions about the cost of the scheme, and what sorts of positive impacts there will be from national attempts to ensure we make a great contribution on the issue.

The Hon. Don Harwin referred to the November 2005 report of the Energy Retail Association of Australia—that association made an attempt to work through some of the costs of this sort of scheme and I think he mentioned the individual cost to consumers. The report of the association estimated that the annual cost of electricity in the national electricity market would increase by between $707 million and $965 million per year in 2010 as a result of the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme. There is a major cost involved. The Government has been unable to advise what impact the scheme will have on those sorts of costs and whether this scheme will really make a significant contribution to international issues or the leadership role that New South Wales is trying to pursue.
The Hon. Don Harwin also mentioned a number of Federal Government initiatives. We should be very proud of the work that the Federal Government has been doing on renewable energy, energy saving and emission reduction generally. One concern I have is that much of the focus is on emissions reduction without an understanding of the impact of some of these predictions relating to climate change. I would like to see a great deal more work undertaken to come to grips with that and enable an informed assessment about what else we should be doing.

The Hon. TONY KELLY (Minister for Justice, Minister for Juvenile Justice, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Lands, and Minister for Rural Affairs) [8.31 p.m.], in reply: I thank honourable members for their contributions the debate. The New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme is a world-leading emissions trading scheme. The Electricity Supply Amendment (Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme) Bill will ensure that the scheme continues to fulfil a pivotal role in greenhouse policy by providing certainty to investors in abatement projects that there will be a market value for greenhouse gas abatement beyond 2012. The Government's preferred outcome would be for that carbon price signal to be provided through a national emissions trading scheme. However, if that outcome is not possible or is likely to be delayed, the New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme will continue to support a wide range of abatement projects and thereby provide a tangible and effective means of addressing global warming.

I turn now to some of the comments made by the Hon. Don Harwin and correct the record. I agree with a lot of the honourable member's comments in relation to ethanol and its effect on the environment, jobs and a whole host of other things. Where I disagree is in relation to the policy positions of our two parties. It was the New South Wales Labor Party at its annual conference last year that called on the State Government to mandate the use of ethanol in the government vehicle fleet. That recommendation was accepted and New South Wales became the first State in Australia to do so. That policy formed part of the contracts issued on 1 July. At this year's annual conference the Labor Party called on the State Government to consider mandating the use of biofuels by 2011. The Government has made an announcement in that regard and has also set up a task force.

At the conference mentioned by the Hon. Don Harwin, the NRMA conference, I called on the Federal Government to mandate the use of biofuels nationally and it was at that conference that the Federal Government rejected the call. In relation to other comments by the Hon. Don Harwin that a national emissions trading scheme is premature, I note that the European Union has an emissions trading scheme, the New South Wales scheme has been operating successfully for more than three years and the North American States are considering establishing an emissions trading scheme. It is the Commonwealth that has failed to show leadership in this area. As a result, the States have had to step into the gap to develop a National Emissions Trading Scheme, and a discussion paper has been released with comments due in December of this year.

I am advised that the cost to household electricity bills of the extension of the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme is small—less than 10� per week. GGAS has, in contrast to what the honourable member said, achieved significant results. Since its commencement, GGAS has prevented more than 25 million tonnes of greenhouse gases from entering the environment. In 2005 alone, 10 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions were reduced, which is equivalent to 2 million cars. GGAS has meant incentives for investment in low emission technology. It has played a significant role in attracting gas-fired power plants such as Tallawarra. Gas-fired plants produce significantly fewer emissions than coal-fired plants.

New South Wales has a coherent plan for dealing with greenhouse gases. It is called the "Greenhouse Plan" and was released by the Premier in November 2005. That plan does not relate simply to emissions from the stationary electricity sector but also to emissions from other sectors of the economy. It is a public document and I encourage the Hon. Don Harwin to read it. In response to the honourable member's point regarding new technology, I must point out that New South Wales has a $200 million Energy Savings Fund that encourages new technologies and demand management. The New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme has provided the incentive for 146 projects that reduce or offset greenhouse gas emissions. Many of these would not have gone ahead without the scheme. Projects that have benefited from the scheme include:

Honourable members will see that projects supported by GGAS are not limited to encouraging gas-fired power stations only. The specialist jobs created by these projects are a direct result of the implementation of the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme. The scheme is preparing the community and businesses of New South Wales for a world increasingly acting to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. That is protecting jobs in New South Wales by making sure we do not miss out on the clean energy industries that will be needed.

The Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change warned that acting early is more cost effective than delaying—that means delaying would have an effect on the New South Wales economy and cost New South Wales jobs. That is why the New South Wales Government acted early by implementing, and now extending, the New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme. With regard to the point made by the Hon. Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans that no penalty has ever been paid, I am pleased to note that all participants are complying with the scheme, and are choosing to reduce their greenhouse emissions rather than paying a penalty. That is the goal of the scheme. It creates incentives for reducing greenhouse emissions, and participants have to date preferred to abate carbon emissions rather than pay penalties.

In relation to the University of New South Wales report referred to, I note that it is out of date. The statistics quoted related primarily to 2003, the first year of the scheme. I remind the House that GGAS was one of the first mandatory emissions trading schemes in the world and predated the European Union scheme. It has achieved a lot and expanded a great deal since its first year. GGAS has reduced emissions by 25 million tonnes, with 10 million tonnes in 2005 alone. That is a significant increase on previous years and we expect similar growth in 2006. With regard to double counting, the bill strengthens the integrity of the scheme by ensuring that the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal [IPART], the scheme administrator, has discretion to prevent abatement or renewable energy certificates being created for abatement activities that are done for compliance with other schemes, whether mandatory or voluntary, compliance with the law under New South Wales or another jurisdiction, or in accordance with any agreement or undertaking.

Paragraphs (a) and (b) of proposed new section 97DD (3) are extremely broad and will be used by IPART to ensure that the scheme has integrity and transparency. A few honourable members have concerns that emissions from the electricity sector continued to rise. One of the reasons that the New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme targets the electricity sector is that the greenhouse gas emissions from electricity are growing rapidly. Whilst also offering significant opportunities for abatement, if the scheme is extended to 2021 it will save an extra 86 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions than if the scheme ended in 2012. These are real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere across the whole national electricity market. In other words, we are not simply shifting emissions across State borders.

Some of the emissions savings come from industry and forest planning projects because one of the objectives of the scheme is to offset the production of greenhouse gas emissions. This represents emissions trading doing what it is meant to do—find the most cost-effective ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is commonsense. Consumers will gain more greenhouse savings for every dollar. If we had a national emissions trading scheme and if all Australian emitters, not just those in New South Wales, took responsibility for their emissions, greenhouse savings would increase. That is why the New South Wales Government is working hard with the other State and Territory governments to develop a national emissions trading scheme. That is why we have called on the Commonwealth Government to join us in this important work. The Commonwealth Government is still welcome to join at any time.

I thank the Hon. Jon Jenkins for his contributions to the debate and his presentation of a different point of view. In relation to his concern that greenhouse gas reduction schemes have an economic cost, I note that the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme can be extended with minimal cost. I am advised that extension of the scheme will mean an average increase in the cost of electricity of less than 0.5 per cent. The benefits of the scheme will far outweigh the minimal cost of the extension to 2021 and beyond.

As I noted earlier, to date electricity retailers have chosen to create or purchase abatement rather than pay a penalty. In the 2005 compliance year, the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal [IPART] reported that all participants were compliant with the scheme. It is not accurate to say, as did Mr Ian Cohen, that New South Wales electricity retailers find it easier or better to pay the penalty than comply. That is simply not the case. Proof of that is in IPART's annual report on compliance and operation of the scheme. The report has been tabled in this House and is available on IPART's web site.

In relation to pre-existing abatement activities, I am advised that this refers to category A generation which was introduced to provide credit for early action. The projects that were recognised under category A criteria were recognised under the voluntary greenhouse gas reduction scheme that preceded the current GGAS. The previous scheme ended when GGAS began. The projects that previously were recognised by the earlier voluntary scheme could continue to be recognised by GGAS.

Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes referred to New South Wales gas-fired plants. As I have stated previously in this House, I would like the Greens to take a national approach to the use of coal-fired plants and campaign to get rid of the Victorian coal-fired electricity plants that are burning dirty brown coal, thereby creating 30 per cent more damage to the environment than do New South Wales electricity-generating plants. I urge the Greens to encourage more electricity to be generated from New South Wales coal, rather than from Victorian coal. I commend the bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

In Committee

Clauses 1 to 5 agreed to.

Mr IAN COHEN [8.44 p.m.]: I move Greens amendment No. 1:

No. 1 Page 3, schedule 1 [1], lines 6-9. Omit all words on those lines. Insert instead:

(e) for the year commencing 1 January 2007—7.27 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions per head of State population,

(f) for the year commencing 1 January 2008—7.07 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions per head of State population,

(g) for the year commencing 1 January 2009—6.86 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions per head of State population,

(h) for the year commencing 1 January 2010—6.68 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions per head of State population,

(i) for the year commencing 1 January 2011—6.49 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions per head of State population,

(j) for the year commencing 1 January 2012 and each subsequent year—6.29 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions per head of State population.

This amendment seeks to reduce per capita emissions to ensure that total emissions do not continue to increase owing to population growth. The amendment seeks to reduce emissions to 20 per cent below 1990 levels. For the electricity sector, the 1990 emissions were 44 million tonnes. A 20 per cent reduction would lead to emissions of 35 million tonnes. The Greens of course would have preferred an absolute emissions cap, but as the Act deals with per capita targets, this amendment seeks to adjust the per capita targets to achieve a reduction in line with an absolute target of 20 per cent below 1990 levels. I commend Greens amendment No. 1 to the Committee.

The Hon. TONY KELLY (Minister for Justice, Minister for Juvenile Justice, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Lands, and Minister for Rural Affairs) [8.45 p.m.]: The Government does not support the amendment. The bill is not about changing target levels. At this stage the Government does not support changing the targets. A change to the benchmark now would be premature because consultation on the National Emissions Trading Scheme [NETS] is ongoing. It would be unnecessarily burdensome to industry to have to plan for a new Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme [GGAS] benchmark when there is still a strong chance that GGAS will be replaced by NETS in the not-too-distant future. Major amendments to the scheme's design at this time may create confusion for the business sector.

Amendment negatived.

Mr IAN COHEN [8.45 p.m.]: I move Greens amendment No. 2:

No. 2 Page 3, schedule 1. Insert after line 9:

[2] Section 97B (3)

Insert after section 97B (2):

(3) The Minister must, not later than on 31 December 2007, review the State greenhouse gas benchmarks to determine whether they remain appropriate to achieve the greenhouse gas emission targets of the government.

(4) The Minister is to seek and consider submissions from the public on the review.

(5) A report on the outcome of the review is to be tabled within each House of Parliament.

This amendment seeks to ensure that greenhouse gas benchmarks are reviewed at the end of next year. Climate change science and global emission reduction targets are under constant review. It is appropriate for the Government to review the benchmarks in the legislation, taking its greenhouse commitments into consideration. The review process should include a public submissions component and a report should be tabled subsequently. The Government has a target of a 60 per cent reduction by 2050 based on 2000 levels. The progress of the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme should be reviewed to ensure that benchmarks of the scheme are working to achieve the Government's long-term targets. I commend Greens amendment No. 2 to the Committee.

The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS [8.46 p.m.]: I support this amendment. The targets should be reviewed. I generally support the environmental lobby's attempt to put some meaningful numbers to greenhouse gas abatement proposals. There has been a lot of fine rhetoric. While the New South Wales Government may have been the first out of the blocks, it has not been particularly aggressive in effecting change. Certainly the Europeans have been far better than Australians in the utilisation of wind power and solar power in spite of far worse climatic conditions existing in Europe than exist here. Indeed, Australia had a lot of expertise that unfortunately has been frittered away because there have been no Government incentives.

If real costs and firm targets were set, that would favour the alternative energy industry. In the short term, the costs of implementation would have to be taken into account, but changes in the medium term would considerably favour the economy. Targets should be supported. I support the Greens amendment and I am disappointed that the Government does not. Given that there has been so much discussion about the Anvil Hill coalmine increasing Newcastle's coal output by 65 per cent, the Government's reluctance to set targets or even review its policies is a poor show.

The Hon. TONY KELLY (Minister for Justice, Minister for Juvenile Justice, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Lands, and Minister for Rural Affairs) [8.48 p.m.]: The Government does not support this amendment. During the second reading debate in the other place the Minister indicated that a review would be undertaken. He said:

If it becomes clear that a national emissions trading scheme is not going to be established or will be delayed indefinitely, the Government will conduct a wide-ranging review of the New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme.

The New South Wales Government is leading the way on the National Emissions Trading Scheme [NETS]. As the Minister noted in the other place, any review of the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme [GGAS] should take NETS into account. In the light of that, it is not appropriate to restrict the timing of the review, as proposed by Mr Ian Cohen. Instead, some facility should be maintained so that a review of GGAS can meaningfully take into account the outcomes of the NETS debate. In undertaking the review, the Government will undertake appropriate consultation and process.

Amendment negatived.

Mr IAN COHEN [8.50 p.m.]: I move Greens amendment No. 3:

No. 3 Page 3, schedule 1 [2], proposed section 97CA (2), lines 12-22. Omit all words on those lines. Insert instead:

(2) The amount of the greenhouse penalty per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent of greenhouse shortfall determined under this Part is the following amount, as adjusted in accordance with any regulations made under subsection (3):

(a) for the year concerned before the year commencing 1 January 2008—$12.50,

(b) for the year commencing 1 January 2009—$14.50,

(c) for the year commencing 1 January 2010—$16.50,

(d) for the year commencing 1 January 2011—$18.50,

(e) for the year commencing 1 January 2012 and each subsequent year—$20.50.
The amendment increases penalties beyond the increases proposed by the Government. Increasing the penalty rates according to those figures would improve the prospects for renewable energy being taken up to achieve abatement: that is, it would make renewable energy more economically viable. As I said in my contribution to the second reading debate, in the long term that would be of great advantage to decentralised, often country, and regional-based industries throughout New South Wales.

The Hon. TONY KELLY (Minister for Justice, Minister for Juvenile Justice, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Lands, and Minister for Rural Affairs) [8.51 p.m.]: The Government does not support the amendment. It would appear that the proposal is to amend the penalty levels as a result of the first amendment moved by Mr Ian Cohen to change the target emission levels. If the target is not amended, there is no need to amend the penalty. Increasing the penalty on its own would not result in a decrease of greenhouse emissions.

Amendment negatived.

Mr IAN COHEN [8.52 p.m.]: I move Greens amendment No. 4:

No. 4 Page 3, schedule 1. Insert after line 22:

[3] Section 97D Accredited persons may create abatement certificates

Insert after section 97D (2):

(3) Despite anything to the contrary in this Part, the regulations or the greenhouse gas benchmark rules, a person who is an accredited abatement certificate provider must not, after the commencement of this subsection, create an abatement certificate in respect of an activity occurring outside this State.

The amendment is aimed at preventing greenhouse abatement certificates being created outside New South Wales. Currently certificates can be created by schemes such as the Hazelwood power station in Victoria, a brown coal power station. By restricting certificate creation to within New South Wales borders, New South Wales businesses would benefit rather than those interstate. It would also promote the creation of certificates for activities that go further than just business as usual and further than simply picking the lowest hanging fruit, so to speak. The Minister told me that he would encourage a campaign in which greenies would campaign against coal from Victoria—dirty brown coal power generation, which is literally costing the earth with its greenhouse emissions.

Given that the Minister expressed such a sentiment at the conclusion of the second reading debate, he should support my amendment to strike a blow for black coal in New South Wales. That would not be much of a step forward, but the Minister could acknowledge by supporting Greens amendment No. 4 that there is bad, and there is worse. Certainly the brown coal in Victoria is far more polluting.

The Hon. TONY KELLY (Minister for Justice, Minister for Juvenile Justice, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Lands, and Minister for Rural Affairs) [8.54 p.m.]: Whilst Mr Ian Cohen has given a convincing argument, the Government does not support the amendment. The amendment would result in a huge increase in costs for consumers and no change in greenhouse emissions. There is no greenhouse benefit in the amendment; in fact, what Mr Ian Cohen is proposing would have the opposite effect. Climate change is a global problem. It makes no difference whatsoever where greenhouse emissions are saved. A central premise of the GGAS is that the most efficient scheme is the one that saves emissions no matter where they occur. As long as the emissions are reduced and abated at a site that is electrically connected to New South Wales those greenhouse savings should be counted towards the target.

Amendment negatived.

Mr IAN COHEN [8.54 p.m.], by leave: I move Greens amendments Nos 5 to 9 in globo:

No. 5 Page 3, schedule 1. Insert after line 22:

[3] Section 97DD Conditions of accreditation

Renumber section 97DD (1) (a) and (b) as section 97DD (1) (b) and (c), respectively, and insert the following before those paragraphs as renumbered:
(a) a condition that requires the person accredited as an abatement certificate provider not to create an abatement certificate in respect of the greenhouse gas emissions abated by an activity if an abatement certificate or a renewable energy certificate has already been created in respect of that abatement or if that abatement has already been used for the purposes of compliance with another scheme (whether mandatory or voluntary and whether or not imposed by or under a law of this State or another jurisdiction or otherwise), or in accordance with any agreement, arrangement or understanding of any kind,

No. 6 Page 3, schedule 1. Insert after line 24:

[4] Section 97DD (3) (a)

Omit the paragraph.

No. 7 Page 3, schedule 1 [4], line 25. Omit "(a) and (b)".

No. 8 Page 3, schedule 1 [4], line 27. Omit "wherever occurring".

No. 9 Page 6, schedule 1 [10]. Insert after line 14:

51 Conditions of accreditation

Electricity Supply Amendment (Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme) Act 2006

Amendment No. 5 tightens up the Government's proposed amendment to ensure that abatement that occurs through other schemes, for example limiting methane emissions due to Environment Protection Authority licences, does not create certificates. This is to apply to both mandatory and voluntary schemes, whether aimed at greenhouse gas abatement or not. While the Government's amendment makes that type of provision discretionary, the Greens amendment makes it compulsory. Amendments Nos 6 to 9 are consequential on the success of amendment No. 5. I commend the amendments to the Committee.

The Hon. TONY KELLY (Minister for Justice, Minister for Juvenile Justice, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Lands, and Minister for Rural Affairs) [8.55 p.m.]: I agree that amendments Nos 6 to 9 are consequential amendments, and as the Government does not support amendment No. 5 it cannot support the consequential amendments. The Government proposes a change to the Act that is very similar to the amendments moved by Mr Ian Cohen. The key difference is that the Government's bill allows the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal [IPART], as the scheme administrator, the flexibility to take account of a change in future circumstances. The Government's proposed change to the existing Act was prompted by a request from IPART, and IPART has not asked that the requirement be mandatory. Although the Government's proposal is very similar to the amendment moved by Mr Ian Cohen, the Government believes it is important to maintain some flexibility for the scheme administrator. Therefore, the Government does not support the amendments.

Amendments negatived.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

Title agreed to.

Bill reported from Committee without amendment and passed through remaining stages.

CROWN LANDS LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (CARBON SEQUESTRATION) BILL

Bill received, read a first time and ordered to be printed.

Motion by the Hon. Tony Kelly agreed to:

Second reading ordered to stand as an order of the day.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Postponement of Business

Government Business Orders of the Day Nos 5 and 6 postponed on motion by the Hon. Tony Kelly.

THREATENED SPECIES CONSERVATION AMENDMENT (BIODIVERSITY BANKING) BILL

Second Reading

The Hon. TONY KELLY (Minister for Justice, Minister for Juvenile Justice, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Lands, and Minister for Rural Affairs) [9.00 p.m.], on behalf of the Hon. John Della Bosca: I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The Hon. RICK COLLESS [9.00 p.m.]: The object of the bill is to establish a biodiversity banking and offset scheme on land that is destined for urban and industrial development in New South Wales. With non-urban land in New South Wales, management options for primary producers have been severely eroded by the introduction of the Native Vegetation Conservation Act 2003, the subsequent Native Vegetation Regulation 2005 and the Threatened Species Conservation Act, as the management of native flora and fauna has been elevated above the management of freehold agricultural land. The rights of native flora and fauna have been elevated and the rights of owners of freehold and legally held leasehold land have been destroyed.

These Acts have also impacted on the land development industry and there have been a plethora of situations where the development of land zoned for future subdivision has been stopped dead in its tracks as a result. Around my hometown of Inverell a number of owners of 10-hectare to 25-hectare blocks, many of which were purchased up to 20 years ago as a retirement investment fund, have had their subdivision applications refused because of the Threatened Species Conservation Act. They are in an area that has been mapped as grassy white box woodland, an endangered ecological community listed under the Act.

This land, which was previously freehold agricultural land for over 100 years, was subdivided into 10-hectare to 15-hectare blocks and retirees bought these blocks late in their working lives or early in their retirement with the intention of building a nice comfortable home for their retirement and, at some future time, further subdividing their blocks into one hectare lots to supplement their retirement incomes. They are now being told that they cannot subdivide further because it is all classified as grassy white box woodland. Their 10-hectare blocks are probably worth about $1 million to $1.5 million following subdivision, but in an non-subdividable form they are too small for agriculture and thus become valueless. They cannot now be utilised for agriculture anyway because the grassy white box woodland prevents farmers from changing the groundcover—something that they need to do to properly feed their livestock and grow their crops.

This bill seeks to address some of those impacts on the land development industry by allowing development on small parcels of land covered with native vegetation on the condition that other areas are permanently set side for conservation. The proposal is to establish biobank sites via a formal agreement between the Minister for the Environment and the owner of the land, and the creation and registration of biodiversity credits that can be traded and used to offset the environmental impacts as a result of the land development proceeding. The land to which these biodiversity credits apply will have management restrictions placed on them that supposedly will improve the biodiversity values of that land. A biobanking assessment methodology will also be developed, which sounds very much like the methodology statement produced for the spectacularly unsuccessful property vegetation planning [PVP] process.

Under the PVP methodology an 80-page document entitled "Environmental Outcomes Assessment Methodology" is embedded into the Native Vegetation Regulation 2005, which effectively stifles any change to groundcover on agricultural land that has not been cultivated since 1990. The application of this principle to the development of housing and industrial land is a major concern. Will the methodology set out the offset ratios that will be required for different vegetation types, as happens with the PVP methodology? It will simply not be a case of developing 10 hectares here and setting aside 10 hectares somewhere else for conservation. It may well be that developing 10 hectares here will require the developer to set aside up to 1,000 hectares somewhere else. That is exactly what will happen with the property vegetation planning process.
There is a well-documented case in the Cobar shire where a landowner requested, via a property vegetation plan application, to remove the invasive native species on 500 hectares of his property. He was subsequently told that he had to provide an offset of 50,000 hectares. The total property size of this particular landowner was only 8,000 hectares and he was told to put aside 50,000 hectares. That is an offset ratio of one to 100. On the Northern Tablelands, within the grassy white box woodland community, landowners wishing to cultivate grassland that has been used for grazing and limited cropping for over 100 years are required to lock up 20 hectares for every hectare they cultivate—an offset ratio of one to 20.

Again I raise the example of the owners of the small blocks on the outskirts of Inverell who bought their blocks over 20 years ago with a view to subdividing as part of their retirement and superannuation fund. These people are now being told that they cannot subdivide this land as it has been identified as grassy white box woodland. The bill is supposed to overcome that problem, but I cannot see how it will work in practice unless all the owners of the blocks jointly purchase other land, and they may be required to purchase up to 20 times the amount of land that they wish to subdivide. So if each 10-hectare block needs an offset of 200 hectares as a result of the one to 20 grassy white box woodland offset ratio, and if that 200 hectares is to have a high conservation value, it will need to be contiguous with a larger area of high conservation value native vegetation. I doubt whether such land is available.

If they decide to buy agricultural land that needs to be replanted to restore the high conservation value, as the land in Inverell shire is currently valued out around $3,000 to $3,500 per hectare the 200 hectares will be for sale for something between $600,000 and $700,000. Even if the owners of those blocks decided to purchase their offset land, what level of management payments would be required to justify or encourage the owners of that land to remove a $700,000 asset from primary production? At a return of about 5 per cent on capital value, that payment would need to be about $35,000 a year. Where will that money come from? From the Biobanking Trust Fund, of course. The revenue for the Biobanking Trust Fund will be payments into the fund on the sale or transfer of credits.

There will be a requirement for participants in the biobanking scheme, including site owners, holders of credits, and even those setting themselves up as brokers, to contribute to that fund. So this becomes a tax on young home buyers to pay for conservation, forcing up the price of land to those who can least afford it at a time in their lives when they can least afford it. This Biobanking Trust Fund has the potential to develop into a huge and unmanageable bureaucracy that will have a doubtful benefit for conservation and certainly will not contribute to the generation of wealth for the people of New South Wales. There is a serious flaw in the science behind this bill. For the biobanking scheme to work effectively the offset areas must be the same, or of a very similar type. They must have similar species diversity and the floral, faunal and land characteristics must be similar.

Because of the way in which the bill is presented, a developer wanting to develop 20 hectares, for example, as a resort on the coast, can apply to have the offsets much higher in the catchment where the biodiversity values will be completely different. The only requirement is that it be in the same catchment management area. Where is the science that establishes what can be traded with what? It is simply not there. The honourable member for Ballina in the other place raised this issue with me and made it very clear that this bill is dangerous for coastal communities. It is now clear why the Carr-Iemma Government abolished the Coastal Council and took over the consent role for significant development approvals in coastal areas.

This smacks of corruption within the Government ranks as its opens the way for large developers to grease the palms of developers, Government Ministers and the Labor Party in return for guaranteed approval of large development projects on the coast. The Coastal Council and local government no longer have a say in the approval process, which the Coalition views as a serious flaw in the process towards proper development of coastal communities. The New South Wales Farmers Association would also like to see the bill amended so that the provisions apply also to agricultural land. At present the offsets for PVPs can extend to land outside the property boundary, but the problem is that the PVP in this case is required to cross the property boundaries and must be agreed to and signed off by all landowners concerned.

The difference is that developers for urban and industrial land will be able to use those offsets remote from their proposed development and, as I said earlier, in some cases much higher up in the catchment where the land values are not as high, while primary producers on agricultural land need to provide offsets on their own properties or on neighbouring properties and have it incorporated into their property vegetation plan.
New South Wales farmers want biodiversity credits under a biobanking system to be used to offset requirements under the Native Vegetation Act 2003. This issue will be considered further in Committee, and I understand that the Minister has agreed to delay the Committee stage of the bill until there has been more discussion of the matter. But I foreshadow that I intend to move an amendment in Committee to allow that to happen. The shadow Minister in another place moved successfully to appoint a joint select committee to monitor the implementation of the bill over a two-year period, with a report on the trial to be submitted to both Houses of Parliament within six months of its completion. Applying the provisions of the bill to the Native Vegetation Act will require some careful thought and planning, and will also be further assessed during the trial period.

The Opposition is also keen to limit the application of the bill to the Hunter region during the trial period. While I understand that the Government does not support this proposal, the justification is sound in so far as, if there are substantial changes to be made following the trial, it will be far simpler to untangle a small mess in a single region than to untangle a huge mess across the Sate. I believe the two-year trial period and limiting the geographical extent of the trial to a single region are logical options. If that process had been applied to the Native Vegetation Act and to regulations developed prior to its assent, many of its implementation difficulties might have been resolved before it went live, and the anger and frustration being experienced by primary producers across New South Wales could have been averted.

The Leader of The Nationals in another place made a very important point when he referred to the Government's approach to the controversial and difficult issues that emanate from the whole suite of environmental legislation. The Government's standard response to concern is: "Trust us, we will address those concerns in the regulations". And just look at what we have got! As we have seen with the Water Management Act, the Threatened Species Conservation Act, the Native Vegetation Act and now this bill, the devil is in the detail of the regulations and the lack of consultation that occurred regarding their drafting. The Opposition will not oppose the second reading of the bill but will debate its amendments vigorously in Committee and review its position at the third reading stage.

Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES [9.12 p.m.]: I lead for the Christian Democratic Party in debate on the Threatened Species Conservation Amendment (Biodiversity Banking) Bill, the object of which is to introduce a new scheme under the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 to manage the loss of endangered flora and fauna and the surrounding environment. The bill also makes amendments to other relevant legislation, including the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 and the Mining Act 1992. As the previous speaker, the Hon. Rick Colless, observed, there are many issues in the bill to consider, and I will address some of them now.

Australia, with its vast and varied terrain, is considered to be one of the world's 12 most biologically diverse countries. Together these 12 mega-diverse countries constitute 75 per cent of global biodiversity. Interestingly, many species found in Australia cannot be found anywhere else on the planet. It is estimated that Australia contributes 7 per cent of the world's total species diversity through species that are endemic to Australia. Much of this diversity is concentrated in certain biodiversity hotspots across the country, including, for instance, the inland plains, the Brigalow Belt and the north and south border ranges of Queensland and New South Wales.

Notably, however, as area does not determine the extent of biodiversity on land, small pockets of land can also contain many species. For instance, in Lane Cove National Park in Sydney there are at least 27 fungal species from the family hygrophoraceae—which constitutes 30 per cent of all known Australian species—within an area measuring just 400 metres by 50 metres. These are fascinating facts to reflect upon, and they leave one awestruck at the richness of nature and the possibility of finding undiscovered species in inconspicuous locations.

As many honourable members know, biodiversity in Australia—as rich as it is—has suffered loss, particularly since European settlement. According to the National Parks and Wildlife Service, at least 125 plant and animal species and subspecies are known to have become extinct since 1788. This figure includes 7 per cent of Australia's known mammal species, which represents half of all global mammal extinctions in the past 200 years. It is estimated that more than 80 species of plants and animals have suffered extinction in New South Wales alone since European settlement. Of interest is the following statement in the 2000 New South Wales State of the Environment Report:

Clearly action is required to stem this loss of Australia's biodiversity, particularly in areas where species populations are isolated and at risk of harm due to human pressures. Preserving biodiversity is vital to different groups for varying reasons. But no reason is more important than leaving social capital for future generations. To economists, for example, the value of ecosystem services at local and global levels has been estimated at a massive $US32 trillion annually—which is equal to almost twice the global gross national product and greatly exceeds the economic wealth obtained from direct or consumptive uses of biodiversity.

It is relevant to note that the crux of this legislation as indicated in the second reading speech in the other place is to "establish a system that creates flexibility to allow for good development results and biodiversity conservation". I mention this because the definition of " biodiversity" is crucial to these reforms. Contrary to popular knowledge, biodiversity does not refer strictly to diversity between species; the term encapsulates much more than that. An authoritative definition might be found in the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, which is a product of the 1992 United Nations Rio Earth Summit. It defines biodiversity as:

I emphasise that central to the definition of "biodiversity" are the words "variability" or "diversity". I urge honourable members to keep this meaning in mind during this debate. Further, the maintenance of biodiversity depends on far more than simply preventing the loss of a species. According to the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority [EPA], to preserve the entire range of genes, species and ecosystem processes it is appropriate to manage biodiversity on the scale of entire ecosystems. The EPA indicates that the "rationale behind this approach is that the best hope for the conservation of the many species that are yet undiscovered or poorly studied lies in the conservation of the widest possible range of ecological communities". How can we reconcile this approach with the reality of burgeoning population rates and concomitant development and consumption? It is not clear whether this objective can be achieved. However, the legislation that we are considering tonight attempts to provide an unconventional answer to this ever-present problem.

Honourable members will be aware that the current approach to negotiating interaction between development and the protection of biodiversity is governed predominantly by the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 and by the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995.

It may be said that conservationists perceive this legislation as giving them grounds to refute development that adversely impinges on biodiversity. On the other hand it could be said that some developers view this legislation as the red tape that must be satisfied before development can go ahead. Often these extreme viewpoints collide, leading to a David and Goliath showdown in the Land and Environment Court. Though concerning different legislation, the facts surrounding the Filming Approval Bill demonstrate the type of battle to be had in this context. The stated objective of the Government in introducing this legislation is to:

… move biodiversity conservation beyond the unproductive and frequently caricatured battles between housing and an endangered snail or between a shopping centre and an orchid.

In the Government's view this will be achieved by creating a market that values biodiversity conservation through a mechanism known as biodiversity banking or biobanking. Biobanking will provide an alternative to the current scheme under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 and the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995. I will briefly summarise what is involved in biobanking.

Biobanking is based on the premise that if a price signal can be established for biodiversity, biodiversity will be valued. Rather than being seen as an impediment to development, it is thought that biodiversity, and the species found within it, can be considered of worth under this system. Thus, biobanking will entail a market being created for biodiversity by the establishment of biobank sites that, when managed according to biobanking agreements, will give rise to biocredits.

Biobanking sites will be established on land through biobank agreements entered into between the Minister for the Environment and relevant landowners. A biobank site can only be established when the landowner—or, in cases where the land is leased or encumbered, the lessee or mortgagee—agrees to the land being used for that purpose. Biobank sites must have similar conservation values as the site to be developed. Once biocredits are created and registered, a market will give rise to enable those credits to be traded and purchased. Proposed development could go ahead in cases where developers have purchased sufficient credits or created a biobank site, which offsets the loss in biodiversity on the land to be developed.

A biobanking assessment methodology will provide the framework for the running of the scheme, and will seek the maintenance of or an improvement in biodiversity values. For example, this methodology would govern how many credits could be attributed to different management activities such as rehabilitation of native vegetation, weeding out noxious weeds, or culling feral animals. It is envisaged that participation in this scheme will be mostly optional. In some cases, however, areas covered under certain State environmental planning policies will require biobanking to be undertaken.

As was mentioned, it is proposed that biobanking will be an alternative scheme to the one offered under current legislation. It will be incumbent on the Director General of the Department of Environment and Conservation to issue a biobanking statement in respect of a development proposal. A biobanking statement may be issued in respect of development and activities to which parts 4 and 5 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 applies. Thus, in case where a biobanking statement is issued, it will not be necessary for the development to be assessed in accordance with the threatened species protection measures provided for by this legislation.

In situations where projects are dealt with under part 3A of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979, the Minister may approve a project subject to a condition requiring the retirement of biodiversity credits even if a biobanking statement was not obtained for the project. Also, the Minister may approve a project subject to the developer complying with any condition of a biobanking statement.

It is understood that one of the main aims of this scheme is to place value on biodiversity. Though biodiversity has intrinsic value, in economic terms, there is a market failure in relation to biodiversity because currently no market exists to preserve its worth. As indicated by Judson Agius in his article "Biodiversity Credits: Creating Missing Markets for Biodiversity" in the Environmental and Planning Law Journal:

This market failure in relation to biodiversity arises not from the functioning of markets but rather because there are no markets at all for these societal benefits. There are missing markets and the 'externality' of biodiversity loss is the product of this failure.

Is the creation of a market the most effective way of placing a value on biodiversity? One of the main arguments that can be made against the establishment of such a market relates to the nature of biodiversity. As I said, biodiversity relates to the variability within and between species and its ecosystems and, as such, is not homogenous. Markets can only function effectively when discrete units of value can be placed upon items that are comparable, like water or carbon dioxide emissions. This is a fundamental prerequisite for a market to function. Judson Agius provides that:

The principal difficulty for such a system is that tradeable rights are best suited to resources that are relatively homogenous and are easily measured, such as water use, saline discharges, air pollution and fishing and timber harvesting. The removal of biodiversity values on one piece of land may not be equivalent to the biodiversity protected on another piece of land.

That is exactly what the Hon. Rick Colless indicated when he compared some of the problems within the Inverell area. With the complexity of biodiversity, it is commensurably difficult to reduce biodiversity to a tradeable unit. It remains to be seen how this issue will be successfully resolved in practice. I welcome the support of both the Opposition and the Government for a joint House committee to evaluate this over the next two years or so because there is no other way that it can be evaluated unless it is trialled in that time. However, the trial cannot be limited to one single area within New South Wales, such as the Hunter; it must be conducted in various areas of the State.

On 28 August 2006 the ABC's Four Corners aired a program on climate change and the resultant implications for future energy use. The uprising of greenhouse entrepreneurs was referred to, one example being the activities conducted by C02 Australia, a company that is planting thousands of mallee trees in Condobolin, in the Central West of New South Wales. The company is making money by claiming carbon credits for the carbon that each tree locks up in its root and trunk and branches as it grows through its transpiration system, through its leaves. According to the executive director, Andrew Grant:

We're unique, not only in Australia, but we're unique in the world, that we're an example of an entrepreneurial business in this emerging carbon economy where our whole business reason is we're a carbon credit creator.

Though this business is being run to accumulate credits for use in the greenhouse abatement scheme, and therefore to bring profit to the company, it is imagined that similar entrepreneurial ventures will commence to engineer biodiversity credits. This type of scheme can work because there is an estimated amount of carbon trapped in each tree creating carbon credits. Though the principle behind this scheme could at first blush be loosely applied to biodiversity, the non-homogenous nature of biodiversity provides a fundamental impediment to a similar scheme working in practice. Even if there were no profits to be gained, I would be very interested to see how huge forests of mallee trees could be planted in the middle of a drought area in the most desolate part of New South Wales.

Also, given the intrinsic value of biodiversity and the complexities and layers that it entails, is it sound to treat biodiversity as a commodity? With something as precious and rare as biodiversity and arguably, on one level, part of this generation's legacy that we are going to leave to our grandchildren, the commodification of biodiversity will not only not reflect its inherent value but will undermine it. Moreover, the creation of a market for biodiversity may add to the creation of a culture where nature and all that it entails is seen as dispensable.

Perhaps one of the most serious concerns attached to this entire scheme is the resultant removal of in situ conservation where development is allowed to proceed. I am quite sure this will be an issue for Mr Ian Cohen. Our office has received many letters from environmental groups indicating their opposition to this legislation, highlighting, amongst other things, that conservation is best undertaken in situ, that is, where the particular aspect of biodiversity is to be found. As indicated by Agius:

The importance of in situ conservation cannot be overstated. Biodiversity is not homogenous, with species, ecosystems and their genetic make-up each varying from location to location. Additionally, biodiversity loss is irreplaceable; once lost it is lost forever. Much is yet unknown or undiscovered in the global storehouse of biodiversity, with many species, especially invertebrates microbes and viruses as yet undiscovered. There is enormous uncertainty about what is being lost as biodiversity declines and the only way to be confident it may be discovered is to retain original, relatively undisturbed habitat.

There is ample food for thought in this paragraph. Significantly, if development is allowed to proceed in areas that carry undiscovered species, these species may be lost forever—not just to us, but to all generations to come. This loss will be borne not only by this generation but by our descendants. Biobanking is fundamentally based on an approach that allows the destruction of one area on condition that an area of "similar biodiversity" is conserved and managed, or a previously degraded ecosystem is restored. Agius makes the point that:

The New South Wales Department of Land and Water Conservation has noted this in its Offsets, Salinity and Native Vegetation Discussion Paper, and is a major limitation of any approach that does not have as its primary aim the in situ conservation of existing biodiversity. Similarly, this problem has been a feature of the United States Wetland Reserve Program, where experience has shown that restoring a degraded wetland as a condition of converting another existing wetland to agricultural use is scientifically difficult and not sound conservation policy.

Talking about Virginia, close to where I lecture every January in north-east Tennessee, he continues:

A study carried out in 1985 found that of 32 wetland creation projects carried out in Virginia, only nine had been evaluated as successful. As Farrier argues, "biodiversity conservation requires that we give priority to the conservation of relatively undisturbed land rather than attempting to restore degraded or even destroyed ecosystems".

What is gone cannot be brought back. There are many other concerns that are attached to the introduction of this scheme. I have only scratched the surface in pointing out some of the more salient. Importantly, the Legislation Review Committee also highlighted some concerns in its recent digest report with respect to proposed section 127B, dealing with biobanking assessment methodology. As noted by the committee, the legislation:

Consequently the committee refers to Parliament:

In other words, if we do not make the rules, we will not be able to watch their operation closely. The bill in effect leaves a fundamental element of biobanking, namely the biobanking assessment methodology, to be defined at a later stage without the possibility of parliamentary scrutiny. If this bill proceeds to become law, it would be useful to have a mechanism in place to address the loss in biodiversity brought about by landowners in the past, given that, as Judson Agius says:

According to Agius:

The most equitable way to do this appears to be through an annual biodiversity levy imposed through the state land tax system on property-owners in New South Wales (primary producers and residential owners would be exempt under current arrangements). Landowners participating in the scheme could be exempt from the levy, providing a further incentive to conserve biodiversity.

A levy of such a nature could be used to further protect areas of high conservation value in the State. I am conscious that I have spoken at some length on this bill, but I feel passionately that what we are deciding tonight will benefit the State not only in our lifetime but in the lifetime of our children and our children's children. It remains to be seen whether biobanking will be a success. What is known, however, is that there are some fundamental issues concerning its underpinning philosophy and its potential implementation in the real world. An approach that sounds good in theory on some levels is often impossible to translate into reality. It is also clear that biodiversity conservation, as a priority, will fall generally behind the angst of developers to get their developments on foot and completed. I look forward to following through on this issue over the next couple of years, as has been proposed in the other place.

Mr IAN COHEN [9.35 p.m.]: The Greens regard the Threatened Species Conservation Amendment (Biodiversity Banking) Bill 2006 as an unacceptable piece of legislation. We are appalled at this proposal for a highly flawed offsetting scheme, which will facilitate and entrench the destruction of high conservation value vegetation in coastal and urban areas throughout New South Wales. I indicate at the outset that we will oppose the bill and we urge other members to do so. The scheme represents the very worst kind of offsetting system, because it will be contained within a very weak regulatory regime; it will allow trading across wide geographic areas and it will allow offsets to later be offset themselves; and it fails to explicitly protect them from damaging uses or to meaningfully protect them in perpetuity.

I am quite surprised that this legislation has been introduced. When speaking with friends, I refer to it as the biobashing bill, because that is what it really is. Any government that would introduce this as a scheme to protect the biological heritage of this State is either quite deluded or has one eye on the interests of those who would benefit most from the destruction of protected areas. I commend Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes for raising the issues he did in his detailed speech. Quite clearly, conservation values have been traded off and we are dealing with green wash of the highest order. After discussing the bill with a number of people and with the Government, I remain concerned that it does not offer any net gain in biodiversity protection. It is a trade-off and a sell-out of biological values to assist the development industry. That is the primary reason the bill is before the House today.

Despite statements about conservation, in recent times many Hunter developers have gained quite significant windfalls. The end result is that quite an amount of vegetation is to be cleared to make way for development. The protections proposed are extremely weak. Though Government advisers argued at one stage that this measure affords greater protection than is afforded under the Threatened Species Conservation Act, there is no guarantee that areas put aside in the so-called biobank will be retained there, because there are later opportunities for development to take place even in those very areas. There is no guarantee that those areas will remain protected in perpetuity.

Some of the aspects that have been presented to me really make a mockery of Labor putting itself forward as a government concerned with conservation. This is not a conservation bill. It is unthinkable that such a deeply flawed system will be used to allow developers to bypass existing threatened species survey and impact assessment procedures, without any requirement whatsoever for public exhibition or public participation. Who does the assessments? Someone paid for by the developer? We have seen that going right back to 1996 with the privatisation of planners and the integrated development assessment legislation—this Government moving inexorably towards supporting the development industry and making a mockery of conservation requirements and strategies.

This bill basically represents yet another major wind-back in the few remaining coastal planning provisions that are crucial to the proper assessment of environmentally damaging developments. The bill seeks to insert a new part 7A into the Threatened Species Conservation Act to enable the establishment of a biodiversity banking and offsets scheme. The four main components of the scheme are establishing biobank sites on land by way of a biobank agreement between landowners and the Minister, creating biodiversity credits in respect of actions to improve or maintain biodiversity values on biobank sites, trading biodiversity credits, and enabling the credits to be used as offsets against the impact of development on biodiversity values.

Biodiversity is much broader than just looking at threatened species. Addressing only the issue of threatened species will not protect biodiversity or threatened species in the long term. The bill appropriately looks at biodiversity in terms of ecological communities and their habitats, but it will not require that impact on each threatened species be offset. It is startling that biodiversity is declining at such a rapid rate at a time when scientists are finding more and more species that we did not even know about. For that reason it is crucial to protect ecological communities, rather than simply address species decline. By protecting an entire ecological community we have a better chance of protecting the unknown species within that community before it is too late. How many species that have not been discovered yet will we destroy through development?

I could digress to look at some of these side issues related to this biodiversity banking bill. One of those interesting areas is the invasive native species issue. We have the winding back by the government of the Native Vegetation Act 2003 to allow loopholes that enable broad-scale land clearing to occur. Proposed changes will allow landholders to clear native bush regrowth and plant crops. That is not environmental management; it is land-use change. It marks a serious break in policy and will mean that broad-scale land clearing will be accelerated in New South Wales, despite a 2003 election promise that land clearing would be stopped, and reaffirmations of that commitment by Premier Iemma earlier this year. Why does the Government feel the need to change laws to enable the clearing of invasive native weeds, so-called woody weeds, when under the new Act—which is not a year old—there has been more than 60,000 hectares of approved clearing from that type of vegetation?

So we have an attack on all sites, so far as this government is concerned. Regrowth of native species is an issue that can have some environmental and production impacts, but these proposed reforms simply amount to kowtowing to a very small element of landowners who want to get out the bulldozer and drive through the bush. The Government should support landholders with forward thinking land stewardship payments. The Hon. Rick Colless will not disagree with that, surely? The Government should look after farmers who are obeying the law, by prosecuting those who are not. Land clearing continues to be the number one threat to nature in New South Wales. It is the principal cause of salinity, it exacerbates the impact of drought, and affects our rivers, our water supplies and our farmland. Land clearing is causing greenhouse gas pollution, which is equivalent to more than two million cars on our roads every year.

That says much, as the New South Wales Government is claiming it has saved through the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme. Why is it that, in this day and age, the New South Wales Government is so far behind on this issue? We have this type of impact out in the western areas and in the agricultural sector, and at the same time we have this cheating legislation of biobanking in other areas of the State. Well, at least the Government is consistent: It says one thing and does the other, which is the consistency we have seen all along the line.

Biodiversity has been seen by developers as a regulatory burden and an obstacle to development, rather than as something worth protecting. The Millennium assessment documents have shown that about 10 per cent of New South Wales flora is listed as threatened or vulnerable. These species are not evenly distributed, occurring mostly in the north-east and the Sydney Basin which are, of course, the areas that are under the greatest and ever-increasing pressure from development. The last New South Wales State of the Environment report noted that biodiversity loss is the biggest threat to the environment. Listing the key threatening processes has not produced many outcomes. The Government needs to get serious about this. Some threatened species require international action to be rescued, but action can also be taken locally. It is important that that happens now. The debate about offsets must be seen in the context of the importance of preserving biodiversity in situ. Attempts to recreate ecological communities throughout the world have by and large been unsuccessful. This is true of attempts in Sydney to recreate Cumberland Woodland, which has been a failure thus far, with 87 per cent of the native vegetation of the Cumberland Plain having been cleared. Once biodiversity is lost, it is lost forever; it cannot be recreated.

The greatest failing of the system is that it cannot and will not prevent the development of high conservation value areas. Part 3A developments are exempt from the "maintain or improve" test, which means they can just buy some biodiversity credits, thereby bypassing threatened species assessment requirements, and effectively buy a threatened species approval. Even this morning the Hon. Frank Sartor briefed crossbench members about strengthening or tightening the part 3A clauses to add a little bit more to the absolute power he is able to assert on planning issues in this State. Other developments, even if they fail the "maintain or improve" test, just revert to the seven-part test process for approvals. Therefore, the bill institutionalises an outrageous double standard. If a development passes the "maintain or improve" test, it is deemed not to have a significant impact and is approved, but if it does not pass, it is not deemed to have a significant impact and is refused.

What the Government is doing here is getting away from the simple situation that where you have certain threatened species you cannot develop. I am dealing with that situation on my land on an area where I intend to build a house. I have white lace flower, an endangered species. It has a tag and it is to be protected, and if I have to rearrange the house design in order to save it, I will do just that. I am just so happy to have that particular species growing near the location of my future dwelling. Similarly, I have what I think is called a chain brown orchid, which is another threatened species. That is rather inconvenient, I suppose, in its position, but as far as I am concerned I take pleasure in giving it pride of place.

I am in despair that people are so directed towards development and making money that they cannot see the value and the beauty of threatened species. One can tailor development to the degree of actually saving these species. If developers are going to buy up other areas, why not buy another area of land where there is no threatened species in situ, and develop that? But no, they are prepared to bulldoze the threatened species on site when they could buy up another area of land that may not have the same species or the same aggregation.

From my point of view, one of the most annoying aspects of this legislation is that it provides no additional protection. Lands that are purchased under biodiversity banking measures already have a degree of protection, but the Government claims that this legislation will give those lands greater protection because the people who buy the land have to look after it. That is cold comfort because the site can be cleared. In times past, the discovery of the presence of a threatened species would halt development and developers would have to go elsewhere, but that does not happen any more. Instead, legislation of the type that is before the House allows a developer to proceed, irrespective of the total value of the site.

This legislation will be abused. This bill represents a watering down of protections in New South Wales. Honourable members should remember that this State has one of the highest rates of species extinction in the world. We have very special and sensitive flora and fauna in this State. It is original and is a wonderful example of nature. Sadly, it is being treated as a tradable commodity. I think it was Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes who said that apart from threatened or endangered species being protected on development sites, this State has species that have not yet been discovered, let alone named. Specimens in all categories will disappear, all in the name of progress. That is what this Government is all about. It is about time the Government got off the development bandwagon and instead began concentrating on balance and sustainable development.

The meaning of "improve or maintain" is not defined in the bill. The bill leaves the details of the application of the term "improve or maintain" to a methodology that has not yet been developed. In other words, people will have no idea of the interpretation and application of critical terms in this bill. For all we know, the term could relate to curbing and guttering around the threatened species.

That is the way developers operate and they will be able to get away with it in New South Wales because of this Government's legislation. It is unacceptable for definitions to be left out of the bill and to risk the interpretation of crucial provisions, such as maintaining like-for-like provisions, to a later time. A major problem with this legislation is the impermanency of the protection afforded to areas that will be protected under biobanking agreements as a result of such areas being offset and developed at a later date. There are no compulsory restrictions or prohibitions on activities that may occur on offset land.

I am concerned that offsets, which should be protective, may be subject to uses that will damage their integrity. While an agreement may place restrictions on the use of a biobank site, the bill's terminology is not strong enough. To be effective, biobank sites should be managed purely for conservation purposes. However, we know that that will not be the case and that protections will not last forever—nod, nod, wink, wink! The Government claims that the legislation will protect species through its biobanking provisions, but as the biodiversity collateral is reduced, the next generation of developers will be able to move on to areas that do not have a high degree of vulnerable species present and trade that for land which does. In a system resembling commercial banking, there will be trading of threatened species habitat as developers trade up from development to development.
Biodiversity credits will be generated and purchased before management actions have been completed or biodiversity outcomes are delivered. Of course, this is a matter of great concern because it will allow developers to purchase credits and clear vegetation before offset actions have been implemented. There will be no mechanism for any of the funds that may be raised to be used for the purchase of land for the national parks estate, nor is there any mechanism for offset sites to be reserved as national parks or voluntary conservation areas. On the contrary, in an astonishing debasement of conservation principles, any funds that will be raised through the biobanking scheme will be deposited into consolidated revenue rather than being spent on conservation measures or reserve acquisitions. That makes the Treasurer, the Hon. Michael Costa, the big greenie in this State because Treasury is where the money will be going.

The Hon. John Della Bosca: I am pleased you acknowledge him in that way.

Mr IAN COHEN: I am sure he will be really impressed.

The Hon. John Della Bosca: I think he will mention that during question time.

Mr IAN COHEN: I hope he derives some delight from being able to divert funds that have been raised for conservation into other areas of government that are of greater interest to him. I am sure he will find some polluting industry to support. The absence of hypothecation of funds demonstrates the poor quality of this legislation. The Government's response to the loss of biodiversity thus far has been its reserve system with 8 per cent of the area of New South Wales being held in reserves. While that is commendable, much more needs to be done. Small patches of biodiversity, especially in areas under pressure from development, are crucial to maintaining wildlife corridors and acting as the lungs of urban areas. The Government has argued that small patches of bushland are not likely to support wildlife and are prone to weeds and feral pests. This argument is not good enough.

While small patches of land might not support larger species of wildlife, they are still important for birds, smaller marsupials, reptiles, frogs and countless other species. Small patches can provide connectivity between larger reserved areas and therefore may play an important part in preserving biodiversity. Instead of the argument that they are prone to feral pests and weeds lending weight to the contention that they are not worth preserving, it supports the argument that more effort needs to be put into the control of feral pests and weeds. Small patches of urban bushland are often highly valued by communities. The work of countless groups that engage in voluntary bush regeneration must be commended. In that context, I very briefly mention that a significant number of conservationists have been working to protect the blue gum high forests in the St Ives area. I recommend that people visit that small area's magnificent forests.

Despite the St Ives area being surrounded by housing, being not far from a rail line and not far from the Pacific Highway, I challenge anyone not to be amazed by the spectacular birdlife in the area on any morning. Nowhere else have I seen a greater variety of birds or flocks in such numbers as I have seen in the blue gum high forests of St Ives. The woodland is a healthy remnant of bushland that deserves protection, but its value is accentuated by its proximity to the city. The bird species flock to that area of native bushland because so little native bushland remains. It is absolutely stunning to see the variety of birdlife in that area. The woodland is a natural resource that should be preserved. I understand that protections have been strengthened as a result of successful measures undertaken by local conservation groups, which is the type of action that the Government should undertake. The thought of other bushland remnants of similar quality being traded for inferior land and consequently destroyed because a developer has been empowered by this bill horrifies me.

In the Hunter region, some notable people, including Graham Richardson, are buying land with the idea of being able to trade it. They are investing in Australia's natural estate in a manner that is similar to the way people invest in real estate. It is all a bit too slick and it all works out a little too well between this Government and those who have good relationships with it. This legislation has been rejected by at least 44 environment groups, including the Nature Conservation Council of New South Wales, the National Parks Association of New South Wales, the Total Environment Centre, the Angels Beach Dunecare and Reafforestation Group Incorporated, the Animal Protection Association of Australia, the Blackwall Highway Action Group, the Ballina Environment Society, the Broadwater Action Group, Broadwater Dunecare, Budgewoi Vision, the Conservation Ecologists Association, the Corindi Beach Residents' Group, the Dudley Progress Association, East Ballina Landcare, EcoNetwork Port Stephens, the Evans Head Memorial Aerodrome Committee Incorporated, the Evans Head Water Committee, Fox Road Landcare, the Friends of Cudgen Nature Reserve, Friends of the Koala Incorporated, Friends of the Pilliga, Friends of South West Rocks, the Green Corridor Coalition and the Hunter Community Environment Centre.
The Hon. Robyn Parker: Those groups are against it.

Mr IAN COHEN: I acknowledge the interjection from the Opposition. I heard it, but I am not quite sure what it meant. I would recommend that those groups campaign against the Government, and I know they will. It is a tragedy that the Opposition does not lift its game and give us something on which to hang our conservation hat. Other environment groups that have rejected the bill are the Hunter Environment Lobby, Lake Cathie Landcare Group, Lake Cathie Progress Association Incorporated, and the Nambucca Valley Conservation Association.

The Hon. Duncan Gay: True blue groups.

Mr IAN COHEN: If the Opposition votes against the bill, I might give it some consideration. However, as the Opposition voted against the bill in the lower House, I would appreciate a little consistency in this House. Is that too much to ask?

The Hon. Duncan Gay: You will get consistency.

Mr IAN COHEN: I will call for a division at the second reading, because that is what the bill deserves. It will be interesting to see which way the Deputy Leader of the Opposition votes. Other environmental groups that have rejected that bill are the New South Wales Wildlife Council Incorporated, North Arm Landcare Group, North Coast Environment Council, North East Forest Alliance, Pacific Palms Community Association, Rainforest Information Centre, Scotts Head Protection Group, South Golden Beach Progress Association Incorporated, Terania Native Forests Action Group, Terrigal Area Residents Association, the Manning Group, Tweed Valley Wildlife Carers, Ulitarra Conservation Society, United Residents Group of Emerald Incorporated, United Residents Group for the Environment of Lake Macquarie, and Wyong Shire Ratepayers and Residents Association Incorporated. On 28 July 2006 those groups wrote to the Minister for the Environment and sent me a copy of the letter. I will not give the details of the letter at this time, because I have much more to say. Given the lateness of the hour, that is probably best left to another day.

Debate adjourned on motion by Mr Ian Cohen.

STATE REVENUE LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (TAX CONCESSIONS) BILL

Bill received, read a first time and ordered to be printed.

Motion by the Hon. John Della Bosca agreed to:

That standing orders be suspended to allow the passing of the bill through all its remaining stages during the present or any one sitting of the House.

Second reading ordered to stand as an order of the day.

ADJOURNMENT

The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA (Minister for Finance, Minister for Commerce, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Disability Services, and Vice-President of the Executive Council) [10.04 p.m.]: I move:

That this House do now adjourn.

PREGNANCY TERMINATION SERVICES

The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS [10.04 p.m.]: Abortion is never the first choice for birth control; contraception is. Abortion is an invasive procedure, and usually quite traumatic for the woman. Obviously education and contraception are far more important and a better choice than having an abortion. Indeed, when there are attempts to stop a woman from becoming pregnant sometimes the advice is quite antithetical to a contraceptive approach. Advice given is often "Just say no", or "Never let a man touch your knees", or "Keep a sixpence between your knees", or various other advice that is not very helpful to adolescents in real situations. The United States of America, which has a most restrictive, even prudish, attitude to sex has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the developed world, by a huge margin.
People who are pro-choice demand the right to control their own body, and part of that right is the right to not have a child that they do not want. No-one knows the total number of abortions performed in Australia as the Medicare item number for terminations also covers related gynaecological procedures. During my medical experience, I saw lists of patients for dilation and curette. Some names were marked with an asterisk, which indicated that the woman was pregnant. However, all procedures were carried out from the same lists. It is estimated that the number of abortions performed in Australia annually is approximately 85,000. Based on current figures it is estimated that 45 per cent of Australian women will have an abortion at some time in their lives. In other countries, notably China and Russia, the percentage is much higher, over 90 per cent. In the United States of America, 20 million legal abortions have been carried out since 1973.

On 11 February this year, the Roy Morgan Research poll found that three in five Australians, or 62 per cent, of those surveyed believed that RU486 should be made available to women. The same poll noted that 65 per cent of Australians approve of surgical abortion for the termination of unwanted pregnancies. Some people may call themselves "pro-life."

It always strikes me as significant that billions of male sperm cells are lost daily, and women use one egg a month for their entire reproductive life—almost all of which are wasted, even in the most fertile and productive women. Yet, people are reluctant to use any spare embryos that are created in in-vitro fertilisation [IVF] programs by women desperate to have a child. Indeed, millions die in tsunamis or in wars in the Sudan, yet people seem to be not at all concerned about that. They go about their lives, they renovate their bathrooms with their spare cash. However, the same people will become completely and utterly emotional about abortion or the use of stem cells or a spare IVF embryo. It should be noted that abortion is still illegal under the Crimes Act, which provides an exemption for a woman whose life may be in danger.

A doctor must have grounds for a reasonable belief that the carrying through with a pregnancy would be detrimental to the woman's life or physical or mental health before carrying out the procedure. That involves getting a counsellor to agree with the doctor that the woman's mental health is at risk. That lever has been used by the anti-abortion forces within the Federal health department to add to the cost of abortion, to make it more difficult to have an abortion. Earlier this year the political movement GetUp along with the Australian Democrats Senator Natasha Stott Despoja exposed the Commonwealth Government's preferred tenderer, Pregnancy Help Australia, formerly know as the Australian Federation of Pregnancy Support Services, the peak body for 29 so-called pregnancy support telephone hotlines, which had as part of its objective:

To provide an organisational structure for state, regional and local pro-life pregnancy support service centres with the purpose to offer mutual support, advice and service.

Part (v) (e) of the Australian Federation of Pregnancy Support Services objective states:

Not to advise, provide or refer, directly or indirectly, for abortions or abortifacients.

The web page dedicated to the history of Pregnancy Help Australia, formerly the Australian Federation of Pro-Life Pregnancy Support Services before it was renamed, states:

In order to explain and clarify our project-life counselling stance that we will not refer directly or indirectly for abortion, I believe that if we send an abortion-seeking client to another professional or government or non-government agency or hospital for abortion counselling, and we do not know whether or not the person at the other end is going to be 100% pro-life, then I would regard that as a soft abortion referral.

Over the past five years a number of factors have affected women's access to abortion in Australia. There is pressure upon New South Wales abortion providers by the Compliance Unit of the Health Insurance Commission. The cost of terminations has increased from $160 to an up-front payment, generally of about $540 with some providers. That is the out-of-pocket expense for women in New South Wales. Very few public hospitals provide abortions; I do not know why that is. It is a disgrace. It is cost shifting and it is also ideological, as is the Federal situation. It is not desirable that women have abortions, but certainly it is a necessity in some cases. Obviously it is better to prevent a pregnancy than to have an abortion. Pregnancy termination is an essential service and the State Government must do better than it is currently doing to make sure that service is available.

ASIA-PACIFIC REGION GENDER EQUITY AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

The Hon. ROBYN PARKER [10.09 p.m.]: It is fortuitous that I follow the Hon. Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans in the adjournment debate tonight as I want to talk about a recent meeting I had with a group of women parliamentarians relating to gender equity and reproductive health in the Asia-Pacific region. Some of our male colleagues might say that a bunch of women parliamentarians were just raving on in the usual fashion, but it is important to establish gender equity for women across our region. As parliamentarians we must assist in whatever way we can to establish gender equity and to improve women's reproductive health—an issue to which the Hon. Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans referred earlier.

Reproductive health problems are the leading cause worldwide of ill health and death for women of child-bearing age. Australia's closest neighbours are suffering. For example, in East Timor 660 women per 100,000 births die in childbirth. In Papua New Guinea 300 women per 100,000 births die in childbirth, yet in Australia—the lucky country—only eight women per 100,000 births die in childbirth. So we are well off compared with other countries. Nevertheless, we as parliamentarians have an important role to play in looking after the reproductive health of women across the board and in assisting other countries with health issues.

I am proud to be part of the Parliamentary Group on Population and Development [PGPD]. At the international conference on population and development in 1994, 180 countries prepared a program of action that was adopted by acclamation, including Australia, and reaffirmed by Prime Minister John Howard in January 2005. It set out comprehensive definitions and actions for the global community for the next 20 years. The parliamentary group comprises cross-party members from the Commonwealth, State and Territory parliaments of Australia who are dedicated to raising an awareness of these issues. I am joined in this Parliament by a number of other parliamentarians who are concerned about these issues.

Australia's legislators have made an ongoing commitment to the principles set out by the international conference. People have the capability to reproduce and they have the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so. Implicit in this is the right of men and women to be informed and to have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of family planning of their choice, as well as other methods of their choice for regulation of fertility, which are not against the law, and the right of access to health care services that enable women to go safely through pregnancy and childbirth. The parliamentary group supports the empowerment of women and girls through its commitment to gender equality and the advancement of women as set out in the program of action.

We affirm that equality goes hand in hand with investments in reproductive health, education and economic opportunity. Taken together, these investments can lift millions of people out of poverty. Our objectives are: to engage members of Australian Federal and State parliaments in supporting and promoting women's health rights and empowerment in the Asia-Pacific region, in particular, their sexual and reproductive rights; to advocate that at least 5 per cent of Australia's aid program expenditure be directed to population and development activities; to advocate and promote evidence-based policies and legislation on sexual and reproductive health care policies, practices and services; and to increase support for access to systems and services that enable women and men to improve their reproductive health care options.

To do this we use our parliamentary processes to promote issues of population and development, including issuing questions on notice, taking part in debates, participating in budget estimates and engaging in other activities. We engage individually and collectively in public and private discussions and debates on population and development. We participate in national and international conferences. We engage in person-to-person advocacy with national and international parliamentarians. Last week in this Parliament a member of the Ugandan Parliament shared ideas with us and we offered her support in her role. Whilst the broader aims of the PGPD might seem especially relevant only to our Federal colleagues, there is much we do at a State level that is important to achieving the goals of the PGPD.

State politics is the front line of health care provision. Firm political commitment at every level is essential to make quality family planning widely available. Family planning, reproductive health care, female education, and mother and child health are the best development assistance investments available. That is true whether the aim is to help poorer nations and disadvantaged groups to improve their incomes and quality of life, or to safeguard peace, prosperity and a stable environment in a developed, democratic nation such as our own. The Parliamentary Group on Population and Development strongly endorses the work of the United Nations Population Fund. It supports all efforts across the board in the Asia-Pacific region to create greater gender equity. [Time expired.]

THOMPSON'S ROLLER SHUTTERS PTY LIMITED WORKERS ENTITLEMENTS

The Hon. PETER PRIMROSE [10.14 p.m.]: Last week nine workers at Thompson's Roller Shutters drew a line in the sand and said that they would take no more from their employers. Since March those workers have been trying to negotiate a new agreement with their employers. They want a collective agreement that will guarantee their entitlements, like long service leave, annual leave and redundancy pay. Their employers, Peter and Anne McDonogh, have refused to give any guarantee on entitlements. It is always a concern when employers refuse to give guarantees on such entitlements. In fact, employers are required to ensure the security of their employees' entitlements but, as we have seen with sickening regularity, many employers fail to do so. Employers such as Ansett, HIH and a long litany of others are testimony to the need for unions to continue to get watertight legal commitments from employers that their workers' entitlements are safe.

Apart from the legal requirements, in many cases legally accrued entitlements are often all that workers have to support themselves and their families in retirement, or if the employer collapses financially. The reason for concern at Thompson's Roller Shutters is that, without notifying their employees, Peter and Anne McDonogh appear to have put in place a corporate structure consisting of a series of so-called shelf companies. Employees who are employed by a shelf company are in dire circumstances in the event of a corporate collapse because they often have no assets to call upon to pay their entitlements. This is what the accounting industry euphemistically terms as an "asset protection scheme" although this may not be the intent in this case. Nevertheless, the McDonoghs did not reveal this vital piece of information to their employees.

Although they did not have the time to inform their employees that they now worked for a trust fund rather than the company they thought they worked for, the McDonoghs found the time to present their employees with Australian workplace agreements [AWAs]. Those who accepted the AWAs have been rewarded with pay rates significantly higher than those who did not and they have been offered more opportunities for overtime than those who did not. Nine workers refused to sign the AWAs. They told Peter and Anne McDonogh that they wanted to remain members of their union—the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union—and that they wanted a collective union agreement.

The McDonoghs continued to refuse negotiations relating to entitlements and the workers are now outside the premises in a peaceful protest. But there is a darker side to this protest. Peter McDonogh has sacked a young apprentice boilermaker who has been with the company for nearly 18 months—almost since the very beginning of his apprenticeship. He told the young man very clearly that he did not approve of his contact with protesting unionised workers. Incidentally, the contact consisted of placing protesting workers' lunch orders when he placed the orders for all other workers on the site. This courageous young man stood his ground. He was sacked, the lunch orders for the entire work force were cancelled, and the protesting workers' toilet disappeared during the night.

There have also been allegations relating to some particularly odious racism at Thompson's Roller Shutters—allegations that are now being dealt with before the appropriate tribunals. This is the ugly side of John Howard's so-called WorkChoices legislation. There is no choice; it is the boss's way or no way. That is industrial relations under John Howard. The workers at Thompson's Roller Shutters want to work but they want to do it with dignity and they want to do it as members of a union, and with a collective agreement. That does not seem to be too much for any worker to ask. I intend to follow this dispute closely and I will keep the House informed of what new antics the employers at Thompson's Roller Shutters resort to as they try to rid their factory of unionised workers prepared and able to work collectively.

GOVERNMENT INSURANCE OFFICE ESTABLISHMENT AND WORKERS COMPENSATION ACT

The Hon. IAN WEST [10.19 p.m.]: This year is the eightieth birthday of the Workers Compensation Act, which came into effect in New South Wales in July 1926. The Workers Compensation Act, one of the greatest achievements of the Lang Government, provided certainty to victims of workplace accidents, compelling employers to take out insurance in the case of injury or death. Coinciding with this requirement was the creation of the Government Insurance Office [GIO]. Private insurance companies would be put in an advantageous position by Workers Compensation Act requirements for employers. In addition, a number of companies refused to provide insurance to employers. Recognising this, as well as the tendency for insurance companies to collude to maximise profits, the then assistant Treasurer, Bill McKell, created the GIO. The GIO was able to provide insurance at a reasonable rate while colluding private insurance companies charged abnormally high premiums. As a result of the Act and the formation of the GIO, people were covered against injury at no great cost to the employer. In 1927 McKell told the Legislative Assembly during the second reading of the Government Insurance (Enabling and Validating) Bill:

That is the modest assessment of the former boilermaker who studied law and became a barrister, member of Parliament, Assistant Treasurer and Premier of the State of New South Wales. The decision to establish the GIO was a bold step. It was a successful challenge to the then gluttonous and undemocratic insurance companies that put their pursuit of profits and surplus above delivering compensation to injured people. Unashamedly, McKell gave priority to the injured.

Through the GIO, a check could be kept on the excessive premiums of private insurance companies. Later, when McKell became Premier in the 1940s, he introduced the measures necessary to free the GIO from ministerial control following attacks by conservative governments in the 1930s. From then on the GIO provided almost half a century of stability to the insurance industry. Not all, however, recognised this contribution. The Greiner Government certainly did not, and sold this vital public asset in 1992. In a mixture of economic rationalist dogma and an attempt to make up for financial mismanagement, Greiner took the insurer to the flea market. However, Greiner did not just sell insurance companies; he sold the very means of putting a leash on the insurance industry, which had conspired against the common good 70 years earlier.

I think Bill McKell went some way towards striking the right balance between compensating people who had been injured and ensuring the legitimate viability of the insurance industry. I believe this balance must be weighted strongly in favour of restoring people to their pre-injury condition, as far as money can allow that to happen. I believe it should not be weighted in favour of the balance sheets of insurance companies. This is certainly the view that the great man of the New South Wales Labor Party held some 80 years ago. The creation of a government market player in the world of insurance helped to achieve this—and, indeed, the exercise had lessons for the future.

It was reported recently in the Australian Financial Review that insurance brokers and underwriters were warning that an emerging price war threatens to undo the benefits of tort law changes. The concern is that premium cost cutting will return the insurance industry to the bad old days. Competition for market share is pushing the insurers—it is the same old game. Since the changes to tort law, new insurance providers have been entering the market and competing fiercely. Earlier this year the Vice President of Liberty Insurance, Noel MacCarthy, said:

In the current environment insurers are warning against a lack of underwriting discipline and voicing concerns about the sustainability of premium reductions. The argument is that these things have long time lines and the insurers today face the problem of how to price their products. [Time expired.]

WOLLONDILLY SHIRE COUNCIL MAYOR AND LABOR PRESELECTION

The Hon. CHARLIE LYNN [10.24 p.m.]: I am most concerned about the effective management of the Wollondilly shire in view of the dramatic walkout by six councillors at last week's council meeting. Local newspapers described it as a night of high drama, as Deputy Mayor Judith Hannan and councillors Michael Banasik, Denise Appel, Helen Kuiper, Simon Landow and Shane Read passed a vote of no confidence in Mayor Phil Costa. The reason for their concern related to the fact that they had supported Phil Costa for the position of mayor as he presented himself as an Independent candidate. Over the past six months Phil Costa has been very vocal about the types of State election candidates that he would support from the major parties. According to Costa, they had to live within his shire, and he threatened to run against any candidates from the Labor or Liberal parties who did not live locally.

This parochial, independent stand was strongly supported by most of his fellow councillors, who sprung to his defence whenever he was challenged. Phil Costa indicated during his political posturing that he did not give a damn about any candidate who came from the Campbelltown part of the new Wollondilly electorate—the implication being that people would just have to get used to being governed from Phil's fiefdom. Both major parties were spooked by Costa's chest thumping. He took on the role of town crier, strutting around his shire. He was an Independent and he would have a big say about who represented his new electorate.

Labor Councillor Michael Banasik is a popular man and was widely expected to be endorsed as the Labor candidate. This was the worst-case scenario for the Liberal Party, which needs a swing of 4.5 per cent to take the seat. Banasik has the reputation of being an honest broker. He works hard and is highly regarded throughout the electorate. He was viewed as the natural Labor Party candidate. Liberal Councillor Jai Rowell had the numbers for preselection but he lived in the Campbelltown section of the new Wollondilly electorate, and this was not acceptable to the self-appointed gatekeeper and Independent Mayor of the Wollondilly shire, Phil Costa. So the Liberal Party changed tack to meet the political reality of having an Independent mayor standing against it, and Sharyn Hilton, a local real estate agent and an outstanding businesswoman, was chosen as the Liberal candidate.

The focus then shifted to the Labor Party, as we waited for it to make the obvious choice and endorse Councillor Michael Banasik as its candidate. The phoney campaign would then be over and the battle for the new seat would begin. But it was not to be. In a scenario reminiscent of the great Labor documentary Rats in the Ranks, Phil Costa emerged as the most Machiavellian rat of them all. Phil had done a deal that effectively shafted his only credible opponent, Labor Councillor Michael Banasik, and proved that he is as politically grubby as the best of them. The town of Picton was gobsmacked. At the Wollondilly Shire Council meeting last week Councillor Helen Kuiper, previously a strong defender of Costa, accused him of being quite arrogant and of using his mayoral position to become the Labor candidate. She stated that councillors would not vote for a mayor who could use his position for his political benefit. At the meeting she said:

Councillor Kuiper said that she believes the council has been compromised. Local newspapers have reported that at least two councillors are now considering moving another no-confidence motion at this week's meeting. It is clear that the divide that has appeared in the council because of Mayor Costa's refusal to resign from his position since he was outed as the Labor candidate will have a negative effect on local ratepayers. It is clear also that Phil Costa cannot be trusted: he postured as the local kingmaker while plotting to seize the throne for himself. There is only one throne that he is suited to! He has brought shame upon himself and his council. He should now do the honourable thing and stand down from the position that he gained under false pretences.

NATIONAL SERVICEMEN'S ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA FIFTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY REUNION

Reverend the Hon. FRED NILE [10.28 p.m.]: My wife and I had the pleasure of attending the fifty-fifth national anniversary reunion 1951 to 1972 of the National Servicemens Association of Australia, together with many hundreds of former national servicemen. The reunion was held in the Central Coast region. The national service call-up from 1951 to 1972 impacted on more than 250,00 young men and on society. In 1951 the first stage involved calling up young men for service for three months full-time in the Army, Navy or Air Force, and the following three years in the Citizen Military Forces, now called the Army Reserve. From 1965 the second stage involved more than 20,000 young men on active service, mainly in Vietnam. I understand that they were given the opportunity of going to Vietnam or serving in Australia.

When I turned 17 years of age I was worried that I would miss out on the call-up for national service so I reported to the Army recruiting depot at Belmore and, typical of the Army, I was very quickly recruited. At 17 years of age I was in the first national service intake in 1952. From April through to July I served in the national service, 9 Platoon, C Coy, 13th Battalion, at Ingleburn with about 1,400 men from all over New South Wales, particularly some wild young coalminers from the Hunter Valley and others mainly from Sydney suburbs. I was a member of the 9 Platoon drill guard, which won the company drill guard competition. We also won the battalion competition and the brigade competition, and that was highly unusual.

The Central Coast hosted a number of events that were planned especially for former national servicemen. Festivities commenced on Wednesday 18 October with special events at the Central Coast Leagues Club. The next day's events included a bowls carnival, a race meeting and country music concert, which was held at the leagues club. Tours and other events were held on Friday, and a special memories concert was held at the Mingara Recreational Club, Tumbi Umbi. Many hundreds of former servicemen were entertained by entertainers who performed for our servicemen in Vietnam. It was great to hear singing from Lucky Starr, Little Pattie and many others accompanied by a 20-piece concert band.

On Saturday a national conference and gala dinner was attended by many hundreds of former national servicemen. The guest of honour was Keith Payne, who received a Victoria Cross for his courageous service in Vietnam. Keith had also trained national servicemen. On Sunday there was a march through Gosford city after which a memorial service was held during which special tribute was paid to those who died in the Battle of Long Tan. A cross was erected in the city park and a number of chaplains led the service. Former Governor Rear Admiral Peter Sinclair, AC, RAN, gave the address and Keith Payne took the salute for the march and spoke at the service. The anniversary reunion was a great event for all the former national servicemen, who renewed friendships and received inspiration a the various events. I was pleased to be there.

LORNE RURAL FIRE SERVICE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY

LAKE CATHIE RURAL FIRE SERVICE

The Hon. KAYEE GRIFFIN [10.32 p.m.]: The Lorne Rural Fire Service brigade recently celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with a day-long celebration at its station. Recently a new fire station was opened at Lake Cathie. On 26 September 1956 the Lorne Bushfire Brigade held its first meeting with 17 people in the local Lorne Hall as there was no fire station. The brigades equipment was stored under the hall until a tanker trailer was obtained. It was stored at the old timber mill. The first captain elected was Archie Barr, who remains the longest serving captain of the Lorne brigade. Our lower North Coast Rural Fire Service provides a tremendous service to the local communities. It was a great pleasure to attend the fiftieth anniversary celebration, the opening of the Lake Cathie station and the presentation of long service medals to some 17 members of the bush fire brigade. The awards were presented to people who had served for 15 to 35 years—an indication of the true dedication of the volunteers of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service.

[Time for debate expired.]

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 10.34 p.m. until Wednesday 25 October 2006 at 11.00 a.m.
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