Full Day Hansard Transcript (Legislative Council, 15 November 2006, Corrected Copy)

The President (The Hon. Dr Meredith Burgmann) took the chair at 11.00 a.m.

The Clerk of the Parliaments offered the Prayers.

Bills received.

Leave granted for procedural matters to be dealt with on one motion without formality.

Motion by the Hon. Tony Kelly agreed to:

That these bills be now read a first time and printed, standing orders be suspended on contingent notice for the remaining stages and the second readings of the bills be set down as orders of the day for a later hour of the sitting.

Bills read a first time and ordered to be printed.

Message received from the Legislative Assembly agreeing to the Legislative Council's amendments.

The President tabled, pursuant to the Public Finance and Audit Act 1983, the report entitled "Financial Audits: Volume Four 2006", dated November 2006.

Ordered to be printed.

Motion by the Hon. John Della Bosca agreed to:

1. That on Wednesday 15 November 2006 and Wednesday 22 November 2006 Government Business take precedence of debate on Committee Reports.

2. That on Thursday 16 November 2006 and Thursday 23 November 2006 Government Business take precedence of General Business.

Motion by the Hon. Duncan Gay agreed to:

That under Standing Order 52 there be laid upon the table of the House within 21 days of the date of the passing of this resolution, the following documents, excluding any photographs, technical drawings, maps, plans, designs or specifications, in the possession, custody or control of the Minister for Roads, the Office of the Minister for Roads, the Roads and Traffic Authority, the Premier, the Premier's Office, the Premier's Department Infrastructure Implementation Group, the Minister for Transport, the Office of the Minister for Transport or the State Transit Authority, created since 16 June 2006 and not previously provided to the House:

(a) all documents relating to the establishment and function of the integration group, announced by the Minister for Roads and referred to by Mr Les Wielinga in evidence before General Purpose Standing Committee No. 4 on 6 November 2006,

(b) all documents created by the integration group regarding transition arrangements for the Lane Cove Tunnel and Gore Hill Freeway,

(c) all documents relating to recommendations made by the integration group in relation to Lane Cove Tunnel stage 2 surface works,

(d) all documents relating to compensation payments to be paid to Connector Motorways in relation to stage 2 surface roads, and

(e) any document which records or refers to the production of documents as a result of this order of the House.

The Hon. MELINDA PAVEY: I seek leave to amend Private Members' Business item No. 167 outside the Order of Precedence in the following terms:

Omit "14 days" and insert instead "21 days".

Leave granted.

Accordingly, I move:

That under Standing Order 52 there be laid upon the table of the House within 21 days of the date of the passing of this resolution, the following documents, excluding any photographs, technical drawings, maps, plans, designs or specifications, in the possession, custody or control of the Premier, the Premier's Department, The Cabinet Office, the Treasurer, NSW Treasury, the Minister for Roads, the Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA), the Minister for Planning, the Department of Planning, the Minister for Health or Department of Health, created or modified since 1 February 2006 and not previously provided to the House:

(a) any document referring to the investigation of international developments in tunnel air treatment or filtration systems, including any communication with Noel Child,

(b) any document which details exceedences of air quality goals within the M5 East tunnel,

(c) any document referring to planned or unplanned emissions of tunnel air from the portals (portal emissions) in the M5 East tunnel including the time, duration, volume and reason for such emissions and associated in-tunnel and portal air quality records including those for visibility, particulate matters, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide,

(d) any incident reports associated with planned and unplanned emissions from the M5 East tunnel,

(e) any document referring to planned and unplanned tunnel closures of the M5 East tunnel due to, for example, traffic incidents, degraded air quality or maintenance,

(f) any documents relating to a Cabinet Infrastructure meeting held on 1 February 2006, and

(g) any document which records or refers to the production of documents as a result of this order of the House.

The Clerk announced the receipt, pursuant to standing orders, of the Government's response to report No. 31, entitled "Inquiry into Skills Shortages in Rural and Regional New South Wales", tabled on 11 May 2006.

The Clerk announced further that it had been authorised that the response be printed.
Petition requesting funding for Parkinson's-specific support services for people living with Parkinson's disease, received from the Hon. Henry Tsang.

Petition requesting statistical reporting of abortions, legislative protection of foetuses of 20 weeks gestation, and availability of resources for post-abortion follow-up, received from Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile.

Petition stating that the proposed mine at Anvil Hill in the upper Hunter would fuel global climate change and endanger remnant vegetation, threatened species and water quality, and requesting that the House ensure that the proposal does not proceed, received from Ms Lee Rhiannon.

Petition stating that the proposed coal export terminal at Newcastle harbour would increase Newcastle coal exports by 66 million tonnes per year, fuel global climate change and allow proposed mines such as Anvil Hill to be developed, and requesting that the House ensure that it does not proceed, received from Ms Lee Rhiannon.

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

Government Business Order of the Day No. 1 postponed on motion by the Hon. Tony Kelly.

Ms LEE RHIANNON [11.16 a.m.]: I move:

That standing and sessional orders be suspended to allow a motion to be moved forthwith that Private Members' Business item No. 21 outside the Order of Precedence, relating to the restoration of the Anti-Discrimination Amendment (Equality in Education and Employment) Bill, be called on forthwith.

This is a matter of urgency because there is ongoing discrimination against people working in small businesses and private schools. I understand that the Government will not support this motion. I hope that honourable members will reconsider their position during this debate because this discrimination has continued unchecked for too long. The urgency arises because the discrimination has continued for so long. This matter needs to be considered today because the Anti-Discrimination Amendment (Equality in Education and Employment) Bill, if passed, could help to end such discrimination. This is a matter of urgency as there are many pressures on victims of discrimination not to come forward. Faced with discrimination, most people would choose to simply get on with their lives, rather than engage in protracted public dispute.

This motion is urgent because the discrimination we are addressing manifests in ways that are often addressed as trivial. But discrimination is never trivial. If this matter is not dealt with today, this Parliament will have reneged on its responsibility once again. I would argue that time must be made for this debate; it has been put off for too long. This matter is urgent as this discrimination operates on an implicit level. For example, it would not usually be necessary for a private school to expel a student who comes out as gay or lesbian. That student, understanding the system and fearful of recriminations, would simply ask his or her parents to change schools. That does not make the discrimination any less real or any less painful.

The fact that this matter is urgent is highlighted by the disturbing stories of several victims. A man from an association of gay old boys of The King's School, known as All the King's Men, has told me harrowing stories of discrimination and bullying. One letter I received was particularly interesting. A teacher employed by a secondary Catholic school in Sydney told me in her letter that she is forced to actively conceal her private life from her employer because she lives in a de facto heterosexual relationship. She is forced to lie about her living arrangements, otherwise she would be fired. She related the story of another teacher at the school who, after becoming pregnant, was told by the principal to get married over the holidays, and when she refused she was dismissed. This is clear-cut discrimination on the grounds of marital status happening in the twenty-first century, and it will continue to happen if this Parliament is not willing to debate this bill and put the necessary protection in place. Specific cases of discrimination exist; they have a real human toll. I encourage honourable members who deny their existence to take another look at how this society is working.

These examples highlight why we must deal with this matter today. This bill is urgent because the loopholes in the Anti-Discrimination Act have been in place for 29 years. That is why this matter is urgent today. We cannot keep putting it off and saying it will come up in the course of time. The debate is being gagged and we are not allowed to vote on the full matter before us. There is no justification for putting off debate on this bill any longer. In his contribution to the second reading debate, Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile put on record his understanding that in 1977 church leaders threatened the then Labor Government that they would defeat the bill and perhaps even bring down the Government if the loopholes were not included. Nobody fights that hard for something that is merely token or symbolic. It is time those loopholes were removed. It is time for this debate to start up again.

This motion is a matter of urgency because it is time Parliament considered changing the law so that divorced teachers cannot be dismissed. The matter needs to be discussed today because for too long discrimination against people of diverse sexuality has been allowed to continue. The Government already dictates that private schools may not discriminate according to race or tolerate sexual harassment. The Government regulates and controls most aspects of private education in ways that indisputably limit religious freedom. That regulation has evolved over the years and has set the social standards and norms and is generally and broadly accepted.

This is a matter of urgency because we have ongoing discrimination that could be resolved speedily with this bill. What is proposed in the Greens' bill does not run counter to how private schools operate, but it would ensure there is a mechanism to prevent specific acts of discrimination. Surely we could have this debate and resolve this matter quickly if members had the political will to do so. Because of the high levels of youth suicide, this matter is most urgent. It has been documented that some of these tragic cases are linked to oppressive and discriminatory behaviour to gay young people. This debate is urgent because there is ongoing discrimination in our society and for too long Parliament has not made the time to resolve the matter. We should make the time now. It would not take long to end this debate. As far as I know everybody has participated in the second reading debate.

The Hon. TONY KELLY (Minister for Justice, Minister for Juvenile Justice, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Lands, and Minister for Rural Affairs) [11.21 a.m.]: The House already has an enormous number of urgent bills on its agenda. Therefore, the Government does not support this motion.

Ms SYLVIA HALE [11.21 a.m.]: This motion is urgent because at present a student at a private school in New South Wales can legally be expelled for coming out as gay or lesbian. Imagine that a young person grappling to come to terms with his or her sexuality, perhaps struggling to deal with the emotions and confusion involved, can be expelled for no other reason than his or her sexuality. This debate needs to occur today because for too long private schools have been able to dismiss teachers because their marriage ends in divorce.

The Hon. Tony Kelly: Point of order: Obviously, the Greens have decided they want to put their argument on the record. This is not establishing urgency. I ask you to bring them to order.

Ms Lee Rhiannon: To the point of order: The case has clearly been put. It has been 29 years. We are debating the issue of urgency. How long do you put off a debate? That should be considered in the context of urgency. It would be most unfortunate to rule out a debate and gag a most important discussion.
The PRESIDENT: Order! Whether or not Ms Sylvia Hale was addressing urgency, she was certainly debating the substantive motion, which she must not do at this time. I remind the member that she must confine her remarks to urgency.

Ms SYLVIA HALE: I strongly argue that this is a matter of urgency because there is a massive discrepancy between public schools in New South Wales, which accept every student who enrols, and private schools, which are legally entitled to turn prospective students away if those young people have a disability. If we do not deal with that urgently today, the situation will continue.

The Hon. Duncan Gay: Point of order: The honourable member is arguing the substantive motion again; she is not addressing urgency.

The PRESIDENT: Order! Ms Sylvia Hale should only address the urgency of the matter at this time. She must not debate the substantive issue.

Ms SYLVIA HALE: This motion is urgent because for 29 years a situation has continued that is unacceptable. It is urgent and we should resolve the situation today rather than allow it to continue one moment longer. If we do, we perpetuate discrimination and that is offensive to everybody interested in fair-minded procedures. This bill is urgent because it allows us a way to resolve the discrimination without infringing upon religious freedom, and it does not limit the free exercise of religion.

This bill should be debated today because it is the proper role of Parliament to set social standards. For too long loopholes in the Anti-Discrimination Act have undermined the standards of fairness, equality and protection of the disadvantaged. This is a matter of urgency because in New South Wales today pregnant schoolgirls can be discriminated against. This needs to be debated today. We can no longer put this debate off. This is a matter of urgency because for too long the lawmakers in the State have turned their backs on the rights of transgender people. Those members who state this is not a matter of urgency are using that as an excuse to avoid debating the rights of transgender people and other groups who are discriminated against under the loopholes in the Anti-Discrimination Act. This bill should be debated today.

People with disabilities deserve to be supported by Parliament today. For 29 years this loophole has existed. If this debate is gagged today we will again turn our backs on people who should not have obstacles put in their way. They deserve the same rights that the majority receive. This bill should be debated today because for 29 years private schools have been allowed to discriminate as to whom they accept as their students. They can refuse to enrol a student with a disability. This sends the wrong message: There is no need to accept or tolerate difference. That message is antisocial. People with disabilities can be among the most vulnerable in society and it is important today that we send a message that our role as a Parliament is to protect the vulnerable and to ensure that fair and decent social standards apply.

This bill needs to be debated today because we can no longer delay discussing how to reduce the discrimination that carers experience and suffer. This is an important issue. Most families struggle to balance work with looking after children and perhaps an elderly relative. We can no longer defer debate on resolving this issue. It is essential that Parliament send a strong signal in support of carers. If we do not debate this bill we will not achieve that. It is a matter of urgency that we debate this bill as it deals with the important issue of discrimination on the grounds of homosexuality. There can be no justification for allowing this discrimination to continue. [Time expired.]

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) [11.27 a.m.]: I simply make the point to the House and to the Greens and to any other member who might venture into this debate that the motion the honourable member has moved cannot possibly be regarded as urgent in the context of the contribution of members because the only effect of the motion is to restore the bill to the business paper. How can that possibly be an urgent matter in the context of the busy program before the House?

Reverend the Hon. FRED NILE [11.27 a.m.]: The Christian Democratic Party opposes urgency. The House knows that the Greens have deliberately delayed any vote on this bill, which was first proposed in at least May this year, and have adjourned debate when all members of the House have spoken. We vote against the contingency motion of the pagan Green party because this is another attack on the Christian school movement. We are opposed to urgency because all members of the House, except the Greens and perhaps the Australian Democrats, know the bill is dead in the water. It has been rejected by the majority of members of this House and it would be a waste of time to allow this bill to proceed in view of our heavy agenda_we have about 45 bills to deal with. We will vote against the contingency motion and therefore against the bill.

Mr IAN COHEN [11.28 a.m.]: Of course I support Ms Lee Rhiannon's attempts to gain urgency for this bill. I note the objection by Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile that it is not about urgency; it is a purely ideological objection, which is understandable. But Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile has time and again in this House rolled over his bills ad nauseam. He has been the greatest perpetuator of delaying his private member's bills, more than any other member of this House.

The Hon. John Della Bosca: Point of order: The honourable member is not addressing urgency. I pointed out in my contribution to the debate that a member needs to address whether it is urgent that we restore this bill to the notice paper. The issue is not even whether we debate the bill and have a vote on the bill. So unless the member is talking about why it is urgent to tarry with the time of this House when all he is asking for is for the matter to be placed on the notice paper, he is clearly out of order.

The PRESIDENT: Order! I remind the member that his remarks must only address urgency.

Mr IAN COHEN: I thank the Minister for his erudite instruction on this matter. Essentially, there is urgency. A number of significant human rights are involved. We are approaching the end of the sittings of this Parliament and there is urgency that the bill be properly debated. It is quite clear from polling that some 89 per cent of the public disagree with the idea that private schools should be able to expel a gay or lesbian student.

The Hon. Duncan Gay: Point of order: Madam President, the honourable member is flouting your ruling on the establishment of urgency. He is addressing the substantive part of the motion rather than speaking on urgency. The contribution at the moment is going nowhere near that; it is just the Greens wasting the time of this Parliament, wasting money from this State that would be better spent on other resources.

Mr IAN COHEN: To the point of order: I believe in raising those issues. Given the context of this being the last few days of sitting of this Parliament, it is valid to argue that these basic human rights issues should be debated. It may be the opinion of others that these matters are not urgent but I and other members of the Parliament believe that these matters are urgent. It is reasonable that they be debated now, before the Parliament finishes in the next few days.

The PRESIDENT: Order! I remind the Hon. Ian Cohen yet again that his remarks must be directed at urgency only; he must not debate the actual motion.

The Hon. John Ryan: Why today and not tomorrow?

Mr IAN COHEN: Because we are running out of time.

The Hon. Greg Pearce: But you are wasting it.

Mr IAN COHEN: No, I am not attempting to waste time. There is a crush of legislation. Without going into the substantive matters that are to be debated, there are people who are relying on the Parliament to reflect some very significant human rights issues on this matter. If we do not debate it now there will be no opportunity until the next Parliament. That means people in aged care, gay and lesbian people, people who have been discriminated against as divorcees, and pregnant women will suffer in the interim. There is no guarantee that within the next six months we will have an opportunity to raise this issue if we do not raise it today.

The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS [11.33 a.m.]: I support the motion. The exemption in the Anti-Discrimination Act has been there for 29 years. It is causing ongoing problems. I have a bill for the separation of church and state—it cannot be drafted before the end of this Parliament but I will be able to give notice of it—that deals with similar issues. If we believe in abolishing discrimination we have to act now rather than simply put this matter off. The fact that the discrimination has been ongoing for 29 years does not make it satisfactory. It is an urgent problem. The motion will at least deal with one significant aspect of discrimination, the loophole in the law.

The Hon. Dr PETER WONG [11.34 a.m.]: I do not support this motion, because I believe the matter is not urgent. I do not support discrimination against people with homosexual views but the matter should be debated at a later date in this Parliament or even next year, but definitely not today. As mentioned by the Minister and Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile, the House has many bills to deal with and this matter ought not be brought on today.

Question—That the motion be agreed to—put.

The House divided.

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

Mr Breen Mr Brown Mr Catanzariti Mr Clarke Mr Colless Ms Cusack Mr Della Bosca Mr Donnelly Ms Fazio

Miss Gardiner Ms Griffin Mr Kelly Mr Lynn Mr Mason-Cox Reverend Dr Moyes Reverend Nile Ms Parker Mrs Pavey

Ms Robertson Ms Sharpe Mr Tsang Mr West Dr Wong Tellers, Mr Harwin Mr Primrose

Question resolved in the negative.

Motion negatived.

The Hon. JENNIFER GARDINER [11.44 a.m.]: I move:

That standing and sessional orders be suspended to allow a motion to be moved forthwith that Private Members' Business item No. 149 outside the Order of Precedence, relating to an order for papers regarding clinical service plans, be called on forthwith.

The House divided.

Dr Chesterfield-Evans Mr Clarke Mr Cohen Ms Cusack Mr Gallacher Miss Gardiner Mr Gay Ms Hale

Mr Lynn Mr Mason-Cox Reverend Dr Moyes Reverend Nile Ms Parker Mrs Pavey Mr Pearce Ms Rhiannon

Mr Ryan Dr Wong Tellers, Mr Colless Mr Harwin

Mr Breen Mr Brown Mr Catanzariti Mr Costa Mr Della Bosca Mr Donnelly Ms Fazio

Ms Griffin Mr Hatzistergos Mr Kelly Mr Macdonald Mr Obeid Ms Robertson Mr Roozendaal

Ms Sharpe Mr Tsang Tellers, Mr Primrose Mr West

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Motion agreed to.

Motion by the Hon. Jennifer Gardiner agreed to:

That Private Member's Business item No. 149 outside the Order of Precedence be called on forthwith.

The Hon. JENNIFER GARDINER [11.50 a.m.]: I move:

That under Standing Order 52 there be laid upon the table of the House within 14 days of the date of the passing of this resolution the clinical service plans, including draft plans, created since June 2005 for each area health service, hospitals within those regions, and the Children's Hospital at Westmead, in the possession, custody or control of the Minister for Health or NSW Health, and any document which records or refers to the production of documents as a result of this order of the House.

It is very important that the clinical service plans for each of the area health services in New South Wales and the Children's Hospital at Westmead be provided before the Parliament goes into recess for the year. This is in keeping with the principles of accountability and free flow of information about health services that, for example, were referred to in the major report by Mr John Menadue and his health council to a former Minister for Health, the Hon. Craig Knowles. I wish to briefly deal with a couple of items referred to in the Menadue report on NSW Health. Under the heading "Values and Principles" the Menadue report informed the Government, which lauded his report:

We believe that consumers of health care have a right to information and choice about the services and treatments available to them.

The concept of community involvement in health services is also very important. The Menadue report to the Government said:

Communities must be involved in decisions about the way health care is delivered and about the types and location of health services. Given the changes taking place to the way health care is provided, this involvement is vital.

Indeed, Mr Menadue and his team recommended that the performance agreement of each area health service chief executive officer should include expectations about levels of consumer and community participation, and that area health services should make their planning and budgeting processes and timetables clear to each community. That is what this motion is about. It is about letting communities know what is planned for their hospital regarding future clinical services. It is a fundamental set of documents for each community. Each community should have the right to know and be able to contribute to debate on the clinical services that will be rolled out in the future. It is about as fundamental as one can get in delivering health services in this State. I commend to the House, without delaying it unduly, that this is a very simple matter and that the information should be provided to the Parliament and the people of this State.

The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS (Minister for Health) [11.53 a.m.]: The Government opposes the call for papers. Each area health service produces a range of clinical service plans as part of its continuous planning processes. The plans outline future directions and strategies for a specific clinical service. As well, each area health service and the Children's Hospital at Westmead are preparing area health care services plans. These plans are strategic documents identifying the overall directions for the area for the forthcoming five-year period. The final documents will be released after the release of the State Health Plan.

The area health care services plans are currently being drafted following consultation with relevant health practitioners, the area health advisory councils and the community. Area health care services plans will be public documents when they are finalised. The order for papers would require an enormous amount of work to be undertaken by the Department of Health. It would involve locating every draft of every clinical service plan for every type of service for each of the area health services. This is an unjustifiable deployment of resources; it should be directed towards the planning and delivery of health care services to the people of New South Wales.

I must also signal to the House that some of these documents have been prepared to take to Cabinet, and at this point that Cabinet process has not taken place. I have already said to some members of the House, and I now reiterate publicly, that I am willing to provide a briefing on the progress of the development of the area health care services. This would provide the information members seek without requiring this massive deployment of resources.

The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS [11.54 a.m.]: I refer to the New Zealand experience in relation to the production of documents. That country has an official information Act whereby all government documents, except those for which privacy is specifically requested, are made available. The New Zealand system has been in place since 1985, and the legislation was reviewed 13 years later and found to have worked quite successfully. The doomsayers said that such a system is appalling, that it could not be done, and that it would be hugely expensive. With regard to the New South Wales Government, its secrecy is what is hugely expensive. The Government is spending a fortune in the Administrative Decisions Tribunal—which is supposed to be the people's forum for getting redress cheaply—trying to stop government information being made available. I believe that amounts to a shocking abuse of taxpayers' funds, as well as a denial of people's right to know.

In this case, documents that are involved in health strategy planning are called for. We have an election coming up and we now have a proposition to look at what health services will be delivered. I accept that some services may have to be rationalised, that some hospitals may not be able to offer all services, and that that has been the case for a long time. However, people have a right to know what health services will be provided, and they have a right to discuss that in the lead-up to the election. The Government has raised the issue of cost. I believe that is a complete furphy. Providing information to the public is an obligation of government. The Government has suggested that it would need to spend thousands of dollars to get these plans together to have them made available. If the system is such that the documents cannot be identified and provided, surely we need a better document management system. I have made a considerable number of speeches on this subject and also asked questions.

It was also suggested that these documents were part of the Cabinet process. In my view the Government is simply saying, "This is for important people like us to talk about, and you cannot know about it." In my view this Cabinet document caper is simply an escape clause to eschew an honest, democratic process. The Cabinet is our servant; it is not our master. It is time the Government understood that. This is a right to know issue, and I believe it is important in the lead-up to the election. The motion must be supported.

Reverend the Hon. FRED NILE [11.57 a.m.]: I asked a question about the wording of the motion of the Hon. Jennifer Gardiner with regard to the call for papers. The motion reads in part:

That, under Standing Order 52, there be laid upon the table of the House within 14 days of the date of passing of this resolution the clinical service plans, including draft plans …

I understand that creates a problem. As we all know, when drafts are produced there may be multiple drafts. For example, a draft produced in June 2005 may be redrafted in September 2005, and so on. Those later drafts may have no relevance whatsoever to the final clinical service plans, which is what the Opposition seeks to have tabled in this House. The Opposition's call for papers seems to be reasonable, assuming that the clinical service plans are a final document. However, I understand that some of the final clinical service plans are not yet available. I understand that even the copies the Minister has may not have any validity until the Government adopts them.

They are still plans that have to go through the normal process of government, through the Cabinet and so on. At this stage they are simply documents in the hands of the Minister, and to that extent they are proposals that may or may not be endorsed by the Cabinet. There may be problems in the clinical service plan because I understand there is currently debate on, for example, Sutherland hospital and St George Hospital as to what services should be provided in those hospitals, what services should be transferred to another hospital, what operations can be performed in various hospitals, and so on.

We are all very concerned about waiting lists and want maximum efficiency in the public hospital system so that everyone can get adequate medical treatment, irrespective of their age or where they live in the State. My other concern, as has also been raised by the Minister, is that we do not have too many motions requiring documents to be tabled by the health department and this may be a diversion from their priority role.

Pursuant to sessional orders business interrupted.
The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Roads. Is the Minister aware that his party's web site indicates that one of his achievements under "A Safe and Secure Community" is the introduction of automatic number plate recognition [ANPR] to track down stolen and unregistered vehicles? Was an ANPR operation undertaken at a "Beachsafe" location approximately two weeks ago when highway patrol officers were told to concentrate on identifying number plates and, subsequently, vehicles on a top-200 list of potentially high-risk drivers? Did this direction result in approximately 40 unregistered vehicles being picked up by the ANPR system but not stopped because they were not on the top-200 list? What action will the Minister take to ensure that all stolen and unregistered vehicles detected by ANPR are stopped and taken off the road?

The Hon. ERIC ROOZENDAAL: I, of course, will have to check the veracity of those claims since the Coalition has form for misrepresenting facts. I am happy to get those issues checked and get the appropriate agency to respond.

The Hon. PETER PRIMROSE: My question is directed to the Minister for Industrial Relations. Will the Minister outline the next entitlements to be removed from New South Wales families under the WorkChoices laws?

The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: I thank the honourable member for his question and commend him for his ongoing interest in industrial affairs. Honourable members know that the Howard-Debnam WorkChoices laws have produced a raft of Australian Workplace Agreements [AWAs], which strip away historic entitlements. A survey in the first couple of months of WorkChoices by the Commonwealth's own Employment Advocate demonstrated that every AWA had traded away at least one protected award condition. Sixteen per cent of individual contracts traded away all protective award conditions. Workers now placed in a very weak bargaining position have been forced to trade away holiday and sick leave, penalty rates and overtime.

The Commonwealth has spent more than $50 million of taxpayers' money advertising the protections in WorkChoices. We now know that those advertising dollars were misspent and that the guarantees of the Prime Minister and his Minister for Workplace Relations are meaningless and worthless. The Commonwealth's own survey showed that 64 per cent of workers did not retain leave loading; 63 per cent did not retain penalty rates; 52 per cent did not retain shift loadings; 44 per cent did not retain substitute public holidays; 41 per cent did not retain gazetted public holidays; and 27 per cent had public holiday pay removed altogether. But this is just the start.

Under the Howard-Debnam laws a series of important employment conditions will remain under so-called transitional arrangements only until March 2009. The following State award workplace protections are not allowable matters under WorkChoices: payment for jury service; reasonable notice of termination of employment; annual and sick leave for long-term casuals; annual leave provisions; industry picnic days; minimum hours for part-time employees; and provisions for people working late at night and transport arrangements, particularly for women workers. Some workers, such as hairdressers, for whom there is no current Federal coverage, may well fall back to the bare five minimum standards under WorkChoices.

Today I met with Federal Labor's spokesman on industrial relations, Stephen Smith. Mr Smith has given me an undertaking that a Federal Labor government will consult with the States in drafting fair and balanced industrial relations legislation. This is in stark contrast with the way WorkChoices was drafted: in secret. The Commonwealth refused to consult the States, who run systems used by millions of employees and employers. It refused to consult the nation's union movement, representing millions of employees. Kevin Andrews refused to consult real employers—people who actually employ people. Instead, he went and consulted some spivs down in Melbourne from the big end of town and a few spivvy lawyers around Sydney, and he rammed the legislation through the Senate in an arrogant abuse of power.
This legislation has been proven now to be unbalanced, unfair and riddled with errors. It has required a series of amendments, but it is so hopelessly flawed that it is unworkable. The effective remedy to replace it is a political remedy—to oust the Howard Government. We need a new system based on Australian values such as a fair go for all. We need genuine consultation and collaboration, with input from the States, from employers and from unions. Only Kim Beazley offers that collaborative, balanced approach. We know John Howard will not listen and he will not change. Members of the Opposition are laughing now but they will not be laughing in March. The devil has given the Opposition what it wished for. This will destroy the Opposition and it will destroy the Howard Government. The Opposition keeps laughing, but no-one in the gallery is laughing because their living standards, employment conditions and services have been stripped away. They all know Debnam will not stand up to Howard. They all know that the Federal Government's silly laws will destroy services. [Time expired.]

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: My question without notice is directed to the Leader of the Government. Would the Minister outline to the House the extent of his conversation yesterday with the former Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and what topics were covered? What other contact has the Minister had with Mr Orkopoulos in the past month?

The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: I had no conversations with Mr Orkopoulos yesterday. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition would repay himself well in terms of the dignity of his office and the dignity of this Parliament if he did not persist in the line of questioning he is pursuing. As I have said on a number of occasions in the public arena, it is incumbent on all of us to be respectful of the judicial process that has commenced in relation to quite heinous allegations about a former colleague of all of us in this Parliament. Forget about partisanship. This is about someone who has sat in this Parliament with us until recently. We can make certain decisions and have certain views about these matters but he has the right to a fair trial.

The system is working; he is being treated the same as everybody else. That is the way it should be. That is the way it will be under a reasonable and decent government. If the Deputy Leader of the Opposition persists with this indecent line of questioning, he does so at his peril. I repeat: It is incumbent upon the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to show some responsibility and some leadership and to exercise that leadership properly. He knows the question he asked is improper. He has been put up to it by someone in the other House—the people in the other House do not have any sense of propriety. The fact of the matter is: Mr Orkopoulos has a right to a fair trial. He is hospitalised and obviously has a serious health issue that is a challenge for himself and his family. He is now entitled to go through the judicial process the same as any other citizen.

Mr IAN COHEN: I address my question to the Minister for Lands. As the Department of Lands is the project manager for the Tweed River Entrance Sand Bypass Project at an annual cost to New South Wales taxpayers of $4 million, will the Minister commit to saving the iconic Tweed-Coolangatta coastline? Given the current destruction of iconic surfing amenities valued at $4.1 billion, including Kirra Point, which was awarded Australia's number-one surfing spot, and Duranbah Beach, described as the Mount Panorama of competitive surfing with 43 competitions a year, will the Minister take steps on adaptive management, as agreed in the original bypass arrangement? Or, will he continue to allow contractors to maximise profit, choking Greenmount to Kirra while degrading the beach at Duranbah? Will the Minister inform the House whether the impact on Fingal Spit is within the parameters of the development consent? Is it acceptable to the Minister that the member for Tweed has not noticed 80 metres of erosion on Duranbah Beach since the commencement of the bypass project?

The Hon. TONY KELLY: I commend the honourable member for his interest in the matter. The Tweed River Entrance Sand Bypassing Project is a joint initiative of the New South Wales and Queensland governments, aimed at maintaining a safe entrance channel to the Tweed River and providing sand to nourish the beaches of the southern Gold Coast. In 1999 contracts were awarded to design, construct and operate the sand bypass system until 2024. The project is managed by the New South Wales Department of Lands, on behalf of both States. A fixed sand bypassing system, consisting of a sand collection jetty, pumps and delivery pipelines, has been operating since 2001. Dredging of the river entrance is carried out periodically as needed.
An extensive environmental monitoring program is in place to ensure that the impacts of the project are known and that it operates within its approval conditions. The project maintains close contact with the local community to monitor impacts on local surfing conditions. Benefits of the project include providing a greater beach amenity that is less susceptible to erosion, and improved river entrance conditions for commercial and recreational vessels. The New South Wales Government allocated $5.5 million to this project in 2006-07. However, as I pointed out earlier, an intensive environmental monitoring program is in place. I undertake to ascertain just what that monitoring is showing up and get back to the honourable member personally about the issues he has raised.

Mr IAN COHEN: I ask a supplementary question. Is the Minister aware that the current contractor is under contract to deliver, and is paid per cubic metre of sand pumped, and that therefore it is an encouragement for volume of pumping, which is destroying the beaches on the Gold Coast?

The Hon. TONY KELLY: I am certainly aware of that suggestion. I have not had time yet to check that it is the case. I undertake to get back to the honourable member, to assure him that the monitoring program is in place and that there are no deleterious effects of the sand bypass.

The Hon. IAN WEST: I address my question without notice to the Minister for Health. What is the latest information on diabetes and related matters?

The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS: I thank the honourable member for his very timely question. Yesterday was World Diabetes Day and I had the opportunity coinciding with that occasion to open a very important event in Parramatta, the Diabetes and Disadvantaged Communities Forum, which was convened under the auspices of Diabetes Australia and attended by eminent academics and health delegates. As many honourable members would know, more than one million Australians have diabetes and half of them do not know it yet. Diabetes is now the fastest-growing chronic disease in Australia and the seventh highest cause of death. In fact, diabetes is a global phenomenon occurring in both developed and developing countries. Aside from the personal cost, a recent report by Access Economics found that the direct and indirect costs of obesity, including type 2 diabetes, totalled $21 billion in 2005.

The forum focused on diabetes, but from a unique and indeed troubling perspective—the disadvantaged and marginalised communities, which are so often the silent victims of diabetes. As Dr Neville Howard noted, people from disadvantaged or vulnerable communities are up to 10 times more likely to have type 2 diabetes than the general population. These people have significantly higher rates of hospitalisation and death, and their problems are exacerbated because they are least likely to have access to proper treatment and care for their diabetes. As the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has reaffirmed, the picture of diabetes in overseas-born Australians is not a good one. About 28 per cent of the Australian population was born overseas, yet 35 per cent of Australians who reported having diabetes were born overseas.

This has led to New South Wales Health recently commissioning a project to inform the development of policies in relation to diabetes in culturally and linguistically diverse [CALD] communities. The resultant report, "Preventing Type 2 Diabetes in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Communities in New South Wales—Phase 2, October 2006", is a blueprint for mapping the prevalence of risk factors and the incidence of type 2 diabetes and its contributing factors, and subsequently identifying the culturally and linguistically diverse groups within which diabetes prevention activities might bring the greatest health gain. It is a synthesis of demographic data, epidemiological data, qualitative evidence and eminent literature on this important issue, and has as its ultimate aim the production of evidence-based recommendations about the way forward.

The project dovetails with the New South Wales Chronic Care Program, which is focused strongly on systems of care for adults and older people with chronic illness. The second phase of the program, Phase 2, 2003-2006, seeks to strengthen systems of care for children and young people, Aboriginal people, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, people living in rural and remote locations, and those in correctional facilities. I take this opportunity to congratulate Diabetes Australia on convening this timely and important community forum. I commend all the distinguished speakers who were presenting as part of the proceedings. I am sure the presentations, discussions and outcomes will be most fruitful in further advancing work on this issue.
Ms SYLVIA HALE: I direct my question to the Minister representing the Minister the Housing. Is it the case that the Minister for Housing recently set up a selection panel to receive applications, then to shortlist and interview tenants for a tenant advisory committee? Is it the case that, in the last month, the Minister instructed the selection panel to accept an application that had not been submitted in the proper manner, and implied that this applicant should be appointed? Is it the case that, when the panel declined, the Minister dismissed the panel and has herself taken over the process of appointing tenants to the advisory committee? Will the Minister table the recent email sent from the Minister for Housing to Department of Housing staff telling them about the change in procedure for appointing the tenant advisory committee?

The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS: There are a number of aspects to the question, which obviously I will have to take on notice and refer to the Minister for Housing. But implicit in the question are things that the Minister has done within the past month or so. I should indicate that the Minister returned to duties this week following the birth of her young son—and I am sure honourable members will join with me in extending our best wishes to her. In any event, I will refer the question to the Minister.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: I direct my question without notice to the Minister for Justice. What is the Minister's explanation for figures released by the Auditor-General today that show that New South Wales recidivism rates have increased to a record 43.5 per cent of prisoners returning to prison compared with a national average of 38.4 per cent? Why does New South Wales now have the highest recidivism rates in Australia? What excuses can the Minister offer for 12 years of worsening recidivism?

The PRESIDENT: Order! I call the Hon. Catherine Cusack to order. I call the Hon. Henry Tsang to order.

The Hon. TONY KELLY: The Productivity Commission report entitled "Report on Government Services 2006" states that the definition of recidivism is the extent to which a person convicted by the criminal justice system reoffends. Recidivism is only a partial measure of the performance of the justice system in improving public safety by reducing the incidence of crime. For example—a point made by the Treasurer—the fact that we now have more police and we have more people in gaols obviously distorts those figures. We now have roughly 9,450 prisoners in our prisons. Recidivism is a whole-of-justice, if not a whole-of-government, responsibility. Strategies from all government sectors are required to work together to combat criminal activity in the community.

As reported in the "Report on Government Services 2006", of all prisoners released in New South Wales in 2002-03, 43.5 per cent returned to prison. That is a decrease of 1.2 per cent on the previous year. The tightening up of sentencing legislation, the continued use of intelligent policing strategies and more officers on the beat targeting repeat offenders will result in more criminals returning to prison. While these proactive measures are in place, it is likely that the recidivism rates in New South Wales will remain marginally higher than the national average. With the exception of Queensland and South Australia, all other States report a recidivism rate of between 37.8 per cent and 43.5 per cent.

It is extremely difficult for the department to have an impact on recidivism when up to 45 per cent of all offenders serve a sentence of six months or less. In other words, it is hard to provide programs in prisons for people who are in there for less than six months. The department has a range of strategies to reduce reoffending behaviour, including drug and alcohol programs, anger management courses, and psychological programs to treat sex offenders.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: I ask a supplementary question. To assist the Minister, my question related to volume four of the Auditor-General's report 2006, which was published today. Will the Minister advise the House further on what measures he is taking to reduce recidivism through the justice system?

The Hon. TONY KELLY: That is a different question. However, I am happy to say that the Department of Corrective Services has a vast and increasing program of addressing recidivism in our justice system. This Government has rolled out numerous programs. Indeed, if I remember the figures correctly, in the past decade we have spent $1 billion on programs, unlike the Coalition when in power.
The Hon. JOHN RYAN: I direct my question without notice to the Minister for Disability Services. What arrangements has the Government made to fund the additional hours of community participation next year? When will service providers be informed about new funding levels so they can make plans, design programs, inform families, and hire new staff? Or will the introduction of this proposal be the same sort of shemozzle as everything that has been associated with the Community Participation Program?

The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: That is a disappointingly negative attitude from the shadow Minister for Disability Services to what has been one of the great reforms in the disability sector to provide much better access to community participation. I remind members opposite that the Opposition has not offered one extra day of community participation, not one extra cent of funding for the program, not one extra choice for any parent, and certainly no extra quality. The Hon. John Ryan knows that the vast majority of families are happy with the outcomes of the changes to community participation. More than 90 per cent have already chosen the community participation provider and the program they will be in next year. Why would they not? We have delivered a better program because of the reforms we have introduced.

People in community participation will receive four days per week from next year. People with high support needs will receive five days per week. The system members opposite supported meant that people with high needs got one or two days a week and people with lower needs got five days. Funding has been linked to individual needs. Effective immediately, people with moderate needs will receive the $14,550 necessary for their programs, and people with the highest needs will be funded up to $29,100. Funding is individual, recurrent and portable, which means that people can choose to move from the service provider that suits them best, with the programs that suit them best, to another provider and the funding goes with them.

As I have said previously, I have been concerned about a small number of young people and their families—it is a very small number of people now—who have been unable to find a new Community Participation Program to meet their particular needs. In that situation, we have ensured that the young person and his or her family have been able to identify an appropriate place for that individual next year. Of course, this will not be in the Community Participation Program. However, on the whole, across the board, what we have achieved is more choice, higher quality, a better program, a range of program choices, more services, longer hours, and good value for taxpayer dollars, whereas the system members opposite supported was blowing out, producing bad outcomes for young people in the programs and unsatisfactory outcomes for the families.

The Hon. EDDIE OBEID: I address my question to the Minister for Mineral Resources. What action is the New South Wales Government taking to promote clean coal technologies?

The Hon. IAN MACDONALD: I note that the Hon. Eddie Obeid was a fine Minister for Mineral Resources a few years ago. Unlike our political opponents, this Government is committed to protecting both jobs and the environment. That is why today I visited the Hunter to address the annual research symposium of the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies, or CO2CRC, which is one of the world's leading collaborative research organisations focused on carbon dioxide capture and geological storage. This technique is known as geosequestration, whereby carbon dioxide emissions from power stations are captured and permanently stored in underground geological structures.

Recently the New South Wales Government applied to become a member of the CO2CRC, and this week—in fact, last night—it was accepted. I am proud that we are on board with the CO2CRC, an organisation that is currently involved in a range of cutting-edge projects both in Australia and throughout the world. Of particular note is the geosequestration research and demonstration project, which is the first of its kind in Australia. Run by CO2CRC, it is expected to begin injecting CO₂ into the deep subsurface in the second half of 2007. The $30 million research and demonstration project will take place at Otway Basin, in south-western Victoria. It will test scientific modelling of the technology in real world conditions.

Another interesting project drawing on the expertise of the CO2CRC is the ZeroGen project in the Denison Trough, in south-east Queensland. This is Australia's first clean coal trial, whereby coal-based gasification and geosequestration will produce low emission electricity. Joining the CO2CRC is just another example of the New South Wales Government's commitment to forging real partnerships with science and industry to fight climate change. Clean coal technologies save jobs and save the environment. That is why this Government is participating in a range of important studies relating to emerging technologies like geosequestration.

Through the New South Wales Exploration and New Frontiers initiatives, we are actively seeking to identify potential geological formations for the disposal of CO₂ in the Sydney and Darling basins. We are also a partner in the Coal21 national action plan, which identifies a number of emerging technologies that hold the key to reducing, or even eliminating, coal emissions. Just this month we significantly increased our commitment to emerging technologies. We have established the New South Wales clean coal technologies working group in order to identify priorities and projects in New South Wales that would bring about reduced carbon emissions from coal.

This group will report by mid-December with some specific clean-coal technology projects that the Government, industry and the CO2CRC can pursue. The working party will also provide a forum for the exchange of information and the exploration of opportunities for co-operation between the coal and generating industries, research organisations and government. It will identify research needs and priorities to progress the development of carbon capture and storage technologies in New South Wales. It will develop a collaborative project for the identification of CO₂ storage options for New South Wales, and develop a longer-term plan for development and demonstration of CO₂ capture and storage technologies in New South Wales.

We will continue on a course that is not only economically realistic but also environmentally responsible. There is no doubt about the important role that alternative energy sources will play in the years to come. We must recognise that. Indeed, just last week Premier Morris Iemma announced that the New South Wales Government will enact legislation to ensure that 10 per cent of electricity consumed in New South Wales comes from alternative energies such as solar and wind power. This will rise to 15 per cent by 2020. It is important to remember that about 90 per cent of New South Wales electricity needs are met from coal-fired power stations. If we are to slash the 60 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted by New South Wales power stations every year, we need concrete action, not pie-in-the-sky promises. [Time expired.]

Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Disability Services. Will the Minister explain what plans are in place for continued funding of rehabilitation for individuals with acquired brain injuries resulting from non-compensable accidents? Will the Minister explain why 26-year-old Grayden Moore, who has been continually denied rehabilitation services for his brain injury, is instead placed in an aged care nursing home, despite showing immense development and promise since his skateboarding accident two years ago? Will the Minister consider introducing a funding scheme similar to Victoria's "Brain Injury: Slow to Recover" program, to provide for ongoing care and rehabilitation of such individuals? Will the Minister inform the House of how many individuals like Grayden Moore under 40 years of age are currently living in nursing homes, and whether their number has increased?

The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: I realise that Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes has asked this question in the best spirit but I will maintain my approach of not dealing with questions about individual cases. In this case I understand the individual involved is not in a nursing home but is in the Royal Ryde Rehabilitation Centre. The department is working with the family of the individual to look at alternatives and has a plan to deal with these issues in the future. I will be happy to entertain further representations from the honourable member about that matter and do whatever is appropriate in that individual case.

In a general sense the honourable member's question deals with acquired brain injury [ABI]. That is taken up in the Government's new Stronger Together disability plan. One of the blind spots of the disability support services system for a long time has been acquired brain injury. I am sure all honourable members are familiar with the fact that for a large number of people, regrettably, in most Western jurisdictions including our own, and the North American and European jurisdictions, acquired brain injury is an increasing problem. Effectively, it has resulted in better emergency services, better trauma management for people who survive traumatic brain injury and who find themselves, together with their families, having to live with and manage sometimes quite serious brain injuries for the rest of their lives.

Stronger Together focuses very much on innovative options for both rehabilitation and long-term case management and support for people with acquired brain injury. A number of stakeholders and advocates have expressed a great deal of confidence that some of the programs already commenced will make a positive difference to those acquired brain injury sufferers who are dependent on the public system, the disability support services system.

The other initiative relevant to the honourable member's question is the Motor Accidents Authority's long-term care and support scheme, about which I have made public comment and reported to the House on a number of occasions. A large proportion of those who have survived very serious head trauma and have acquired brain injury are young men injured in sporting accidents or motor vehicle crashes. At the moment, a large proportion of those victims, approximately 50 per cent, are not covered by a compensable package; they can get no compensation and are forced to rely on their families, charities or the public system.

As a result of reforms to the long-term care scheme, those who have in the past been excluded from access to motor accident compensation and require long-term support for brain injury will now be able to attract that support. I am not sure whether that is specifically relevant in this case, but it is an important point to mention. I will provide the honourable member with further information about the case upon his representation.

The Hon. MATTHEW MASON-COX: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Health. Is it correct that a report has found that the staff at Dubbo Base Hospital are among the most overworked in the State? Is the Minister aware that the Australian Medical Association [AMA] believes that Dubbo's escalating crisis is beyond the control of the Greater Western Area Health Service? Is he also aware that the AMA has warned that patients will suffer unless the State Government steps in immediately to alleviate the critical staff shortage? Are there any immediate plans, this week, to address this staff shortage?

The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS: First, I congratulate the Hon. Matthew Mason-Cox on his maiden question.

The Hon. Rick Colless: It was a good question.

The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS: And it is interesting that a Liberal member, rather than a member of The Nationals, asked it! Dubbo Base Hospital plays a leading role in the provision of services to the local community, surrounding towns, and the rural and remote communities of the north-west of the State. Recognising the importance of rural health facilities and services has resulted in the Iemma Government investing $457.2 million in health, public hospitals and the Greater Western Area Health Service in this year's budget. This allocation is $39.2 million more than last year's allocation, an increase of 9.4 per cent. The budget investment is all about making sure that patients continue to have the best health care available.

The record budget for the Greater Western Area Health Service has been used to cut waiting lists, improve services in the emergency department and make it easier for people to see doctors when and where they need to. As part of the 2006-07 budget the Government will fund the equivalent of 22.5 additional beds for the Greater Western Area Health Service, with 8.5 of these additional beds being earmarked for Dubbo. Despite funding and resource increases I am aware of the concerns that have been raised by nursing staff about nursing staff levels, the introduction of new equipment and the upgrading of theatres at Dubbo Base Hospital.

I can advise that a meeting was held on 14 September between the Greater Western Area Health Service, members of the Dubbo medical staff and representatives of the Australian Medical Association to discuss those concerns. I have been advised that the chief executive of the Greater Western Area Health Service has given a commitment to work together with medical staff and the AMA to address the issues raised. I am advised further that in the meantime the Greater Western Area Health Service has an ongoing recruitment campaign for medical and nursing staff and continues to negotiate with major surgery facilities concerning service level agreements for oncology and enhanced cancer services.

Since 2004 the Greater Western Area Health Service has advertised and successfully recruited doctors to paediatrics, obstetrics, gynaecology, psychiatry and ophthalmology. The area health service has also appointed a number of physicians and radiologists during this time. The most recent appointments include two specialists in ear, nose and throat and urology services, and they have ensured that additional physical procedures can be completed at Dubbo and that outreach clinics to the more remote areas of the region will be enhanced. I am advised further that as a result of beds being opened in a new in-patient mental health unit, which was completed last year, the service has successfully recruited doctors and nurses to staff the new facility. I am advised also that the chief executive officer of the Greater Western Area Health Service will be meeting AMA representatives.

The Hon. GREG DONNELLY: My question without notice is addressed to the Minister for Commerce. Will the Minister inform the House about the extension of the Government's personal computer tender? Are there any alternative policies?

The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: I thank the honourable member for his question and commend him for his ongoing interest in the Commerce portfolio. Honourable members will be aware that the shadow Minister for Commerce is averaging about two questions per year on the Commerce portfolio, so I appreciate the Hon. Greg Donnelly's interest.

The Hon. John Ryan: Point of order: The Minister is now debating the question. It is magnificent that a question has been asked about the Commerce portfolio but it is not relevant for the Minister, in the answer to the question, to give details about what questions I might have asked.

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Minister must not debate the question.

The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: The Government has extended the current personal computer tender to 15 November because of strong interest from industry. Last month 50 organisations attended the briefing by the Department of Commerce, vying for personal computer [PC], laptop and low-end server business worth about $175 million a year. The new PC contract is a more efficient way of buying computer hardware and associated services and is a component of People First, the New South Wales Government information communication technology [ICT] strategic plan. The industry was surprised earlier this month when the shadow Minister unveiled a new policy—to go to the market as a single buyer—when the industry knew that the Government had already done that. Industry representatives had been to the Government briefing. The tender was open.

The PRESIDENT: Order! I call the Hon. John Ryan to order for the first time.

The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: The policy had already been outlined by the Government's ICT plan, which was a public document. But what shocked the industry was that the shadow Minister's risky proposal was to buy only one brand of computer and one brand of payroll and email software system. This is the Liberal party spokesman advocating no competition.

The PRESIDENT: Order! I call the Hon. John Ryan to order for the second time.

The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: No wonder the right wing is mobilising—one brand to be imposed on all agencies. In contrast, the Government's new arrangements include single specifications for personal and notebook computers and three specifications for servers. We expect up to four suppliers will be chosen, creating choice, competition and efficiencies. The Iemma Government's new direction in ICT purchasing also considers the total equipment life cycle, with suppliers being asked to offer a "take back" scheme and environmentally responsible solutions for end disposal. All purchasing transactions will use Smartbuy, the Government's online marketplace, meaning both agencies and competing vendors will be able to view all pricing. The new contract should result in substantial savings and better value for the taxpayer in addition to improved environmental outcomes. The PC tender is just one element of People First, sensibly directing funds to front-line technologies like e-learning, patient care and emergency services.

In contrast, the Australian Financial Review has quoted the Leader of the Opposition as planning to cut $2 billion from the Government's ICT spending. We only spend about $1 billion, so cutting $2 billion will leave him with another billion-dollar funding gap. The Australian Financial Review went on to quote Mr Debnam as saying that the Government squanders up to $7 billion a year on payroll and email systems but he has promised to save $2 billion. Does that mean he will squander only $5 billion? I remind members we spend only $1 billion. Where he gets his numbers is anyone's guess. The Opposition's only new idea is to tell the industry it does not speak with one voice. Instead, the Opposition says the taxpayer should fund a new peak body. That is a big plan. I am sure the international chief executives of Cisco, Microsoft and others really need a quid from the Liberal Party to set up an industry body here in Australia! That would be a really smart idea! That is the Opposition's only plan: a taxpayer-funded peak body for the IT industry. Those poor suckers in California need a bit of public money from these people! [Time expired.]

Reverend the Hon. FRED NILE: I ask the Minister for Commerce in his former capacity regarding drug policy and in his capacity as representing the Premier in this House: Is it a fact that Professor Robin Murray of London Hospital is an international authority on the role of marijuana as a risk factor in schizophrenia? Is it a fact that Professor Murray said at a recent conference in Perth that by the age of 18 a marijuana smoker is six times more likely to develop schizophrenia than a non-marijuana smoker? Will the Government therefore, in co-operation with the President and Speaker, introduce random drug testing for members of Parliament and all parliamentary staff in view of the recent serious allegations concerning marijuana smoking in New South Wales Parliament House by Mr Orkopoulos when he was an Australian Labor Party Cabinet Minister? Will the Government ensure that all members of Parliament are aware of the dangers of smoking marijuana?

The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: With respect to the first part of the question about the particular expert, I have to be frank and say that I am not aware of those comments by that expert. However, I am very strongly of the view that the jury is back. Medical science research is clear: there is a relationship between the use of cannabis and a number of recognised mental illnesses. As I understand it, the science suggests that the linkages are less strong to schizophrenia than to various depressive disorders, but it is quibbling at the margins to discuss those matters. After a lot of research the science is very clear that cannabis is a much more harmful drug from a medical and mental health perspective than many people, in the absence of that research, 20 or 30 years ago would have believed.

Awareness is beginning to change. Regardless of the views of members of this Chamber about the use of various social and recreational drugs—whether they be potentially harmful ones such as alcohol and tobacco, cannabis, and illicit and illegal drugs—marijuana is clearly a major precursor of serious personality and mental health disorders. The Iemma Government has been very strong on mental health matters, particularly those relating to precursor issues in regard to drug and alcohol use. We were the first administration to establish specialised cannabis clinics. We have rolled out four such clinics. We are still probably the only jurisdiction in the world that is using this approach of specialised cannabis reference clinics. The prognosis is very good. I think we are running three through non-government organisations and one as a public clinic. I can check with my colleague the Minister for Health on that. We are looking at different models, but the basic clinical approach is very effective. It is very useful in drastically reducing the use of cannabis in people who have formed a habit of consuming the drug. That is where science indicates the biggest difficulty lies: people are much more likely to have mental health issues as a result of habitual use of the drug than infrequent or what might be described as social or recreational use.

Nonetheless, the honourable member knows that because of that science, because of the way the public debate has gone, the Government is immovable about cannabis remaining an illegal drug and not encouraging or tolerating its use in any way. Cannabis is just one of a range of drugs that present great health issues for people in general, but young people are a greater worry to us. I always take great care to make clear to younger people I know on a personal basis that cannabis, though many people treat it lightly, is a very serious drug with very serious consequences.

As for the question about the consumption of cannabis or any other drug in this place, as I mentioned in a different context, members of Parliament do have a responsibility. Ms Lee Rhiannon has editorialised on a few occasions about the consumption of the socially acceptable drugs in this place. We all have our private views but my view is very strongly that no member of Parliament should consume illicit drugs while remaining a member of Parliament.

The Hon. JENNIFER GARDINER: Is the Minister for Health aware that the former Chief Executive Officer [CEO] of Greater Murray Area Health Service is facing 100 criminal charges after an inquiry into his activities within the Western Australian health department was conducted by the Corruption and Crime Commission in Western Australia? Is it not a fact that during Mr Michael Moodie's tenure as CEO of Greater Murray Area Health Service that service was cash strapped and controversial, as it still is to this day under a different name? In light of the Western Australian charges, what action has the Minister taken to ensure that nothing untoward occurred while Mr Moodie was in charge of Greater Murray Area Health Service?

The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS: If the honourable member has an allegation she wants to make, she should make it and not hide behind insinuations in questions. If she has some evidence or something that she wants to put, she can take it to the appropriate authorities, as I expect the health department should as well.

The Hon. AMANDA FAZIO: My question is addressed to the Minister for Roads. Can the Minister update the House on the renaming of the M5-M7 interchange?

The Hon. ERIC ROOZENDAAL: I thank the honourable member for her question. On 8 November I announced that the M7-M5 motorway interchange would be named after Sir Roden Cutler, VC. A special ceremony marked the event with the dedication made by Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir, the Governor of New South Wales. A rest area owned by Liverpool City Council has also been named after Sir Roden. Sir Roden Cutler was a former Governor of New South Wales and the only Australian artilleryman to have been awarded the Victoria Cross. In recognition of his life, the M7-M5 interchange and a rest area at Ash Road, Prestons, have been dedicated in his honour. The M7-M5 is a major interchange on the Sydney motorway network and it is appropriate that such a local landmark should be named in honour of this State's longest-serving Governor. This is an initiative of the Roads and Traffic Authority and the Remembrance Driveway Committee, which manages the Remembrance Driveway Program. Remembrance Driveway, between Sydney and Canberra, is a memorial for those who served as members of the Australian Defence Forces during and since the Second World War.

The Hon. Charlie Lynn: It is a memorial to your incompetence!

The Hon. ERIC ROOZENDAAL: I am shocked by the disrespect the honourable member is showing to Sir Roden Cutler and this dedication. Selected rest area sites along Remembrance Driveway commemorate individual Victoria Cross winners. Before this month's ceremony, Sir Roden was the only deceased New South Wales Victoria Cross recipient from the Second World War not to have a memorial dedicated to him on Remembrance Driveway. Sir Roden was a remarkable man. The extraordinary bravery that earned him his Victoria Cross is legendary. Throughout his life, both public and private, he demonstrated qualities we should all strive for: selflessness, courage, co-operation, responsibility, fair-mindedness, community service, integrity and respect.

I represented the Premier at the dedication earlier this month, where I spoke of how Sir Roden was an inspirational role model for all young Australians. Representatives of the Cutler family joined us, as did many of Sir Roden's friends, colleagues and former staff. I especially thank Liverpool City Council, which allowed the construction of the rest area in part of its playing fields. Sir Roden Cutler was awarded the Victoria Cross in Sydney by the Governor General of Australia, Lord Gowrie VC, on 11 June 1942 for his exceptional courage against the enemy in Syria in June 1941.

After the Second World War, Sir Roden had a successful career in the diplomatic service, including as High Commissioner to New Zealand between 1946 and 1952, as Ambassador to the Netherlands from 1965 to 1966 and as Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly in 1963 and 1964. Between 1966 and 1981 he served as Governor of New South Wales. He was the longest-serving appointee to that office. The present Governor noted that when she was appointed one of the first phone calls she took was from Sir Roden Cutler. I was honoured to have taken part in this ceremony to commemorate the life of this truly remarkable Australian.

Ms LEE RHIANNON: I direct my question to the Minister for Mineral Resources. How does the Minister reconcile in this era of climate change the Government's decision to build a $342-million dam in the Hunter Valley to collect water while supporting the expansion of the very water intensive and water damaging coalmining industry in the same valley? What is the Government doing to protect the water supplies of the Hunter and the Central Coast from damage by coalmining? Will he ensure that mining companies are not licensed to let polluted water flow into rivers and to degrade water quality? What action will the Government take to protect rivers and waterways from subsidence caused by longwall mining? Will the Government stop mining operations that result in a loss of groundwater, bore water and wells, that interfere with aquifers and disrupt connectivity with streams and that cause acid mine drainage?

The Hon. IAN MACDONALD: I am delighted to answer this series of questions. The Government has been very responsible with the Hunter Valley water supply. The dam announcement is sensational for the people of the area because it will secure water supplies in the valley for a long time. Let us get one thing clear about mining and water usage. The estimated water usage for the entire mining industry in New South Wales is 58 gigalitres a year. Water usage for agriculture is about 4,000 gigalitres a year. It is about time some perspective was introduced into the debate on water usage and mining. Mining uses a very small percentage of available water resources in this State.

The honourable member refuses to acknowledge that fact when she goes around the State trying to stir up animosity between the farming community, community groups and the mining sector. She also entirely ignores the fact that the mining industry provides about 17,000 direct jobs across regional New South Wales and two-and-a-half times that number of jobs indirectly. In addition, an independent study undertaken by Charles Sturt University showed that workers in New South Wales towns situated nearby a mining industry earn on average $6,000 more than workers in other towns. The Greens ignore the fact that when they deal with the mining industry, the coal industry in particular is a significant contributor to regional New South Wales.

Having dealt with water and the economic facts, I will now deal with issues we will be required to address in the future. We have two tasks ahead of us: first, we must set viable targets—as the Premier did recently—to assist industry to introduce new technologies designed to reduce carbon emissions. The benefits of carbon sequestration have been proven in trial and the concept is growing in popularity around the world. A study undertaken by CO2CRC [Co-operative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies] for Monash Energy shows that the Gippsland Basin could potentially sequester about six billion tonnes of carbon in structures that have contained oil and gas for many millions of years. That is what the Otway Basin project is about. The technology is certainly worth examining and developing, but others are also available. Ultra-clean coal technology, oxyfuel technologies and so on, will be wound out over the next 15 to 20 years. If we set viable targets and invest in this way, we will develop partnerships between industry, universities that are heavily involved in this activity, and other related agencies. As a result, we will more rapidly arrive at benchmarks that will ensure we have a cleaner coal industry.

There is one factor about the coal industry that is not going to go away tomorrow: it provides 90 per cent of the electricity generated in this State. There is no way we can examine the issues without taking that into account. We must move sensibly towards cleaner coal technology using a suitable, balanced approach, rather than the extreme approach taken by the Greens or the uncaring approach taken by the Liberal Party.

Ms LEE RHIANNON: I wish to ask a supplementary question. Does the Minister acknowledge that the 58-gigalitre-a-year figure that he provided is manipulated because it does not include water expelled from coalmines—that is, the highly saline and heavily polluted water? Will he supply water-usage figures for the coal industry including the polluted water expelled from coalmines?

The Hon. Don Harwin: Point of order: The honourable member's question is a new question and, clearly, it contains argument. It is therefore out of order.

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Minister may answer that part of the question that sought elucidation.

The Hon. IAN MACDONALD: Once again the member is demonstrating that her dedication and commitment to destroying a key industry in this State knows no bounds. Water usage, water reuse and water discharge issues are dealt with in great detail in the environmental impact statement and part 3A processes. I believe that, given the rehabilitation that has taken place over the last few years, industry is mindful of the need for absolute responsible attitudes towards the environment. We have a new industry going on and we have a miners federation, which supports the growth of the industry. I do not think I should repeat in this Chamber the miners federation's views about the Deputy Leader of the Opposition.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Primary Industries. Is the Minister aware that Serg Rorato from Jerilderie has spent $400,000 on buying water to grow 1,500 acres of tomatoes and more than $1 million on the crop? Is the Minister further aware that since then Mr Rorato has had his access to that purchased water, as well as his carryover water from last year, reduced by more than 52 per cent by the department? Does the Minister understand that this will mean a large portion of Mr Rorato's tomato crop will fail? Will the Minister compensate Mr Rorato because he has caused his losses?

The Hon. IAN MACDONALD: I know I am capable of a lot of things, but one thing I am not capable of is making it rain. That is the problem—

The Hon. Duncan Gay: It's not the problem. The problem is your ineptitude.

The Hon. IAN MACDONALD: I certainly know all about this case. As per the agreement the Premier entered into last week at the water summit, we will look at a number of issues in relation to assisting irrigators through this very difficult time. But let us make it quite clear: the figures for the Snowy system over the past six months were the lowest on record. Not only were they the lowest on record, they were 30 per cent below the record. In fact, for the month of October—

The PRESIDENT: Order! I call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to order for the first time.

The Hon. IAN MACDONALD: In September there were 114 gigalitres of water. They are by far the lowest figures on record. We are taking responsible action, based on the figures that have been provided to us by our own hydrologists. Those figures have been the lowest on record.

The PRESIDENT: Order! I call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to order for the second time.

The Hon. IAN MACDONALD: We made the decision responsibly. We made it in conjunction with discussions with the irrigators. Last Friday the irrigators were in the office of the Department of Natural Resources for at least a couple of hours discussing with us the appropriate approaches to be taken. They know there are no options left, because there is no water. Can members opposite get that into their heads? Can they get into their heads that our dams are at 28 per cent below their storage capacity as at this time last year? Members opposite make these outrageous statements. Yes, it is extremely regrettable that a number of people who had made investment decisions have been hurt by this decision. That was unavoidable. If we had allowed it to go on further, more people would have traded into difficulty. As I said at the outset, we are looking closely at what policy we should introduce to try to assist irrigators through this difficult time. We are drafting a policy according to discussions that were held between the Premier and the Prime Minister. What happened in the Riverina area is incredibly regrettable. But there is no water!

The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: I suggest that if members have further questions, they place them on notice.

The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS: Further to a question asked earlier today by the Hon. Matthew Mason-Cox, I am advised that yesterday the Australian Medical Association [AMA] met with Dubbo doctors. Today Dr Andrew Keegan from the AMA was reported on ABC radio as having stated that the situation has improved and that Greater Western Area Health Service has addressed immediate concerns.

Questions without notice concluded.

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

Motion by the Hon. Tony Kelly 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.

[The President left the chair at 1.05 p.m. The House resumed at 2.30 p.m.]
Bill received, read a first time and ordered to be printed.

Motion by the Hon. Tony Kelly 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.

Debate resumed from an earlier hour.

Reverend the Hon. FRED NILE [2.32 p.m.]: Earlier I said that this motion provides for the laying upon the table of the House within 14 days of the date of the passing of this motion the clinical service plans, including draft plans, created since June 2005. The Government is not happy with the motion as such because the clinical service plans are still being finalised. The inclusion of draft plans seems to be inconsistent with other motions moved in this House for the tabling of documents. Is a draft plan a document? There may be many draft plans. There may be scribbled plans or notes made by officers associated with the health department, an area health service or even a hospital. Are they all part of draft plans? It is not clear to me what is envisaged. Is a draft plan a document? Another problem with the motion is that there may have been many draft plans, some of great detail and some of brief material and perhaps produced by doctors or clinicians as a basis for discussion. Why do we need to have all the material going back to June 2005? I cannot see any rational reason for that. Therefore, I move:

That the question be amended as follows:

No. 1 Omit "including draft plans,".

No. 2 Omit "June 2005", insert instead "June 2006".

That would make the motion more relevant, rather than request all documents produced since June 2005 until the date on which the documents must be tabled in the House.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY (Deputy Leader of the Opposition) [2.37 p.m.]: I understand the concern of Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile. However, as he well knows, because he was briefed by the shadow Minister, once draft plans are removed the Government makes every plan a draft plan. I suspect that the honourable member's concern about going back so far and what that might pick up is valid. I suggest that it would be better to still call for the plans from 2005 and simply ask for the draft plans from 30 June 2006. That would solve the problem foreseen by the honourable member of picking up all the documents going back to 2005. However, it would ensure that the Government is unable to hide things that it has a habit of trying to hide.

The Hon. John Hatzistergos: The clinical service plans will be made public.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: The Minister will get an opportunity to spin his rubbish in a moment. I suspect that my suggestion would be a fairer and more sensible way of going about this.

The Hon. JENNIFER GARDINER [2.39 p.m.], in reply: One problem with the first amendment of Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile may be that plans drawn up prior to June 2006—which is probably when most of them were created—would not be made available to the public. I agree with my colleague the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that if the wording "draft plans created since June 2006" were to remain, that may be a way forward, but certainly the public is entitled to see any clinical plans, as per the original motion, that were prepared since June 2005.

As I said in my opening remarks, it is extremely important that communities have access to their clinical service plan so that they know it will be rolled out by the Government in any particular hospital or area health service. The fact that the Government does not want to provide this information to Parliament indicates that the suspicions that led to this motion are well and truly justified. I draw the House's attention to the fundamental principle arising from Mr John Menadue's report as chairman of the Health Council that communities should have access to as much information as possible about clinical services devised, funded and then rolled out, including the timetable attached to the clinical service plan. There is no good reason for the Government not to provide the information.

The whole question of public consultation and transparency in relation to NSW Health that gave rise to the last major review of NSW Health, which was in 2002, was due to the enormous concern about communities being kept in the dark about their own health services. The report by the Rt Hon. Ian Sinclair to Mr Knowles, the then Minister, was also a response by the Carr Government to considerable concern in various parts of New South Wales that communities were increasingly alienated from their own hospitals. This continues to be an issue that worries many people across the State.

The current Premier when Minister for Health abolished area health service boards so there is increasing centralisation of NSW Health. There is a massive decrease in the amount of transparency in the operations and management of hospitals and other health services throughout the State. It could be said that Mr Iemma's winding back of proper community involvement, transparency and accountability with the area health services is one of his worst legacies. I seek leave to amend my original motion, taking on board a couple of points made by Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile, by omitting the words, "clinical service plans, including draft plans, created since June 2005", and inserting instead, "clinical service plans created since June 2005 and draft plans created since June 2006".

Leave not granted.

Amendment agreed to.

Motion as amended agreed to.

Bills received.

Leave granted for procedural matters to be dealt with on one motion without formality.

Motion by the Hon. John Hatzistergos agreed to:

That these bills be now read a first time and printed, standing orders be suspended on contingent notice for remaining stages, and the second readings of the bills be set down as orders of the day for a later hour of the sitting.

Bills read a first time and ordered to be printed.

The Hon. JOHN HATZISTERGOS (Minister for Health) [2.48 p.m.], on behalf of the Hon. Tony Kelly: I move:

That these bills be now read a second time.

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

Leave not granted.

I am pleased to introduce these two bills, the Water Industry Competition Bill and the Central Coast Water Corporation Bill, that together initiate reform of the water and wastewater industries in New South Wales for the benefit of consumers, the economy and the environment. I now seek leave to incorporate the balance of the second reading speech in Hansard.
Leave granted.

The improvement of the governance of water systems is the aim of both Bills, which, once enacted, provide for the improved running of water systems, more straight forward decision-making and access arrangements.

Ultimately, these will enable more recycling and improved water security which are imperative during drought.

A key component of the NSW Government's strategy for a sustainable water future is to harness the innovation and investment potential of the private sector in the water and wastewater industries.

The Water Industry Competition Bill opens the door to competition and new investment in three key ways.

First, it promotes new recycling businesses by enabling prospective sewer miners who aren't able to reach a commercial agreement with specified service providers to have the terms on which they can mine sewers determined in binding arbitration conducted by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal.

Second, the Bill promotes competition by establishing a comprehensive access regime to help new suppliers to negotiate arrangements for the storage and transportation of water and sewerage using existing significant water and sewerage networks.

And third, the Bill ensures that licensees who wish to construct and operate new water and sewerage networks will be on broadly the same footing as the public water utilities, for things like laying pipes in public roads and reading meters.

At the same time, the Water Industry Competition Bill establishes a licensing regime for private entrants to ensure the continued protection of public health, the environment and consumers.

The reforms proposed by the Water Industry Competition Bill have been subject to extensive community consultation, including the release of a discussion paper, stakeholder briefings and a public investigation into water and wastewater service provision in the greater Sydney region conducted by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal.

Access regimes are already commonplace in the gas and electricity industries, and in telecommunications.

Like those industries, the urban water industry is characterised by essential monopoly infrastructure that is costly for competitors to duplicate.

The Australian Competition Tribunal last year declared Sydney Water's sewerage networks at Bondi, Malabar and North Head under the national access regime.

The result of that declaration is that any person has an enforceable right to negotiate with Sydney Water to use those sewerage networks.

The new State-based regime will also declare Sydney Water's Bondi, Malabar and North Head sewerage networks from the outset but will extend beyond that infrastructure.

The Premier will be able to make declarations in respect of other significant monopoly infrastructure through which water or sewage is stored or transported.

The regime will apply consistently to publicly and privately owned infrastructure.

Initially, the access regime will only apply within the area of operations of Sydney Water and Hunter Water. In the future, it may be extended to other areas.

At the appropriate time, it is proposed that the State regime will be certified under the national access regime.

Under the State regime, access disputes will be arbitrated by IPART with regard to the pricing principles which were approved by the Council of Australian Governments last year.

The Bill does not exempt service providers from environmental or planning instruments. That is critical.

Nor does the Bill entitle any person to access and extract water from rivers or other fresh water sources.

Access to, and use of, water resources will continue to be governed by the Water Management Act.

The Bill extends the reach of the Public Health Act and the Fluoridation of Public Water Supplies Act to private operators.

Central to the Bill is the establishment of a comprehensive regime for licensing private corporations who supply water, recycled water or provide sewerage services by means of reticulated water or sewerage networks.

Network operators will also be licensed under the Bill.

Licences ensure that appropriate conditions can be imposed and enforced. They will ensure, for example, that water quality guidelines are complied with.

They will also ensure that network operators and retail suppliers comply with appropriate public health, environmental and consumer protection requirements.

Given the objective of encouraging competition, licences will, of course, not be exclusive. They are not franchises.

Of fundamental importance, clause 7 provides that the Minister, in deciding whether to grant a licence and in deciding what conditions to impose on a licence, must have regard to four core principles.

First, the protection of public health, the environment, public safety and consumers.

Second, encouraging competition in the provision of water supply and sewerage services.

Third, ensuring the sustainability of water resources.

And fourth, promoting the production and use of recycled water.

In addition to these principles, the Bill contains a further safeguard to ensure that existing water resources are not compromised through the introduction of competition.

This means that any private corporation wishing to supply water will need to be contributing a new commercial source of water. This might be water generated through the commercialisation of innovative new water sources such as storm water or roof water.

Or it might be water generated through recycling, which can be used for example, for industrial use or irrigation so as to reduce the demand on existing drinking water resources.

This is consistent with the core purpose of these reforms, which is to encourage competition and promote innovative new sources of water—particularly recycling.

This Bill is essentially about reducing the pressure on existing water resources.

Recycled water can be used for a large number of purposes, particularly in industry. Given prevailing community concerns about the potential public health risks associated with drinking recycled water, the New South Wales Government remains of the view that recycled water should not be used as drinking water.

This Bill does not change that policy.

New private suppliers will not be subject to price regulation, except in the unusual circumstance where they are a monopoly service provider.

This might be the case in greenfields sites, such as where the Government has conducted a tender for private recycled water supply to the new development area.

This Bill does not change the pricing arrangements for existing public water utilities. This means that Sydney Water and Hunter Water will continue to have their prices independently regulated by IPART.

It means that customers in these areas will still be able to obtain essential services from Sydney Water and Hunter Water at postage stamp prices.

As well as containing provisions to ensure that vulnerable consumers are protected, new licensees will be required to belong to an approved external ombudsman scheme, such as that operated by the Energy and Water Ombudsman.

The Bill also contains arrangements to protect customers in the event of the failure of a new market entrant.

Public water utilities may be required to step in to provide essential water and sewerage services if a new retailer's business fails.

This Bill will facilitate the private sector bringing forward and developing innovative ideas for the urban water industry, such as recycling that will help to secure our cities' long term water future while continuing to protect public health, the environment and consumers.

Another plank of the New South Wales Government's water reform program is the Central Coast Water Corporation Bill.

This Bill provides for the establishment of the Central Coast Water Corporation to supply water and sewerage services on the Central Coast.

As is currently the case, the responsibility for water supply will remain with the Councils.

The Central Coast Water Corporation would be a statutory body wholly owned by Gosford and Wyong Councils with revenues raised by the corporation remaining in the region.

The Corporation model has been developed following a request from Gosford and Wyong Councils for a new legal entity to enable improved governance and streamlined decision-making.

Both Councils have been extensively consulted during the development of the proposed model.

In addition to the formal request of Councils for the new legal entity, other stakeholders, including community groups and numerous Central Coast residents have made representations to me about their concern regarding the management of urban water supply on the Central Coast.

Gosford City and Wyong Shire Councils are currently water supply authorities under the Water Management Act. They currently provide water, sewage and drainage services to around 300,000 people and industry on the Central Coast.

Their combined water supply is the third largest in New South Wales but it is under severe pressure from the current drought. Storage levels now stand at 15.5%. If dam levels continue to decline at the current rate, storages could be at 10% by the end of the year.

At present, Gosford and Wyong Councils have a long standing agreement for the joint management of their head works assets. To facilitate joint operations, the Councils established a joint committee, the Gosford Wyong Councils' Water Authority in 1977.

However, the joint committee has no legal status and functions cannot be formally delegated to it—meaning all its decisions must be ratified by each Council.

This process contributes to inefficiency and delay in decision-making.

The Central Coast Water Corporation Bill responds to this problem and the request from Gosford City Council and Wyong Shire Council by enabling the establishment of a new Central Coast Water Corporation.

At a joint meeting of both Councils on September 28 a resolution was carried in support of the direction outlined in this Bill.

There is an important point to be made about the new arrangements.

This is not a takeover by the State Government. Local Councils will continue to maintain responsibility for water on the Central Coast, via the Corporation which will be wholly owned by the Councils.

The Bill does not enable the State Government to gain control or ownership of Council assets. Nor will the new arrangements undermine working conditions for staff.

Existing entitlements of staff affected by the establishment of the corporation will be preserved in a number of ways.

For example:

• Transferred staff retain all rights to annual leave, extended service leave, sick leave and other forms of leave;

• Existing entitlements and conditions of service including length of service for transferred and non-transferred staff are preserved until a new award is negotiated;

• No forced redundancies of transferred staff and non-transferred staff for three years;

• Transferred staff have a three year right to apply for a job back at Council and to be treated as if they were an internal applicant;

• Regulations must provide for equal opportunity and merit-based appointment in accordance with the Local Government Act 1993;

• Regulations may be made with respect to the terms and conditions of employment.

I also acknowledge the commitments made from Gosford and Wyong Councils to recommend that the Corporation sign referral agreements under section 146A of the Industrial Relations Act and common law deeds which ensure industrial issues are dealt with under the NSW Industrial Relations system.

In the interim, I encourage Gosford and Wyong Councils to establish a working party involving employees, management, elected representatives and unions to negotiate conditions and policies relating to the future employment of staff.

The new Corporation will provide a single focus for the strategic direction of water services on the Central Coast, create transparency in the sharing of costs between Councils and adopt a commercially-focussed, expert board to guide the delivery of water services on the Central Coast.

Over the longer term, the full integration of assets and operations of the two Councils into the Corporation is expected to realise significant cost savings.

It will provide greater scope for raising capital and greater potential for efficiencies by managing a larger water supply and sewerage system.

In recognition that the Bill is being introduced in direct response to a formal request from the Councils, Clause 2 of the Bill provides that the proclamation to establish the Corporation may only be made following resolutions from Gosford and Wyong Councils.

The Corporation will be accountable to its owners, the Councils, through its constitution, statement of corporate intent and audited financial reports.

This Bill places the Central Coast Water Corporation on broadly the same footing as other major water utilities serving large populations, such as Hunter Water and Sydney Water, except that it would remain locally owned.

Under clause 32 of the Bill, the Minister may grant an operating licence to the Corporation.

The licence must include terms and conditions under which the Corporation is required to ensure that its systems and services meet recognised standards in relation to water quality, service interruptions and pricing.

To ensure consumer protection, particularly for vulnerable customers, the Corporation will be required to belong to an approved industry ombudsman scheme, such as the Energy and Water Ombudsman.

The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal will be responsible for auditing the compliance of the Corporation with its operating licence.

The people of the Central Coast deserve a water utility that has the capacity to invest prudently in new supplies and water saving measures as effectively as possible.

This Bill allows for the establishment of such a water utility in the form of the Central Coast Water Corporation.

I thank all those who have contributed to the important reforms contained in these Bills. I commend the Bills to the House.

The Hon. DON HARWIN [2.50 p.m.]: I thank the Minister for his assistance. I lead for the Opposition on the Water Industry Competition Bill and the cognate Central Coast Water Corporation Bill. Last month the Minister for Water Utilities explained in his second reading speech in the other place that "a key component of the New South Wales Government's strategy for a sustainable water future is to harness the innovation and investment potential of the private sector in the water and wastewater industries. The Water Industry Competition Bill opens the door to competition and new investment." Of course, for years the Carr-Iemma Government fought hard to keep that door firmly shut. It has squandered the past several years and wasted millions of taxpayers' dollars trying to protect the monopoly of Sydney Water from competition. The Government has failed to invest in substantial recycling and stormwater harvesting projects and our State is now languishing behind the rest of the nation in terms of infrastructure, investment, innovation and vision. This legislation should have been introduced years ago.

In the latter half of the last decade the Federal Government established a framework for private businesses to access publicly owned infrastructure under reasonable terms and conditions. Competition and private participation successfully followed in the fields of telecommunications and electricity supply, but in New South Wales similar moves in the area of water supply were frustrated by the Labor Government. It is over seven years since Services Sydney, a private consortium, first approached the State Government about providing an alternative sewerage service in Sydney. The group's plans involved the treatment of sewage for use in agriculture, industry and, importantly, the supplementation of environmental flows. The Labor Government was dismissive of the concept and its approach to the Services Sydney plan has been obstructionist ever since. Rather than embracing the introduction of innovative technology and investment by the private sector, the Government blocked the group's access to Sydney Water's sewerage pipes. It fought hard to protect the commercial monopoly of Sydney Water and the high-yield dividends it provides. Despite the rhetoric, the Carr- Iemma Government has taken no steps during the intervening years to achieve sustainable sewage reuse on a meaningful scale.

When former Premier Bob Carr chose to ignore a recommendation from the National Competition Council that Services Sydney be allowed to access the infrastructure of the State utility under the Trade Practices Act the dispute went before the Australian Competition Tribunal. According to documents obtained by the Opposition under freedom of information legislation, Sydney Water incurred $1.58 million in legal fees with the law firm Clayton Utz between June 2004 and February 2006 in relation to the case. In December last year the company finally won a ruling from the tribunal allowing it to negotiate access to Sydney Water infrastructure. Services Sydney has always been prepared to work co-operatively to bring about a sustainable alternative water supply for Sydney through the development of new technology and business practices. The Labor Government, however, has always sought to frustrate the company's vision and has wasted more than $1.5 million in the process of litigation. Large-scale recycling and stormwater harvesting have never been central aspects of the Government's approach to the State's water crisis.

In the middle of 2004 Sydney Water abandoned its biggest water recycling initiative, a $110-million pipeline carrying water for industry through to Sydney's south-west. The pipeline, carefully devised over four years of planning, had been promoted as a key part of Sydney Water's Water Plan 21, its blueprint on how to make Sydney's water use sustainable by 2021. Since then the Government has spent more money on planning for its desalination plant than it would have cost to construct the whole pipeline. The decision to scrap the pipeline project was indicative of the Government's refusal to embrace recycling and underscored its repeated failure to adequately invest in our State's infrastructure. Things have barely improved over the ensuing years. Sydney currently recycles just 3 per cent of its water. This year the State's budget includes $26 million to increase that to—wait for it—4 per cent. Compared with the recycling initiatives in other States around the country this can only be described as a pathetic effort.
Adelaide is at the forefront of water reuse among Australian cities with 19 per cent of all water consumed being recycled for other uses. That is about five times the amount of water this Government is committed to recycling in Sydney. In Victoria the Bracks Labor Government has just announced a $300 million plan to upgrade a major water recycling plant in Melbourne's east. The upgrade of the eastern treatment plant will add more than 135,000 megalitres of treated water to supplies each year for use in new housing projects and power stations in the Latrobe Valley. The project will also cut outflows of sewage into the ocean at Gunnamatta by 80 per cent by 2012.

The Iemma Labor Government in New South Wales is making no such commitment to large-scale recycling. In fact, our State Government is spending nearly twice as much on desalination in this year's budget as it is on recycling and it continues to back away from its commitments on the subject. In March 2005 the former utilities Minister, Frank Sartor, explained in the other place that the Government had a recycling target of 80 billion litres. By this time last year, November 2005, the Premier was talking about increasing the use of recycled water from 15 billion to 70 billion litres per year by 2011. So the target had dropped by an eighth in a matter of months. Now, 12 months later, that commitment has been pushed back to 70 billion litres by 2015. So the target has come down and blown out by four years. In contrast, the Coalition has committed to shutting down one of Sydney's three major ocean sewage outfalls during its first term of government and using the recycled wastewater for industrial purposes. The current Government is simply not interested in recycling on such a major scale.

Of course, if this Government had invested in large-scale recycling and harvesting then it would not be necessary to plunder the water resources of the Shoalhaven, which has been the Government's solution to Sydney's water crisis in recent months. While not prepared to spend money on recycling infrastructure, one of the major aspects of its water plan is a $680-million pipe to extract an additional 30 billion litres from the Shoalhaven River every year. In August more than three-quarters of Sydney's water came from the Shoalhaven. Such a drastic plundering of the Shoalhaven would not be necessary if this Government was serious about recycling and had long ago embraced the kind of private sector investment in innovative technology that the Services Sydney proposal offers and which this bill purports to encourage.

After considering the Services Sydney case the Australian Competition Tribunal found that the New South Wales Government had no valid reason to withhold access to State-owned water infrastructure. The introduction of the Water Industry Competition Bill stems directly from that finding. It is not legislation that the Government has willingly brought into the Parliament. The primary objective of the bill is the establishment of a State-based licensing scheme to provide for private sector involvement in the supply of water and the provision of sewerage services. In order to make that scheme viable the bill establishes a regime by which licensed organisations can access monopoly infrastructure services. The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal will arbitrate disputes concerning access. As far as possible private sector participants will have the same powers, protections and restrictions as those pertaining to public authorities. Of course, this Labor Government does not have a particularly good reputation for encouraging successful private-sector participation in major infrastructure projects, and some reservations have been expressed about the State-based scheme proposed in this bill.

The flexibility of the licensing regime is unclear. While certain restrictions on private-sector entrants, such as the requirement that they comply with the Water Management Act 2000 and the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997, are important, there are other restrictions that are potentially more problematic. The bill allows for conditions to be attached to a licence, and that can include requiring the licensee to give security for the fulfilment of its obligations, to implement government policy with respect to social programs, and to limit the amount of water it acquires from a public utility. Then there is the Minister's power to cancel any licence if the Minister considers it to be in the public interest.

In addition to questions about the flexibility of the licensing scheme, some water companies have already expressed doubt about how effective the access regime will be, with some claiming the only cost-effective option will be to bid for the right to provide water services in greenfields residential developments or large industrial sites. About 80 per cent of Sydney Water's existing customers are small and largely residential. There are concerns in the industry that in effectively restricting access to large customers only, the viability of businesses will be significantly curtailed.

It is also unclear how access costs will be determined. Such costs will be a major factor in determining the viability of the recycling schemes. There is also uncertainty about whether third parties will be granted reasonable access to Sydney Water lands. At least one major water enterprise has told the Coalition that it will take a wait-and-see approach before entering the market. This position is understandable because, as is so often the case with this Labor Government, the bill establishes only the framework of the new system. Much of the detail, notably the licence conditions, will be in the regulations, which I am not expecting to see this side of the election. However, I would be delighted to be proved wrong.

Another disincentive is the extraordinarily high penalties that have been included in the scheme. An initial breach of the legislation will be subject to a penalty of $500,000. This level of fine is entirely unreasonable, especially if the breach is essentially trivial. At least one major water company has identified the penalty as a barrier to entrance of third parties into the market. As it is, the entire scheme may prove unworkable because of the Government's decision to establish a State-based access regime in parallel to the national scheme. While a service cannot be declared at the Federal level if access is already the subject of an effective access regime, the status of a State-based access regime developed after declaration is not specifically addressed.

It has been suggested that should the State and Commonwealth schemes prove inconsistent, the latter will prevail and the former shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be in part invalid and consequently unworkable. The Coalition believes in competition and sees the involvement of the private sector in the water and wastewater market as an opportunity for the development of the kind of significant and meaningful recycling projects that the Labor Government is not willing to undertake. Despite the shortcomings of the bill, the Opposition will not oppose it.

Cognate with the Water Industry Competition Bill is the Central Coast Water Corporation Bill, which provides for the constitution and functions of the Central Coast Water Corporation under the Water Management Act 2000 as a statutory body wholly owned by Gosford and Wyong councils. The Government has repeatedly sought to present this reform as one that gives responsibility for water management on the Central Coast to a new local body, owned and operated by Gosford City Council and Wyong Shire Council. The Government has repeatedly insisted that it does not seek to assume direct control. In truth, however, these councils already have responsibility for the water supply on the Central Coast and their independence will be quashed by this new arrangement.

This bill establishes a separate authority with a board of five members—three appointed by the Minister for Water Utilities, and just one each from the two councils, each of whom will be subject to the approval of the Minister. Clearly, the board of the new corporation will be controlled by the Minister. This bill thus takes control over the Central Coast water supply from two independent councils capable of resisting government directives and places it in the hands of a corporation board hand-picked by the Government. This Labor Government has not delivered for the residents of the Central Coast over the last 12 years and this legislation will continue that failure. The residents of the Central Coast face a terrible water crisis. After 15 years of crippling drought their dam levels are at just 15.4 per cent and they are suffering under level four water restrictions.

The Government has made no coherent plan for the Central Coast water supply and its management. It has made no announcement about recycling, stormwater harvesting or conservation. It has simply produced this bill, which is all about management and bureaucracy and does nothing to improve supply. This reform will not produce a single litre of extra water. The Government has not secured a single litre of extra water for the people of the Central Coast, and that is largely because it has not invested a single dollar in infrastructure. This stands in sharp contrast to the contribution made by the Commonwealth, which has been prepared to invest money and to achieve outcomes rather than simply to make spectacular announcements and release plans.

For example, the $37-million Hunter and Gosford-Wyong Regional Water Sharing Project is an initiative established under the Federal Government's Water Smart Australia Program, which is one of three programs drawing on the Commonwealth's $2-billion investment in water solutions. The project is a commercial venture involving the construction of a pipeline between the Hunter and Gosford-Wyong water supply areas that is capable of transferring 20 megalitres a day. The project will better utilise the assets of the water-rich Hunter system and the large storage capacity of the Gosford-Wyong system. The project's funding comprises $6.61 million from the Howard Federal Government, $6.61 million from the Hunter Water Corporation, $6.76 million from Gosford City Council and $17.77 million from Wyong Shire Council.

The only water infrastructure announcement that the Government has made for the region is the extraordinary $342-million Tillegra Dam proposal, which is not scheduled for completion for another 10 years. In 2004 Hunter Water's Integrated Water Resource Plan, which outlined the 20-year water plan for the region, discounted the Tillegra Darn as a suitable option due to the high cost and the fact that there were more attractive options available. The plan states:

In fact, with proposed staged upgrade works at Grahamstown Darn, a new water source would not be required within the next 30 years, based on the base case demand forecasts. In comparing the levellised costs, building a new dam at Tillegra would be far less cost effective than many demand management and water conservation initiatives. Similarly, it would be relatively expensive compared to incremental upgrades at Grahamstown. In environmental and social impact terms progressive works to optimise the Grahamstown scheme are minor compared to the option of building a new dam in the upper catchment area."

Of course, the Government has no plans or initiatives to relieve the water crisis on the Central Coast during the 10 years of construction of the new dam. Given the Government's track record on the actual delivery of other water infrastructure schemes one must doubt whether the dam will actually be constructed. It may just be another impressive media announcement that never becomes a reality.

Both the Water Industry Competition Bill and the Central Coast Water Corporation Bill are more spin than substance. The bills give the Government the opportunity to appear proactive on water management, but it will deliver little. The Water Industry Competition Bill creates a framework for private sector access to infrastructure, but there are doubts about its effectiveness and flexibility. The Central Coast Water Corporation Bill will establish a new statutory authority that grabs power for the State Government, but it will not actually deliver any improvement to the water supply on the Central Coast. Despite its rhetoric the Government still does not have a meaningful and comprehensive strategy for addressing our State's water crisis. It trails the other States in both investment and innovation and remains more interested in spin than substance.

The Opposition does not oppose these bills, but will move amendments to the Central Coast Water Corporation Bill to deal with a number of the issues I have raised and other issues of a technical nature that have been brought to the Opposition's attention and that were discussed at some length in Committee in the other Chamber by my colleague the honourable member for Gosford. His contribution was based on the excellent advice of Senior Counsel provided to Wyong Shire Council. I commend the comments of the honourable member, who outlined the Opposition's concerns at great length.

Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES [3.10 p.m.]: I wish to speak particularly to the Central Coast Water Corporation Bill. I am a Central Coast resident and these issues have constantly been in the headlines of our local newspapers. I have contacted the local councils and mayors and others involved to discuss their views on the matter. I thank them, and particularly Kerry Yates, the General Manager of Wyong Shire Council, for helping me to understand the view of the councils about the matter.

I was absolutely stunned to hear the recent announcement about the proposal to build the Tillegra Dam and the costs associated with that. Although I have been following the water issue for some time, I had not the slightest inclination about such an announcement. It was a surprise announcement, so much so that it was not announced in my local area at all! I do not think Premier Iemma wanted to make that announcement anywhere near the Hunter or the Central Coast. Normally when such a vast amount of money is involved, such matters become a great issue for local members. Quite a number of members in the Hunter support the Premier, but I do not think he wanted any of them around when he made the announcement.

I acknowledge the reasons for this given by members of the Opposition, but as a local citizen I was quite surprised that our local members were not involved in such an important announcement. Normally when making such an announcement the Premier would identify the vast areas of farmland to be inundated, while indicating beautifully produced copies of plans showing lovely, clear, blue water flowing over green pastures, with cows dying in the distance! But on this occasion it did not happen quite like that; indeed, no other members of Parliament were present when the announcement was made.

On the day the announcement was made I received a letter from my local member, Mr Grant McBride, the member for The Entrance. I imagine he sent a similar letter to all residents in his electorate. It was a very special letter proclaiming the initiatives of the Iemma Government for water in the Hunter. That is precisely what this letter was about. It had nothing to do with Mr McBride's ministry of gaming and racing, or the club industry, or any other initiatives. It was all about water. In that entire letter there was no mention of a new dam. It was quite obvious that Grant McBride, one of Labor's Ministers, was not trusted with the secret. The letter that was given to me as a resident of the area indicated that the Government would be doing such notable things as encouraging councils to increase rebates for rainwater tanks and so on. However, it omitted to refer to a proposal to build a one-billion litre dam in the area.
The Premier's announcement was met with a great deal of resistance from the residents of the Upper Hunter, particularly local dairy farmers and those who were assured only a short time ago that it might be 20 years before such a proposal would come to light. Therefore the dairy farmers were all taken by surprise. They had put in new fencing, new milking sheds and the like, only to discover that their new facilities would shortly be inundated and the capital expenditures they had made on their property wasted. I did not hear from people in the area one word of approval for the Premier's announcement. Of course, if I were cynical I might think that the purpose of the announcement was to detract from other events that were happening in the Hunter area, and to get reports of a Minister and related matters off the front pages of local newspapers.

Mr Ian Cohen: The Government ought to be damned, do you agree?

Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES: "The Government ought to be damned," says Mr Ian Cohen. I congratulate him on his sense of humour.

The Hon. Don Harwin: It's the first time Mr Ian Cohen has ever advocated a dam.

Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES: Yes, it is his only advocacy of a dam. I simply make the point that when I wrote to or telephoned the various councillors and mayors of the local area I found that they were quite strong in their resistance to both the dam and this legislation, particularly the bill concerning the Central Coast. Over many years I have been an advocate of the wise use of water. To that end, on my very small property I have a 25,000-litre tank, a 1,000-litre tank and a 4,500-litre tank. We recycle all our water, including our grey water. We use a dam and we filter all the grey water that goes into the dam. That filtered grey water is then pumped back and, through trickle-drip, it supplies all our animals and gardens. I am quite confident that, with those provisions in place, we have more than enough water to address our needs.

I wish to raise a number of matters about the bill. Councils in general understand there are some valuable aspects to this proposal, but they do not totally agree with the legislation and have requested that a number of amendments be made to it. They want a decision-making body that is totally focused on the amount of water that is needed on the Central Coast. Everyone who lives on the Central Coast knows about the shortage of water and that our major dams are now at about 13 per cent capacity. We have immense problems with reticulation; every householder operates under severe restrictions. However, as one drives along the F3 from the Central Coast towards Sydney one cannot help but notice on the left-hand side the extensive earthworks to accommodate a massive pipe that is to come from further up in the Hunter. This will provide adequate supplies of water into the Mangrove Dam and other dams in the area.

The legislation's focus has been upon the amount of water that will be needed in the future. Councils' view is that the legislation should focus entirely upon people's water needs and how that water will be used. The proposal set out in the bill involves sewerage and drainage, water use and water reticulation. Instead, the legislation should determine the source of the water and address the issue from that perspective. The current Labor Government set up a separate head works body for Sydney in 1998, which separated responsibility for water management and the management of water reticulation, sewerage and drainage. If such a body is good enough for Sydney, why should not the Central Coast also have one?

If it is Minister Campbell's proposal that all water, sewerage and drainage functions, including the assets and staff, be transferred from the councils to a separate body, three separate bodies will exist on the Central Coast—the two councils and the new joint body. So that if a bloke like me wanted to install new water tanks or a reticulation system, he would need to apply to three separate bodies for approval. Of course, that will increase costs for the ratepayers because we will have to support three staffs rather than two. It will mean that ratepayers will receive separate bills and we will have to go to separate offices for water, sewerage and drainage issues. It will mean that we will have to get approval from three separate bodies to carry out any kind of development, and so on. The Minister's proposed new body will result in a multiplication of facilities.

I wish to direct the attention of honourable members to a very sneaky feature of the bill. The proposal is that there will be a transfer of ownership all of the assets that are involved from the Central Coast ratepayers to the State Government's coffers. That means that rather than the ratepayers being shareholders in the new water, sewerage and drainage body, all the assets would go into the coffers of the State Government and would be owned by the State Government. On the four previous occasions that the State Government has tried to take water and sewerage operations away from our two local councils on the Central Coast there has been strong resistance. The ratepayers have supported their local representatives and local councils. One of the fundamental principles of democracy is that end users must be consulted on these matters. The ratepayers on the Central Coast feel really cheesed off that they were not consulted about this bill. For example, there were no announcements about the new Tilligra Dam; no-one, including Government members representing local electorates, knew what was happening. It has been a very good example of non-consultation with people in the region.

History reveals that there have been five different attempts to take over the assets of the Central Coast—Wyong council's and Gosford council's water and sewerage supplies. Things came to a head in 2004 when Minister Sartor, in one of his more Napoleonic thrusts into empire building, instructed the two councils to examine the issue. He indicated, with a magnanimous gesture and a wave of the hand, that he would leave the final decision to the two councils and that he and the New South Wales Government were prepared to accept whatever decisions the councils might make. Now, of course, we have another Napoleon, the Hon. David Campbell, the Minister for Water Utilities, who has indicated that the councils will not have an opportunity to make a decision on behalf of the Government. The Government has seen fit not to honour the undertaking given by Minister Sartor and is now pursuing another option, contrary to the joint decisions and wishes of the two councils.

In conclusion, I say to members: Please keep in mind that the councils have opposed this bill at their own council meetings. They have written to the utilities Ministers and indicated their opposition to the bill. Therefore, this bill must be severely amended to make it acceptable to the people and councils of the Central Coast.

The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS [3.24 p.m.]: The Central Coast Water Corporation Bill tries to make a virtue of a necessity. Services Sydney managed to beat Sydney Water in the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to access water to recycle, and the Government is now putting together a structure for that same purpose. If Sydney Water had not missed opportunities to use water more intelligently, Services Sydney would not have claimed a victory by using alternative technologies that Sydney Water should have used.

There have been many missed opportunities for the reuse and recycling of water. I was part of a group that tried to stop ocean outfalls some years ago and wanted to turn the water inland and have it reused. Land exists, particularly at Malabar, for a water recycling plant, and it is my understanding that it is cheaper to recycle water than it is to desalinate it, if you are using the water for purposes other than for drinking. Another process Sydney Water has never undertaken is on-site treatment, neither at a domestic nor at an industrial level. I was encouraged recently to talk to people who know about electro flocculation technology. It is an old principle of physics: when you put an electric current into water, bubbles are given off and as the bubbles flow upwards, electrically charged particles attach to those bubbles; the pollutants that also travel up to the surface and are skimmed off, and the heavier pollutants sink to the bottom and are taken away. The result is water that is almost drinkable, depending on the nature of the pollutants.

The point about this technology—which is currently being used by Transpacific, one of the largest waste companies in Sydney—means that water is reused and the concentration of pollutants is much higher, and therefore less water is used for many tasks. A number of councils are now using this electro flocculation technology on site—I believe Randwick Council is using it. Far less water is wasted. Only 10 per cent of the water goes out as waste and the other 90 per cent is reused to wash vehicles and for other council needs. The beauty of thinking small and on site means that there is less sewage to deal with and if there is less sewage to deal with, fewer pipes are required. Again, it was an opportunity missed by Sydney Water and, in some part, the Government.

I worked for Sydney Water from 1983 to 1994. In the mid 1980s Sydney Water had a work force of 17,500 people. It was giving job opportunities to all sorts of people; it had proactive policies for people with disabilities and proactive policies for people who came out of gaol. I know that because I was assessing their fitness to work. It was assumed that there would be plenty of work because Sydney's pipe network had not been replaced for a long time and large quantities of water were being lost into the groundwater because of leaking pipes. The assumption was that if pipes were replaced, there would be less leakage and, consequently, Sydney's water would last much longer.

A project was set up to separate rainwater from sewage water because in some of the inner-city areas rainwater simply ran into the sewer. Some people connected it up because it was cheaper and available. The bottom line was, however, that sewage outfalls, which should have been constant and unaffected by rain, in fact, increased almost fourfold whenever it rained. So, sewage treatment plants were dealing with huge quantities of rainwater and the entire sewerage system was dealing with a huge volume of what amounted to rainwater. Indeed, some of the sewerage pipes were cracked, and in that situation the water table flowed into the pipes rather out of them. Pipes passing through groundwater either gain or lose water depending on whether they are leaking.

The assumption was that the labour force would replace those pipes in a systematic manner, but the Government offered the workers redundancy and Sydney Water now has approximately 3,000 workers. The Government takes $100 million per year as a dividend from Sydney Water. Effectively, the Government changed water rates into taxes because the rates, instead of paying only for water, were being taken as a dividend from Sydney Water, which amounted to tax. So, it was a sleight of hand on the part of the Government. The Government has missed the opportunity to save the water escaping from those pipes, to use the sewage more intelligently or to deal with rainwater.

In 1995 I renovated my house and decided that I would like to separate the grey water. I wanted have a grey water tank and a rainwater tank. I discussed the matter with my architect and my builder, and they said, "Look, it is just too difficult. It is much too complicated. The council will not allow it and Sydney Water will not allow it." In addition, the regulations and red tape were hopeless. Now if I want to try to save some water I will have to take a jack pick to the bathroom floor and spend a fortune. That is the bottom line. Those opportunities have been missed and that is why another body, Services Sydney, has beaten Sydney Water in the Australian Competition Tribunal and will be able to use technologies and opportunities that have been frittered away by government fiddle-faddling around. Sydney Water was unimaginative and to some extent had its hands tied by the Government's demand for a dividend and the requirement to sack its workers—instead of putting them to work as it had originally intended in order to make better use of the piping network and bring it up to date so that so much water was not lost and the sewage and rainwater could be used more intelligently.

Another question is whether these things should be treated on site and not allowed into the pipe system at all, and whether huge corporations should collect all the water and then sell it back. In other words, there is a philosophy here as to whether small is beautiful and we give subsidies to individual householders and businesses, or whether all water should be collected through a publicly subsidised piping system and that water is then sold back by a big corporation. The Government has not thought this through sufficiently, but it should do so. People who use electro-flocculation technology could save the State a lot of money. There have been some huge improvements in technology.

The problem with electro-flocculation technology was that the electrodes would become clogged up after a while when pollutants attached to the electrodes. With the new computer control the polarity of the electrodes can be changed and the pollutants removed that would attach to the electrodes, making them non-functional from a practical point of view. The reversal of that polarity takes away the attachments to the anodes and cathodes and they can continue for far longer with far less maintenance. This, of course, is basically intelligent use of physics and the changes in computer technology. It requires close monitoring of the water that is being treated, but the greater the knowledge of the pollutants in the water, the more completely they can be removed. Because you are never quite sure whether there might be some unusual chemical or poison that is not fully removed by this technology, there is a reluctance to use it in drinking water. However, this water can be used for almost every purpose.

Napoleon has been criticised in this debate. It might be noted that Napoleon—not the Sartorian equivalent of Napoleon—was in power only very briefly, I think from 1800 to 1805 or so. He installed a system of grey water, sewage and fresh water under the streets of Paris, which of course he redesigned. That is an example to the world 200 years earlier. Historically, we have not done very well in regard to the use of grey water in Australia. Two cognate bills are before the House: the Central Coast Water Corporation Bill and the Water Industry Competition Bill.

The Hon. Duncan Gay: We have three more days of these speeches to go!

The Hon. Rick Colless: That's wishful thinking!

The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS: It is wishful thinking on the part of the Opposition_I will be back after the election. The Central Coast Water Corporation Bill will establish a new water supply authority that will operate under a model similar to State-owned corporations. The Central Coast Water Corporation will be a new water supply authority under the Water Management Act, and amalgamate services already being provided by Gosford City Council and Wyong Shire Council. The Minister said in his second reading speech that the bill provides for the establishment of the Central Coast Water Corporation to supply water and sewerage services on the Central Coast It will be a statutory body wholly owned by Gosford and Wyong councils, with revenues raised by the corporation remaining in the region. At present Gosford and Wyong councils have a long-standing agreement for the joint management of their head works assets.

To facilitate joint operations the councils established a joint committee, the Gosford Wyong Councils Water Authority, in 1977. However, the joint committee has no legal status and functions cannot be formally delegated to it, which means all its decisions must be ratified by each council. This process contributes to inefficiency and delay in decision making. The Minister said that the Central Coast Water Corporations Bill will respond to that problem and has been introduced following a request from Gosford City Council and Wyong Shire Council. At a joint meeting of both councils on 28 September, a resolution was carried in support of the direction outlined in the bill.

This takes up the point made by Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes. He said that the Government was taking over the assets of those two councils. It is my understanding that that is not the situation. The assets will remain the property of those councils, which should make the community happier. I am not sure that there is a huge problem in ratifying decisions by two councils. The lag time for things such as construction of water infrastructure would not be a problem, in the sense that councils presumably meet at least once a month and these decisions are taken with years of lead time. Be that as it may, I hope and trust that the councils who currently own the assets are happy with this bill. I would not support it if I did not believe they were supportive of it.

I note that water storage capacity is 15 per cent on the Central Coast, and there is something of a crisis there. However, according to the Hunter Water Corporation web site, there was 82 per cent capacity in Hunter Valley dams on 8 November. I understand from the Government that there has been a major pipeline augmentation between the Hunter Valley and the Central Coast, which, under the present circumstances, will be flowing from the Hunter to the Central Coast. But, in historic terms, the Central Coast sometimes has had better rainfall than the Hunter and so the possibility of the water going the other way is also being considered in the design.

The Water Industry Compensation Bill intends to establish a licensing scheme to provide for private sector involvement in the supply of water and the provision of sewerage services. It will establish an access regime to ensure that certain monopoly infrastructure services involved in the supply of water and the provision of sewerage services are available to persons seeking access to them. The bill contains provisions to facilitate the construction, maintenance and operation of infrastructure for the supply of water and the provision of sewerage services, and will protect private sector involvement in the supply of water and the provision of sewerage services by means of the creation of offences for that purpose—and that will protect the public, in the case of private sector involvement.

The Minister said in his second reading speech that the Water Industry Competition Bill opens the door to competition and new investment. As I said, it is the Government making a virtue of necessity. It will allow prospective sewer miners involved in recycling who are unable to reach a commercial agreement with specified service providers to have the terms on which they can mine water from sewers determined in binding arbitration conducted by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal [IPART]. A comprehensive access regime to help new suppliers to negotiate arrangements for the storage and transportation of water and sewage using existing water and sewerage networks will be set up.

Licensees who wish to construct and operate new water and sewerage networks will be put on broadly the same footing as the public water utilities for things such as laying pipes in public roads and reading meters. At the same time, the Water Industry Competition Bill establishes a licensing regime for private entrants to ensure the continued protection of public health, the environment and consumers. The reforms proposed by the Water Industry Competition Bill have been outlined and released for discussion. There have been stakeholder briefings and IPART has conducted a public investigation into water and waste water service provision in the greater Sydney region. This investigation was largely due to Services Sydney's attempt to compete with Sydney Water in providing sewage treatment and recycling services. Last year Services Sydney won its case before the Australian Competition Tribunal for its right to access Sydney Water's pipes. Under the proposal, it was to compete with Sydney Water for sewerage service fees. An article in the Australian of 24 October this year by rural writer Asa Wahlquist, entitled "'Floodgates' opened to water competition", stated:

PRIVATE water businesses will be allowed to compete with state-owned authorities for the first time under legislation due to be introduced in NSW today.

NSW Minister for Water Utilities David Campbell said yesterday the Water Industry Competition Bill "will open the floodgates for private industry recycling projects while providing safeguards for consumers".

He said the legislation would cover the two state-owned water authorities, Sydney Water and Hunter Water. "It will say to the private sector, if you want to get access to the pipes and recycle then we are open for business," Mr Campbell said.

Services Sydney has conducted a long campaign to gain access to Sydney's sewage system and recycle the water for agriculture and environmental services. The sewerage is currently flushed out through Sydney's three ocean outfalls.

Services Sydney last year won its case before the Australian Competition Tribunal for its right to access Sydney Water's pipes. Under the proposal, it would compete with Sydney Water for sewerage service fees.

John van der Merwe, from Services Sydney, said this legislation recognised the fact that those three ocean outfalls were open for competition.

"The irony is while we have spent millions of dollars fighting one another, billions of litres (of sewage) have got pumped into the ocean," he said.

Mr Campbell yesterday also announced that a recycling plant for a central coast electricity generator, the NSW government-owned Delta electricity, would be built at Vales Point. The plant would initially supply 230 million litres a year, with capacity to expand to 500 million litres.

Mr Campbell said a $50 million contract was announced two weeks ago to extend the Rouse Hill recycled water project to service another 20,000 houses. But he was critical of Malcolm Turnbull, parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister with responsibility for water, over the application of the $2 billion Australian Government Water Fund.

The plant would be already under construction if the federal Government had not rejected a funding bid by Delta and Wyong Shire council earlier this year, he said. Mr Turnbull said the fund was not an ATM put in place to fund every piece of water infrastructure put forward by the States.

During a speech in 2005 Mr Ian Cohen said:

Services Sydney is a private company that has been controversial in putting forward proposals for large-scale reuse of water. I believe its plans could dramatically reduce marine pollution from the partially treated sewage discharges from the major ocean outfalls. In the vicinity of 400 gigalitres a year is available to be sourced from the ocean outfalls, and this amount is increasing every year. I have consistently taken this issue to Minister Sartor. Many of the problems of re-using water in Sydney are not so much because of technical problems or expense; it is just that we have a culture of pipe builders. The culture in Sydney Water goes back for generations. Engineers want to build more pipes, more infrastructure.

The Hon. Duncan Gay: You might be able to get a job as a staffer with Mr Ian Cohen if you keep quoting him.

The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS: He said exactly what I have been saying. Mr Ian Cohen further said:

I support the concepts put forward by Services Sydney. There is an opportunity to stop the pollution from the ocean outfalls. I have been irked by this pollution for many years as a frequent ocean user. Many years ago I surfed in the filth that had come from the outfalls at Maroubra, Bondi and Manly.

Mr Ian Cohen has been campaigning against the ocean outfalls, as have I. The key point is that the sewage and stormwater could have been separated. Indeed, Sydney Water was undertaking a project in the northern areas to do so. In other words, there were gangs working on identifying rainwater going into sewage pipes and then repairing the leaks in the pipes. On one level, leaks are not hard to detect in the sense that if the dry weather flow is the amount of sewage being produced and the wet weather flow is a multiple of that, clearly rainwater is leaking into the sewage system, either because the pipes are faulty and below the water table or the pipes have been installed.

A huge reservoir pipe was completed in haste before the 2000 Olympics. In that case the variation to contract was extremely lucrative for the contractor, to ensure that there was no overflow and the harbour was free of sewage overflow should it rain immediately before the swims associated with the Olympics—the triathlon competitors were involved in swimming across the harbour. The contractor wanted to waive the obligation to line the huge reservoir. I believe the contractor was an opportunistic lurker, which I think we may pay for later in terms of sulphuric acid damaging the sandstone. When sulphur dioxide from amino acids is dissolved in water it forms sulphuric acid. Although sulphuric acid is a weak acid, it damages the sandstone when there is consistent activity in the pipes. It dissolves the sandstone, causing the walls of the pipe to crumble. The acid would not cause as much damage if the pipe were lined. That was a short-term and foolish decision, but that is another point.
Certainly, sending the ocean outfall to the Manly treatment plant would have been an alternative to having small gangs beavering away, separating the rainwater and stormwater from the sewage. Again, it is a case of thinking big and demanding big projects, rather than having small projects and dealing with the problem in terms of other pipes. I think part of thinking big was providing big profits for big companies, rather than providing treatment on site. Certainly, one alternative is for major water-using industries to provide on-site treatment. As they use the water industrially, they could be pressured to reuse and recycle water from their sites. Indeed, providing them with a subsidy would be cheaper than providing the pipes to take their water and building publicly funded treatment facilities, which is more difficult because the water comes from various sources.

If the exact type of pollutant is known, the cost of removing that pollutant can be minimised. That is another important feature of the use of technologies such as electro-flocculation. As I said, we have failed to use small technologies, we have failed to think small and think about water in terms of how it is used and where the waste is produced. We are always thinking in terms of pipes and big corporations, both government owned or non-government owned, reusing and recycling that water. It is depressing that, while the Government has announced a new dam for the Hunter and the Central Coast, only 1.5 per cent of water on the Central Coast is reused. We have reached a crisis point, with talk about desalination and the Government announcing a new huge dam.

As Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes pointed out, the Government's announcement was convenient in a week in which it is trying to get various Cabinet difficulties off the front page of newspapers. I do not oppose these bills. I think they are a case of the Government making a virtue of necessity, but they are simply a recognition of what needs to be addressed. These bills are a necessity. It is a shame that the Government did not have a more intelligent water policy a long time ago, but this Government does not think ahead.

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER (Leader of the Opposition) [3.48 p.m.]: The Hon. Don Harwin does an excellent job representing the people of the Shoalhaven in this Chamber. He fights about water issues in the Shoalhaven and he highlights the Government's poor treatment of the people in that area. It is good to see that the honourable member has been able to adapt his understanding of the water issues in the Shoalhaven and to lead for the Opposition in the Central Coast-Hunter water debate.

I pay tribute to the contribution of Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes, who could not have put it better. It was a sensational contribution, obviously well researched. The other point that was quite obvious in his contribution was that it was heartfelt and showed his understanding of the local issues and his preparedness as a member of the Legislative Council to talk to people on the Central Coast who have been involved in the decision-making process. The honourable member referred to the current member for The Entrance who, I think, is still Minister for the Central Coast. Every time there is something to do with the Central Coast he is there for a photo opportunity, but when he is pressed about what is happening on the Central Coast he starts to get into difficulty.

As Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes said in his contribution, when points were brought to the attention of the Minister for the Central Coast he was incapable of answering them, just as he was incapable of answering questions recently in an estimates hearing when I asked him a number of questions about Central Coast water issues. With respect to him, he had no idea what the plans were, he had no idea what was happening, and he could not get near the most rudimentary questions that one would expect the Minister for the Central Coast to brief us on. When I asked him about water tanks I gave him a free kick. So much has been said about water tanks on the Central Coast. I said to the Minister, "Tell us, do you have a water tank in your home?" His answer was, "No, I do not have water tanks because I live on the river." Everyone thought, "Hang on a minute. It is a salt river, so it is no wonder he is having trouble growing plants!" He may have a private desalination plant out the back of the house that we do not know about.

Mr Ian Cohen: What about his licence to do that?

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: Then you have the problem with riparian rights and all the rest of it. In fairness though, I think it was just a silly comment. He was stumbling in the dark for something to say when he would have been far better off saying he does not need a water tank.

The Hon. Duncan Gay: Why did he not mention the dam in his newsletter?

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: Because he did not know about the dam. Like the Minister for the Central Coast, the Government was fumbling around in the dark looking for something to announce. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition drew my attention to quite an interesting comparison. He compared Premier Beattie in Queensland to Premier Iemma in New South Wales. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition captured it when he said, "Give credit to Peter Beattie. When he makes a hard decision he fronts the people and talks to them face to face." Of course, Morris Iemma does not front the people. He does it from an aeroplane at 30,000 feet.

The Hon. Duncan Gay: He has no ticker.

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: He has no local members, he has no consultation and, as the Deputy Leader of the Opposition says, he has no ticker. That is the difference. This proposal was quickly put together to come up with something that looked like the Government was doing something about water for the area, but when one asks the questions and looks at the detail there is nothing there. We see the image of the Premier sitting in the plane and not talking to the residents of that community.

I give credit to people who have done something about this. I recognise the contribution that a number of members on Wyong council have made—and I am talking about Labor councillors as much as I am talking about Liberal and Independent councillors. They have been prepared to push this issue. They have had difficulties. Honourable members will recall when the Hon. Michael Egan was in this place he was trying to get his fingers on the Central Coast water supply. We had a battle royal. Members on this side of the House, including me, met with the workers. I am not talking about the highly paid people; I am talking about the people who work in the sewerage plants, the people who maintain the pipes and the sewer system. They were concerned about their future. We continued to push the Government on this and it buckled. Now it is trying to cobble together some sort of plan that looks like it will introduce another level of bureaucracy by yet another board to put more Labor Government mates onto. Nothing here talks about a solution. The plan for the dam is just spin. Some months ago Government members talked about its water pipeline from the Hunter to the Central Coast. It is needed, because we need the water.

Mr Ian Cohen: Wait until the pipeline goes all the way to Sydney.

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: No, at this stage the water pipeline will stop. However, the money pipeline will continue all the way to Sydney. It will start at Hunter Water and it will flow down, pick up money out of the Central Coast in dividends and send it down to Sydney to fill the coffers of the State Government. That is a real concern. I recognise the contributions some of the councillors made. Brenton Pavier, a former mayor, was the one who signed the contract to make this water pipeline a reality. He should be recognised for his contribution in getting this pipeline off the ground. The former mayor of Gosford, Chris Holstein, has also been a long-term advocate. Those people saw the problems years ago and have tried to maintain an approach based on the budgetary restraints of the council to deliver better water services for the people of the Central Coast.

In this legislation we have a proposal that will simply take over all of the water system, including what is commonly known as the head works, and we have seen no plan from the Government that will guarantee it will deliver more water and better outcomes and certainty for the people of the Central Coast. When I talk about certainty, I cannot ignore the uncertainty that exists in the Dooralong and Yarramalong valleys. I declare an interest as an affected resident, but I am just one of thousands of people who are concerned that this Government is pushing on with mining proposals in that area while there are concerns about the water table and the effect on the water in that area. That is a debate we have to have in conjunction with the debate on water throughout the Central Coast. We have a growing community with growing demands and the State Government has no plans except a piece of legislation that gives it control of the assets and a new stream of money from dividends for water, and it is just one more opportunity to appoint another board, creating the image it is doing something when it is doing nothing.

Mr IAN COHEN [3.57 p.m.]: I lead for the Greens on the Water Industry Competition Bill and its cognate bill, the Central Coast Water Corporation Bill. I have taken an interest in these issues for some time, well before I became a member of Parliament. The way things are developing, I should have been pleased with the break-up of what has been a recalcitrant monopoly in Sydney Water. I have been actively working against the organisation for about 25 years. I do not want to trawl through all the events of the past, but I can see a desperate need for change in the culture of that public monopoly. The information coming from overseas companies about the privatisation of water is also of concern to me. When I first heard this announcement by the Minister, we were going to see a catch-up to the Federal decisions and the State Government was acting. We had to allow Services Sydney to have access to what was erstwhile a monopoly with the sewerage outfalls. It was a great step forward. However, we are dealing with water supply, which we have to treat with great caution.

Water is an essential resource. The many international examples of water supply being unfairly dealt with by private enterprise cause me to be extremely concerned. The legislation is the result of the Government staggering about trying to work out how to deal with situations that seem to be beyond it. The latest heavy-handed announcement involved the absurd $342 million Tillegra Dam. It is all part of the culture of dam building, pipe and infrastructure construction instead of dealing with the issues at source in a more sensitive and responsive way. On the one hand, private enterprise is moving in and breaking down the monopoly of a public enterprise; on the other hand, it is a tragedy that smaller institution and community-based enterprises do not get a look in, because we are still dealing with massive infrastructure and massive corporations.

The aim of the Water Industry Competition Bill is to encourage competition in relation to the provision of water supply and sewerage services and to facilitate the development of infrastructure for the production and reticulation of recycled water. The bill seeks to establish a licensing regime to provide for public sector involvement in the supply of water, provision of sewerage services and water recycling. The bill has come about in part due to the national competition policy as endorsed by the Council of Australian Governments [COAG]. The Australian Competition Tribunal ruled last year in favour of Services Sydney gaining access to Sydney Water pipes to enable the company to recycle sewage from three ocean outfalls, namely, Bondi, Malabar and North Head. The bill seeks to ensure that such access is licensed under a State licensing regime.

However, it goes much further than this. It opens the door for private access to Sydney Water's infrastructure not just for water recycling but also for the provision of water and sewerage services. It goes beyond just giving access to private operators to existing infrastructure; it seeks to allow private operators to build and own infrastructure. The bill opens the floodgates to private sector involvement in the supply of water at a time when water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource, and at a time when other nations are recognising that control over water is best left in the hand of the public. Indeed there has been an increasing shift in nations that have privatised their water supplies to remunicipalise water resources. I acknowledge that the bill does not seek to privatise Sydney Water, which would require amending the State Owned Corporations Act. However, the Greens feel this would be a slippery slope.

The bill provides for a licensing regime whereby any water industry infrastructure operators or water supply and sewerage providers must be licensed. Licence applications must be lodged with the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal [IPART], and are then given to the Minister. Submissions on the applications are to be sought from the Minister administering the Public Health Act, the Minister administering the Water Management Act and anyone else prescribed by the regulations. Public submissions must also be sought. IPART is then to provide a report to the Minister, including recommendations about whether a licence should be granted and any conditions that should be imposed on a licence. The Minister will then determine whether to grant the licence. The Minister must consider IPART's recommendations but does not have to accept them. This gives a great deal of discretion to the Minister, which is of significant concern to the Greens. With Minister Campbell and Minister Sartor this could work against the environment and many communities.

A licence must specify the activities that it authorises and the area within which the operations are to be carried out. Conditions on the licence are imposed by the Act and also any conditions imposed by the Minister. These may include implementing a social program to ensure that water supply and sewerage services are available to those in need, including payment assistance, rebates and discounts. The Minister can change the conditions of a licence at any time, including adding additional licence conditions. Once again, this gives the Minister a great deal of discretion. Penalties may be imposed on licensees for breaching licence conditions. Indeed, the Minister may require other actions in the face of licence condition breaches. A licence can be cancelled or suspended. A licensee or an individual can be disqualified for the purpose of the Act. In emergency situations, for example, a threat to public health and safety, the Minister can require certain actions to be carried out by the licensee. Otherwise, the Minister can order certain actions and later recover costs from the licensee. The Minister may cancel a licence, but the licensee will be able to appeal to the Supreme Court. I will move an amendment to include risk to the environment as a trigger for the Minister to be able to issue emergency directions.

The Water Industry Competition Bill seeks to establish a scheme to promote the economically efficient use and operation of, and investment in, significant water industry infrastructure, thereby promoting competition in upstream or downstream markets. The declaration criteria, which mirror the national declaration criteria, are: infrastructure is of State significance; it would not be economically feasible to duplicate the infrastructure; access is necessary for competition; it is safe for third parties to access it; and access would not be contrary to the public interest. An application needs to be made for a coverage declaration according to these criteria. Applications must be lodged with IPART and are to be determined by the Minister, again with a significant measure of discretion. Binding non-coverage applications, which apply to infrastructure services not provided by existing water industry infrastructure, are also to be made to IPART and then determined by the Minister.

Service providers can give IPART an access undertaking with respect to infrastructure. If there is a dispute between the access seeker and the service provider it is to be determined by IPART. Approval of access must be made with regard to pricing principles. These must be implemented in a manner consistent with pricing determinations for the supply of water and sewerage services, including postage stamp pricing. Binding non-coverage declarations are made where there is no existing infrastructure and a service provider wishes to build infrastructure or use currently disused infrastructure. A similar process is to occur with regard to applications, once again involving ministerial discretion. The bill opens up the potential for sewer mining to the private sector, whereby service providers are to lodge a notice with IPART setting out the terms under which they will permit sewer miners to draw on the contents of the infrastructure. The scheme would also allow disputes as to the granting or refusal of sewer mining to be referred to IPART. The Minister can declare monopoly suppliers for certain services, areas or customers only if there are no other suppliers to provide competition for that part of the market and if there is no contestable market by potential suppliers. Pricing is then to comply with IPART's determination. But where the supplier is not considered to be a monopoly supplier, pricing is left up to the market. This rings alarm bells. It could lead to a situation where people living in new development areas may have to pay a different price for water than those whose water is supplied by Sydney Water.

I am not a fan of Sydney Water. I have a long record of being critical of Sydney Water's record on the environment, of its major infrastructure approach of relying on pipelines, of its use-once mentality. In 1987 I protested against the Bondi outfall, as set out in my book. I look nostalgically at what I did in those days. I climbed down the cliffs at Bondi and paddled out into the sewage outfall stream to collect samples of contaminated seawater. We blamed the then Federal Attorney-General, Lionel Bowen, whose seat was Maroubra, for failing to force the then Water Board to comply with national and international standards in line with the Commonwealth sea dumping Act, the London dumping convention, the United Nations law of the sea and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development polluter-pays principle.

The intention was to deliver contaminated material and documents to Bowen's office. It was a tidy media package, but not the most pleasant job in my political career. With the appropriate assemblage of Sydney media, I took a trip down the cliffs at Bondi to the ocean outfall, paddled out into the sewage stream, collected samples and then paddled my surfboard around to Bondi. I then took the samples to the Minister's office and placed them on the table. That was one of the early actions against the sewage outfall mentality in New South Wales. It highlighted Sydney Water's attitude during the election campaign.

Many other community action campaigns have been conducted against Sydney Water over the years. It is a real tragedy that we have been working for so many years, but this Government monopoly has refused to reform. It has held back at every opportunity. We are now examining moves to privatise certain aspects of the organisation, and I feel comfortable about the sewage stream aspects. Given yesterday's High Court decision, the power now vested in Commonwealth and the rise of Malcolm Turnbull, in the near future we could see an avalanche of public monopolies being taken over by private enterprise. That will certainly reshape the face of water delivery in Sydney.

That outcome must be sheeted home to several generations of Labor governments. The Wran Government initiated the establishment of the deep-ocean outfalls back in the late 1980s, and Bob Carr was the planning and environment Minister. I and many others campaigned against those extended ocean outfalls. I still believe that this three-kilometre extended outfall off the three main outfalls was one of the biggest mistakes made by the Wran Labor Government.

The Hon. Duncan Gay: It ended up at Eden and Bega.

Mr IAN COHEN: I acknowledge the honourable member's interjection. The sewage field spreads further and wider than it did when the outfalls were directly offshore. To a certain degree it cleaned up the beaches around Bondi, Maroubra and Manly. So it gave relief to some people, it had a massive impact on real estate values and people could enjoy these iconic beaches. However, it has spread the sewage plume. It is a diabolically unsustainable method of dealing with the problem.
People often ask where the abalone have gone; the industry has been destroyed. It cannot be proven, but the change in the balance in the oceans appears to be having an ongoing impact on our ocean environment. Governments have imposed an out-of-sight, out-of-mind solution that is no solution at all. The Wran Labor Government and the then planning and environment Minister, Bob Carr, made the decision, but still we have pollution problems. Beaches on the central and south coasts were never polluted before, but they are now polluted by Sydney's sewage outfalls. That 450 gigalitres of effluent, which has been barely treated, is being cast out into the ocean. It is a tragedy that that resource is going to waste.

That decision was a product of the fact that the Government of the day was looking for a cheap and convenient way through industrial trade waste agreements to deal with toxic waste in the industrial areas of Sydney. It was out of sight and out of mind. There was no requirement to undertake the same level treatment or to be subject to the same scrutiny that would have been required if we were proposing to recycle the sewage. In this day and age, given that dam levels are dropping and there is real concern in both city and rural areas about the shortage of water, it must be remembered that the only constant supply of water is wastewater. That is the only supply that continues on regardless of climate change or localised drought. The 450 gigalitres of sewage effluent that is pouring into our oceans every year could and should be reused.

I congratulate Services Sydney on moving into this potentially lucrative market. I offer my commiserations to the Labor Government, which refuses to move with the times and which has made completely inappropriate investments in infrastructure. We can say that that was 20 years ago, but what has the Government learnt? We now have another convenient way of dealing with pollution; that is, using the northside storage tunnel. How often is that utilised? Has the return pipe that was in the original plan been installed or used? No.

Sydney Water and Illawarra Water made a commitment to reduce the number of sewage outfalls. How did they do it? They simply combined a number of outfalls in the area to make one mega outfall. That is the engineering concept adopted by the bureaucracy of these utilities, aided, abetted and supported by a Labor Government. They promised to reduce outfalls, but they simply joined them and create one. Labor governments have been implementing that sort of practice for generations. The Coalition Government did the same thing, although I think the Labor Government played a larger role.

I was involved with the Malabar sewage works open day. A fun event for the whole family! I issued a press release at the time announcing to the media that I would slip into the plant unnoticed, head for sedimentation tanks, enter on a surfboard and risk my life surfing through the final screening process. The press release stated that I wanted to show the people of Sydney that turds—I am not sure that that word is parliamentary—the size of a man could fit through Sydney's existing treatment system. That was on the day that Premier Nick Greiner was scheduled to inspect the new system. Of course, my plan to appear at the front gate camouflaged with cornstarch, chocolate and a few other things on my surfboard—

The Hon. Duncan Gay: No-one would have noticed the difference.

Mr IAN COHEN: No, they would not have. It is unnerving to note that the media sometimes takes press releases like that seriously, which is a lesson for all members. One media representative turned up with an underwater camera for me to use to get the right sort of shots. Fortunately I was stopped at the gates by police officers and Sydney Water officials. However, the point was made that the outfall being touted by the Greiner Government involved little more than primary treatment. It did not resolve the problem and there is still massive pollution of the ocean environment. An article by Kelvin Bissett published in the Daily Telegraph of 30 October this year reads:

MORE than half of Sydney's biggest business water users have increased their consumption in the past three years, amid growing alarm about dwindling supplies.

… 13 of the city's 25 largest commercial, industrial and public sector users consumed more water last financial year than in 2002-03.

Over the same period, residential users have slashed consumption by about 12 per cent.

The figures, released under the Freedom of Information Act, include a 5 per cent increase by Sydney Water's unnamed biggest customer.

But neither Sydney Water or Water Utilities Minister David Campbell plan to name non-residential water wasters, arguing it would be a breach of their right to confidentiality about their operations.

The combined total consumption of the top 25 users was 31,161,931 kilolitres last year, only a slight fall on the 31,423,466 kilolitres three years ago.

For all top 50 non-residential consumers, there was a marginal fall of just 1.3 per cent.

Mr Campbell denied Sydney Water was going soft on businesses.

"Big commercial users are playing their part but there are instances when cutting the amount of water they use would mean cutting production and jobs," Mr Campbell said.

The point I want to make about the debate this year, as reported in the Daily Telegraph, is that that still pales into insignificance when compared with the 450 gigalitres that is being pumped out through our ocean outfalls at the present time. With great sadness I see the continuation of the centralised sewerage system. It is something I have grappled with in terms of wanting to see some relief from this public monopoly, but I now see the potential for a serious push by private industry notwithstanding what is happening at the moment. However, I have fears for the future, in that it could mean we could have greater inequity in the use of our water resources.

I recently chaired the inquiry into a sustainable water supply for Sydney. Some of the evidence given in that inquiry was highly critical of the culture of Sydney Water. So I can see the appeal of inviting other interests to inject a level of innovation into water management for New South Wales. That innovation can range from water tanks, stormwater catchment, relationships at the local council level, to demand management on the home front. I recently went with a group of people to see a commercial development in Double Bay that was designed by Michael Mobbs. Michael Mobbs has quite a famous terrace house in Chippendale, in Sydney, which uses a closed-loop recycling system dealing with electricity and water. He was able to show to a small delegation commercial premises of several storeys catching and reusing its water, and processing sewage and grey water on site and reusing it effectively. This commercial building was able to do that by virtue of the developer being willing and interested to undertake the extra expense and effort to do something positive in the community. This should be duplicated all over Sydney by both commercial and residential premises. It is up to the Government to take the initiative here, but it has failed abjectly; indeed, it has blocked the situation.

As the Leader of the Opposition said, installing a water tank in a residential property is so difficult that many people find it impossible to comply with local government, State Government and health department regulations and controls. Here we have a massive opportunity to reuse our resources. Given that the water has to flow all the way to the coast, in some cases from the outer western suburbs of Sydney, instead of looking at reusing it and pumping it back again we should consider mining the water at the source. That is a decentralised process that would give power back to the local community and give the individual householder a certain degree of control over his or her water usage. That involves primary, fresh water, water in rainwater tanks, and also the reuse of grey water.

One of the simplest things would be to retrofit in a simple way the pumping out of grey water from laundry and shower to fill the cisterns of toilets in residential houses. This is not a difficult retrofit; it is a very simple thing. I know people who have achieved this simply by putting in a small tank, even using washing machines that have their own pumps to avoid the expense of installing an extra pump, and using the grey water to flush toilets. The flushing of toilets in average suburban households represents something like 25 to 30 per cent of water usage. We are not really dealing with a lack of a primary resource; we are dealing with a profligate misuse of the resource and we are finding ourselves in trouble. This is something that governments have constantly refused to acknowledge. Minister Sartor said that it is not acceptable for communities to be drinking recycled water. I would like to know what water is not recycled—

Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile: Recycled sewage.

Mr IAN COHEN: Sewage, water, everything; water is the ultimate recycled product. It has been recycled through the bowels of animals and human beings for millions of years.

The Hon. Rick Colless: All water is recycled.

The Hon. John Ryan: I quote from Hamlet: "Nothing but to show you. How a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar."

Mr IAN COHEN: Thank you. Obviously the Hon. John Ryan is way ahead on water recycling issues. The Hon. Rick Colless says the simple thing: that all water is recycled. Where does Minister Sartor get his information from? He gets it from Sydney Water and from vested interests of entrenched bureaucrats who want to have a one-off use of the resource and then pump it out into the ocean as waste. That is the convenient way of dealing with it in a short-term responsibility cycle from election to election. The Government is not looking forward for generations; it is simply looking at the situation with an eye on the next election. Tillegra Dam is a classic example of that.

I say to members: Do not be surprised that if we have a Tillegra Dam, someone in the bureaucracy will be looking at a dam to supply Hunter Water, to supply Central Coast Water with pipes, and to eventually supply Sydney Water as well—just like they pump the water up from the Shoalhaven, ripping the guts out of the ecosystem down there to supply Sydney Water. That is the culture of these organisations that are refusing to shift and acknowledge. For any government to say that is the way to go and it is reasonable practice, when we have 450 gigalitres of effluent going into the ocean every year, is a crime against society and against the environment. The last report of the peak environment non-government organisations, entitled the "4th Sydney Water Project—Sydney's Water: Going to Waste?", concluded:

Sydney Water's progress toward sustainability is too slow, with weak demand management and recycling strategies and implementation. To meet its legislative obligations, Sydney Water must act as an effective advocate for sustainable water use.

It is interesting that for some reason it is okay for country people to reuse sewage effluent but it is unacceptable for city people to do so. That is a gross double standard and I come down on the side of country people here: sewage effluent reuse makes sense. It is a necessity, and it can be done effectively. The report found that while Sydney Water had made good progress with inland waste water treatment and recycling of sewage sludge—biosolids—and had made reasonable progress in energy efficiency, energy recovery, leakage reduction and improved environmental reporting, it had made unacceptably poor progress against critical water conservation and recycling targets in the operating licence. This included the 1999 effluent recycling targets being abandoned, demand management targets not being met, very low levels of water recycling and the discharge of 450 gigalitres of waste water as sewage effluent each year.

The United Nations states that the human right to water entitles everyone to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses. An adequate amount of safe water is necessary to prevent death from dehydration, to reduce the risk of water-related disease and to provide for consumption, cooking, personal and domestic hygienic requirements. It is quite clear that water is a public resource, it belongs to everyone, and I am convinced we must treat it in a very special manner.

Water privatisation is increasing in New South Wales in the form of public-private partnerships. There are about 20 such private-public arrangements in Australia involving simple maintenance contracts. There are the DBO plants, which a private company designs, builds and operates, and the BOOT plants, which a private company builds, owns and operates a plant, eventually returning ownership to the government at the expiration of the contract. According to the Water Services Association of Australia, the combined capital expenditure for water and sewerage systems for seven of the largest water utilities in Australia in the 2004-05 financial year—the latest available figures—was about $1.15 billion, about 80 per cent of which, or $920 million, was contracted out to the private sector.

The principal bill takes the next step and gives a framework for the introduction of 100 per cent privately run water utilities in New South Wales. When private companies take over a public project, the focus shifts away from public interest and meeting community needs to ensuring a profit for the shareholders of the companies. Tragically, we could say that Sydney Water, as a public monopoly, can also stand accused of that. The Government is seen to be investing in infrastructure, without the full expense of the project being known up front. These deals allow governments to make announcements about new facilities, without revealing the costs for several years. Water supply is so important it requires the highest degree of transparency and accountability. The bill does nothing to ensure that commercial confidentiality does not override public inquiry of environmental controls and pricing policies.

There are quite a number of examples of privatisation of water supply infrastructure gone wrong. In the United States of America [US], the city of Atlanta cancelled its private water contract in 2003 after widespread complaints about poor service and dirty water. In 1998, United Water—the US subsidiary of Suez—won the contract to operate and manage Atlanta's water system. This multi-million dollar, 20-year contract was celebrated by the industry as a harbinger for rapid market expansion in other major cities. Instead, Atlanta became a privatisation nightmare. Sewer rates shot up by more than 40 per cent and water quality declined. United Water cut its staff by a quarter in an attempt to reduce operating costs, even though demand was increasing. A report by Atlanta's mayor cited extensive disrepair, mismanagement, "numerous violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act," and illegal chlorine discharges from one of United Water's treatment facilities.
Thames Water is the London equivalent of Sydney Water, delivering drinking water and sewer services to Greater London and surrounds. Thames Water supplies 8 million people with drinking water and runs sewerage services to 13 million customers. Thames Water was privatised in 1989 and sold to the German utility company RWE in 2001. The company has recorded immense profits. Thames Water increased its water revenue a huge 9,786 per cent from $US25 million in 1990 to $US2.5 billion in the fiscal year 2002. In June this year the firm announced a 31 per cent rise in pre-tax profits. Where do the profits come from? Firstly, it comes from low spending on infrastructure repair. The company has failed three years in a row to reduce water waste through leaking pipes, losing 900 megalitres a day in the 2005-06 financial year. Second, environmental savings come from the customers, not the company. The use of hoses is banned in parts of London and the company is now requesting a drought order. Third, profits come from increasing prices for customers. The industry regulator Ofwat said customers were paying an average price increase of 24 per cent without getting all the benefits the company had promised to deliver. Thames Water was bought last month for $A20 billion by Macquarie Bank in a consortium named Kemble Water Limited. Will its next takeover be Sydney Water facilitated by a friendly Labor Government and a former Premier now working with Macquarie Bank? It was interesting to hear former Premier Bob Carr talking about desalination at one stage as being little more than bottled electricity—

The Hon. Tony Kelly: The Victorian Liberals are going to do it.

Mr IAN COHEN: The Victorian Liberals are going to do it and the New South Wales Government certainly wanted to do it. In that sense it is Tweedledum and Twiddledee: there is no difference between the two parties. That is the tragedy of it all: they are still obsessed with centralised solutions. Bob Carr—who at one stage called desalination water bottled electricity—after he returned from the Middle East and commenced working with Macquarie Bank, changed his tune significantly, almost overnight.

I will not spend much time speaking about the inquiry into a sustainable water supply for Sydney that was conducted by General Purpose Standing Committee No. 5, which I chaired. The inquiry arose as a result of the desalination plant controversy that raged not so long ago both within the Australian Labor Party and without. With regard to trade waste the committee reported:

However, in the long-term, the Committee majority believes that Sydney Water should look to decrease the amount of effluent being discharged through Sydney's current system of ocean outfalls, while at the same time bringing the level of treatment of that effluent up to a higher level than the current standard with the aim of further reducing toxic and chemical plumes in the receiving ocean environment.

Water planning for Sydney's future is now incorporating other options such as large-scale water recycling schemes, measures to conserve water in households and industry, greywater recycling in homes and reuse of stormwater.

On recycling the committee reported:

Of all the water supply alternatives open to government, water recycling was the one most frequently discussed by witnesses to this Inquiry. The term water recycling is defined as 'the reuse (after appropriate treatment) of water from different sources (mixed wastewater, stormwater, greywater, urine and blackwater) that otherwise would be discharged to the environment'.

In his submission, Dr Stuart Khan, Research Fellow at the Centre for Water and Waste Technology at the University of New South Wales, noted that the amount of water used for consumption and food preparation or for bathing, typically constituted 28% of a household's water use. This leaves approximately two thirds of potable household water that could possibly be replaced by recycled water.

By contrast, the 2006 Metropolitan Water Plan noted that 42 per cent of water used in the household needs to be of potable quality.

The committee reported further:

Services Sydney proposes to connect the three major outfall systems with a deep tunnel system and further deep tunnels to take the water back. Services Sydney would take on all aspects of sewage management and pay Sydney Water for the transportation portion of the operation. Services Sydney requires the use of existing in-ground pipes, sewers, manholes and pumping stations to make the project viable. It is suggested that the public infrastructure would be used in the same way as Optus uses Telstra lines and that Services Sydney would pay an access fee for using the Sydney Water infrastructure. In turn, Services Sydney would charge the government for any water that was transferred back to the Hawkesbury-Nepean using Services Sydney infrastructure.

There are interesting methods and solutions to many of the problems that face us and I suggest that honourable members take a moment to read this report, which went into these issues in depth. There is an opportunity to move forward, but I feel that the Government is being dragged kicking and screaming into a more effective recycling regime, and it has missed the opportunity historically.
The Central Coast Water Corporation Bill seeks to establish a local government commercial corporation to operate water services on the Central Coast. Commercial corporations that have previously been considered for local government have always been rejected in the past and are not a feature of current local government policy or practice in New South Wales. The bill arises out of the wishes of Gosford and Wyong councils to change the water management structure on the Central Coast. I understand that both councils voted for a restructure of water management in the area. However, I am advised that the choice given to Gosford Council was that the councils could either support the bill and, therefore, have a say in the charter and other issues dealing with water management, or oppose it, in which case the legislation would be imposed upon them by the State Government.

The situation with regard to the water supply on the Central Coast is rather dire. The supply is quickly dwindling. It is expected that levels could be as low as 10 per cent by the end of the year. That will be exacerbated by the tourist season influx of visitors placing greater strain on already stretched water resources. Until now, management of water services has rested with the two councils, and decisions about water management had to be passed by both councils. I acknowledge that such an arrangement could hinder timely decision-making about water management. The Central Coast Water Corporation will be a statutory body modelled on the State-owned Corporations Act, but wholly owned by the two councils. The two councils will be equal voting shareholders and will set the commercial performance of the corporation through a constitution, shareholders agreement and statement of corporate intent.

As I understand it, the new Central Coast Water Corporation will be on more or less the same footing as Hunter Water and Sydney Water. The Minister will be able to grant an operating licence to the corporation, and auditing of the corporation's compliance with its licence will be conducted by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal. The Greens will move an amendment to ensure that the Minister grants such a licence, rather than it be a discretionary measure. Prior to the introduction of the bill I was contacted by the United Services Union [USU] about its concerns for employee entitlements and the transfer of staff currently employed by the councils. I understand the Government has addressed those concerns in the final draft of the bill and the union now supports the legislation. I am pleased that the Government has taken on board the concerns of the USU and ensured the protection of workers' rights.

Some concerns have been raised with me about transparency and accountability. In his second reading speech the Minister said that the corporation will be accountable to its owners—the councils—through its constitution, statement of corporate intent and audited financial reports. I hope that accountability to the people of the Central Coast will be a feature of this new entity, particularly having regard to the water crisis they are facing at the present time. The new corporation will be required to belong to an approved Ombudsman scheme, such as the Energy and Water Ombudsman, and that provision is supported by the Greens.

A recycling scheme has recently been announced for the Central Coast. That is pleasing, but far more needs to be done in terms of water recycling and rainwater capture. Instead, the Central Coast is looking at portable desalination plants. I attended a community meeting held at the surf club on Budgewoi Beach a few weeks ago at which the project to set up a desalination plant in the area was discussed. The locals were, understandably, quite outraged. The situation is that the local council is being forced to explore emergency procedures in great part to meet the expected influx of tourists at the end of the year, this coming summer, which they feel they do not have the resources to deal with. A package desalination plant, which is purported to be but a temporary measure, will be extremely expensive for the local council to set up and extremely demanding on electricity consumption. It will have quite an impact on the location. It will sit behind the frontal dune on the beach and pipes will pass through the frontal dune on to a very active beach. It will have a massive impact in terms of the brine effluent that will be pushed back out into the ocean and the marine ecosystem. It will move an industrial process right onto the beach and, understandably, the people of Budgewoi are very concerned about it.

Those who attended the meeting were vehemently opposed to the proposal, and their concerns might be overcome by the construction of, I would suggest, a very inappropriate pipeline that will bring water down from the Hunter. No attempt is being made to resolve the problem by demand management. In Sydney not so long ago more water was saved as a result of demand management than could be saved by the efforts of a desalination plant and deep aquifer extraction combined. That demonstrates that local people, if given the right incentive, encouragement and education, can create massive savings from demand management, by being supplied with the appropriate equipment and by having rainwater tanks installed. Even though we are in drought, in recent times adequate rain has fallen, not necessarily in the water catchment but on the coastal fringe, to fill rainwater tanks and thus ameliorate the pressure that has been placed on the Central Coast community at this time.
Water is to be piped to the Central Coast from the Hunter, just as water is being piped to Sydney from the Shoalhaven. It has been announced, of course, that the Hunter will have a new dam. A classic example of backward thinking! The announcement of the new dam came like a bolt out of the blue. It is such a primitive way of reacting to a difficult situation. It is also such a waste of resources compared to a suite of strategies involving, if you like, mini-dams—water tanks—recycling, and grey water reuse on individual properties. These are the sorts of things that can be undertaken. It is a type of privatisation, if you like. It is taking an industry and allowing small community-based groups—even co-operatives with local industry, dare I say—to work on strategies to ensure that the community does not run out of water. People can build and install small local units to supply households, and the people can ensure that the units are kept in good working order.

That sort of activity creates jobs in a local community, and its impact is so far removed from that associated with building a new dam. I am gobsmacked that the Government has come up with a suggestion to build a new dam at this time. It is obvious that stormwater harvesting, together with recycling, can match any water savings that a new dam would provide. The Greens will move an amendment in Committee to make the maximisation of strategies for water conservation, demand management and water recycling an objective of the legislation. The Greens will not oppose the cognate bills but we are very concerned about the principal bill, and I believe those concerns will be borne out by history. I certainly hope that we are not forced to complain to this Parliament at some time in the future about a loss of amenity because of this Government's intransigence and its single-minded obstinacy for a State monopoly and change to water regimes in New South Wales.

Reverend the Hon. FRED NILE [4.49 p.m.]: The Christian Democratic Party supports the Water Industry Competition Bill and the Central Coast Water Corporation Bill. These are perhaps the most important bills to come before the House during my time here that deal with the issue of water supply to meet the demands of the rapidly growing population of Sydney, the Central Coast and the Hunter. Next to our blood, water is perhaps our most precious commodity. I believe it is a gift from God. Mankind cannot survive without water. I understand that 60 per cent of male body weight is water; it is a bit less for females, at about 50 per cent. The first reference to water in the Bible is in Genesis 1:1-2:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth … and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

It is as though water was always there. Because of the seriousness need for water as a consequence of the current drought, I, together with others, have issued a call for prayer that will see God send rain across our nation to break the drought. Those 24 hours of prayer will take place between 9.00 a.m. on Sunday 26 November to 9.00 a.m. on Monday 27 November. We are encouraging people to participate in their churches and communities. It will coincide with the National Prayer Breakfast in the Main Hall of Parliament House in Canberra, which will be held from 7.30 a.m. until 9.00 a.m. on 27 November. Usually at such meetings, all the nation's leaders—about 600 to 700—gather, including the Governor-General, the Prime Minister, the Federal Leader of the Opposition and parliamentary leaders from both State and Federal parliaments. That will be an opportune time for all the leaders of our nation to call upon our Lord God to break the drought and send rain. The formula for getting rain is set out in 2 Chronicles 7:12-14, which states:

The Lord appeared to [Solomon] at night and said:

… When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain … if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

And God will send rain. The prayer call has gone out across the nation, and I look forward to showers of rain falling as long as the nation follows that formula. These two bills are important. The Water Industry Competition Bill will, firstly, promote new recycling businesses by enabling prospective sewer miners who are unable to reach a commercial agreement with specified service providers to have terms by which they can mine sewers determined in binding arbitration conducted by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal [IPART]. This is a new development because of court cases involving bodies such as Services Sydney Pty Limited that want to compete with Sydney Water. My only concern is that this could develop into another Telstra! Members will recall that Telstra installed all the telephone cables and provided all the equipment only to have the Federal Government open up the market to Optus and other companies. Consequently, Telstra no longer had a monopoly. It seems that an asset belonging to the people was exploited to a degree. Then the Commonwealth Government sold Telstra.

The involvement of IPART means that third parties that take the opportunities provided by this legislation will not be able to rip off the system. The bill promotes competition by establishing a comprehensive access regime to help new suppliers to negotiate arrangements for the storage and transportation of water and sewage using the existing significant water and sewerage networks. It will ensure that licensees who wish to construct and operate new water and sewerage networks will be broadly on the same footing as public water utilities for laying pipes and public roads, reading meters and so on.

I note that the Greens are still keen to force the people of Sydney to drink recycled sewage, and I am pleased that the Government will not agree to that. Recycled water, particularly sewage, should not be used as drinking water, and this legislation will not change that policy. I believe that is important. A number of questions arise about drinking recycled water. It is not a matter of how clear the water looks in a glass; it is a matter of what may be hidden in the water. One concern I have as a layman—I am not a chemist—is whether recycled sewage processes eradicate bacteria, sexually transmitted diseases or the HIV-AIDS virus, which is a tough virus. Will such contaminants still be found in the processed water? I hope that will not be the case. For that reason I believe we should not entertain using recycled sewage for human consumption.

My colleague Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes referred to the Central Coast Water Corporation Bill. Although the announcement of the new dam was obviously a political stunt, I believe that the Government is committed to building a new dam for the Hunter and the Central Coast. I am pleased that the Government made that announcement. I call on the Government to be honest in terms of its commitment to commencing the dam project. I understand that the Government has already purchased considerable land in anticipation of a dam being constructed. Some farmers are leasing land, and the Government intends to purchase other properties. I urge the Government to proceed with that project. In the past I have asked the Government to look at the Welcome Reef Dam. Two new large dams to the north and the south will ensure that there is no water shortage crisis in the future as our population continues to grow, and grow dramatically. We support the bills.

The Hon. Dr PETER WONG [4.57 p.m.]: I support these bills, which contain good initiatives. I read with interest the Minister's second reading speech, which stated in part:

The improvement of the governance of water systems is the aim of both bills which, once enacted, provide for the improved running of water systems, more straight forward decision making and access arrangements. Ultimately, these will enable more recycling and improved water security, which are imperative during drought.

The bill provides many improvements, but obviously there is no certainty. There is not one note of confidence in these bills that ultimately our water problems will be solved. Mr Ian Cohen pointed out the "desperate need for a change of culture". The key word is "desperate". These bills are a response to desperate needs, and they contain many desperate initiatives. They promote some desperate solutions and desperate last-minute action plans. Mr Ian Cohen rightly said that we waste 450 gigalitres of water every year, and to this day we refuse to recycle waste water. There is no solution in sight. This is one step moving forward. I believe the Government needs to do a lot more to improve the present situation.

Ms SYLVIA HALE [4.59 p.m.]: The Minister for Water Utilities told us in his second reading speech that the aim of the Water Industry Competition Bill is to improve the governance of the State's water systems. It is certainly an urgent issue, as daily we see the impacts of climate change, ongoing and worsening drought, and the disaster of water management in this country. Water is the source of life. It is the most precious of elements. Without it, there would be no life, and the management of its quality and availability must be of the highest priority for any government. According to the United Nations, 31 countries are already facing water scarcity, and one billion people lack access to clean drinking water.

The World Bank predicts that by 2025 two-thirds of the world's population will suffer from lack of clean and safe drinking water. Not only are we adding 85 million new people to the planet every year, but our per capita use of water is doubling every 20 years, at more than twice the rate of human population growth. Yet, at the same time, water sources are rapidly being depleted, diverted, polluted and exploited. As well as the growing needs of an increasing population, there is also dramatically rising demand from corporate interests, ranging from industrial agriculture and manufacturing to electricity production and mining. Further, the legacy of decades of factory farming, flood irrigation, the construction of massive dams, toxic dumping, wetlands and forest destruction, and urban and industrial pollution, has damaged the Earth's surface water so badly that we are now mining the underground water reserves far faster than nature can replenish them. So it is no wonder that Fortune magazine recently described water as "the oil of the 21st century".

So the Government is to be commended, after over a decade in office, for finally coming to acknowledge that global warming exists and that positive steps need to be taken in so many areas, one of which is water management in this State. While such a response is long overdue, before we go overboard to congratulate the Government on showing initiative, we should look closely at both the issues that need to be considered and the solutions that the Government is proffering. This bill follows the Government being forced to open up the sewerage system to competition for recycling by a private provider. A private company, Services Sydney, was successful via the National Competition Council in having access to Sydney's sewerage infrastructure declared under the Trade Practices Act. The Government and Sydney Water fought against recycling for over six years. This was a major mistake. They should have been taking the lead in recycling, not resisting it and they stand condemned for not doing so.

Having been forced to open up the sewerage system by the National Competition Council, it is appropriate that private provider access should be regulated by licence. It does not follow, however, that the entire water supply system should also now be thrown open to private sector competition. This inevitably will lead to large parts, if not all of the supply of water in Sydney and the Hunter, being privatised. This bill does not provide for Sydney Water to be sold, but it does provide a mechanism by which the supply of water will be privatised. The key question in considering this bill therefore is: Should the supply of water be retained in public hands or should it be opened up to the private sector? Like air, it is essential for life that water be available to everyone. So who should be responsible for providing such a crucial scarce resource, essential for the health of both humanity and society? Are private providers or government instrumentalities the best bodies to take responsibility for providing such a basic necessity?

Governments in Australia have a long history of being the providers of those essential services that any society requires for its ongoing viability. From the late nineteenth century, as well as providing those other essentials for a modern society_such as age pensions, votes for women and even payment for parliamentarians_Australian governments also pursued public ownership of infrastructure essentials such as public transport, electricity supply, and water and sewerage provision. Although private participation was also widely debated worldwide in the nineteenth century, and the free market viewpoint was prevalent in many of the countries undergoing sanitary reform, governments became convinced that good water and sanitation were crucial for both public health and national economic development. For these and other reasons, governments increasingly assumed the task of installing and managing piped water and water-borne sewerage systems, with the goal of universal provision.

During the twentieth century, these efforts were institutionalised in countries and cities around the world, and water and sewerage networks came to be managed almost exclusively by the public sector. So there were good reasons why governments in Australia also took responsibility for these matters—because governments could not trust private enterprise, driven by the profit motive, to provide these essentials at an appropriate quality and price, and because private companies were not interested in owning or managing public utilities, where profits might be subject to scrutiny and regulation.

Thus the role of the private sector in providing water and sanitation services is relatively new. In fact, one could say water supply competition or privatisation is a global social experiment. Historically, water has been viewed as a public good, not a market commodity. Over the past 200 years, and certainly since the onset of modern urbanisation, most water utilities have been publicly owned and managed. The vast majority of people around the world still receive water and sanitation services from publicly owned and operated facilities. Most countries have only recently begun to consider privatisation of, or competition with, their water utilities. Clearly, water and sanitation services have been publicly run because private companies were, in the past, not interested in owning or managing such utilities. With a product to be sold at a reasonable price, there was little or no profit to be made from selling water. But now, with the spectre of a growing freshwater scarcity and the prediction that water will be the oil of the twenty-first century, major global corporations have been moving into the water market.

This bill, in providing for greater competition in the provision of the State's water resources, and regulating the process through licences, establishes the mechanism for the privatisation of water in this State. This is ultimately where this Government is going. We saw that when the Government introduced the State Water Corporatisation Bill. This new bill is the next step down the road to privatisation, and because the Government turns its back on two centuries of government instrumentalities taking responsibility for providing basic infrastructure, this bill favours government irresponsibility and the Government and the Opposition's donor mates over ecological responsibility and the interests of the State's population.

Competition and privatisation advocates argue—usually from an ideological position and without any supporting evidence—that switching from publicly owned and operated utilities to private sector firms will lead to greater economic efficiency, stabilised rates, reduced public debt and improved budgetary management. Indeed, when the Minister introduced the bill, he stressed how its provisions would open the door to competition, with resulting new investment, implying that competition is the answer to all our woes. All these sound highly commendable—how could anyone dissent! Except those who prefer facts to spin. Competition, while it might drive down prices, can also lead to quality deterioration, as private industry seeks to minimise costs.

There is a wealth of overseas examples of similar attempts to deal with the problem of water management this way. So let us look at what has happened overseas when control of water has been taken from the community and given to private enterprise. The United States of America advocacy group Public Citizen has noted that despite being vigorously promoted in the policy arena and having been implemented in several countries over the 1990s, privatisation has achieved neither the scale nor benefits promised by its proponents. This is not because of some inherent contradiction between private profits and the public good but because neither publicly nor privately operated utilities are well suited to providing the majority of households with such an essential at a reasonable price while still making a surplus, and because many of the barriers to adequate service provision can persist whether water and sanitation utilities are publicly or privately operated. As well, operating according to a profit-driven corporate agenda is fundamentally incompatible with delivering an essential service.

Private water companies are failing to provide citizens with safe, affordable water. Private corporations seek to increase profit margins by cutting costs; hence privatisation is almost always accompanied by lay-offs. And we have certainly seen the growth of these water conglomerates in the global market. The two largest water corporations in the world are part of French transnational Suez and the German energy conglomerate RWE. Ranked seventy-ninth and seventy-eighth respectively among Fortune's Global 100 List, these two water giants capture nearly 40 per cent of the existing water market share. The French company Vivendi, previously ranked fifty-first, has absorbed US Filter and the 150-year-old Generale des Eaux and is now known as Veolia.

In New South Wales, the Sydney Water Corporation has already contracted the Walter-Vivendi Joint Venture, WVJV, to design, construct, commission and provide operational support to the $197 million IlIawarra Waste Water Strategy project. Suez operates in 130 countries and Vivendi in more than 100. Their combined annual revenues are over $70 billion, including $19 billion in water and waste water services. RWE revenues are currently over $50 billion, energy included, the conglomerate having acquired British water giant Thames Water, which has now been on sold. After purchasing American Water Works, RWE gained control of the largest United States private water utility. This expanded its customer base from 43 million to 56 million people. How interesting it is that on 17 October this year, just seven days before this bill was introduced into the Parliament, Macquarie Bank, the Government's favourite private sector infrastructure provider, announced that it had led a consortium purchase of Thames Water at a price that values the company at £8 billion.

Worldwide, just three companies now control 75 per cent of the world water business. Are we to congratulate the Government on rushing us further down this road into the waiting arms of these conglomerates? Do the Government and Opposition really think that the residents of Sydney and the Hunter will be best served by handing over the provision of water to Macquarie Bank? Independent commentators have documented that water privatisation schemes around the world have a track record of a loss of local control, as well as skyrocketing prices, water quality problems and deteriorating service. So privatisation, more often than not, fulfils none of its promised benefits. Instead, it actually brings us a number of new problems. One of these, as pointed out by Public Citizen, is vulnerability to corruption.

We have only to look here at the case of Veolia, already a player in Australia, and one of the companies favoured for the desalination plant at Kurnell. Until 2002 Veolia was a wholly owned subsidiary of Vivendi Universal and, as Public Citizen has highlighted, was swirling in a maelstrom of corporate corruption and chaos. With bribery convictions, raids on corporate offices by evidence-seeking securities investigators, class action suits filed by shareholders on both sides of the Atlantic, collapses in both its stock price and its credit rating, massive debt necessitating a fire-sale of assets, a discredited and ultimately ousted corporate chieftain, dizzying financial uncertainty, an identity crisis—little wonder that Veolia has scrambled to distance itself from its erstwhile corporate parent. But whatever distance Veolia manages to put between itself and Vivendi in the eyes of the financial community, the company cannot distance itself from its record, a record reflecting a corporation that views water not as a right or a necessity of life but as an opportunity for monopoly profits.

There are other aspects to this water issue such as practical considerations. As noted by global chartered accountants Ernst and Young, water is not a commodity that lends itself as easily as electricity or gas, for example, to privatisation, because its distinguishing factor is that it has a quality element to it. To retain the quality and keep prices from escalating some form of regulation is needed. Those regulatory powers need to be much greater than for electricity or gas. All sides of the water-privatisation debate agree that the value in water assets lies in the fact that they have a captive customer base. There is a good wholesale market in supplying water for the private sector for a profit, and in terms of retail there is also a captive audience. But with water there is not a lot of growth in the basic consumer retail market, because people cannot be encouraged to use more. But there are many opportunities for growth in agriculture, and in industries such as beverages, hospitals, mines, nurseries, pulp and paper, and in cogeneration plants. All these industries need water, and by tapping into that area there is lots of potential for somebody to make lots of money.

Once corporate advisers envisaged the time when a company, for example, an energy utility, would bid for water assets so that it could provide a one-stop-shop for gas, electricity and water. This process has already started here in New South Wales. But such utilities companies will be interested in water merely as a means to diversify their portfolios and gain unlimited profits. What is the incentive here for a private company to reduce the consumption of water? There is no incentive. In fact, the pressure to expand its business in order to maximise its profits will see private companies promoting greater water consumption, not less. Around the world, introducing competition to the water supply industry, whether through the privatisation of water or by inviting competition, has been an unmitigated disaster for consumers. Water is a community resource, one that must be collectively managed for the collective good. Water is vital to the sustainability and viability of both cities and regional economies; it is not just another factor of production, to be priced at whatever the market can bear.

This Government's record on infrastructure and resource management is hardly reassuring. With the recent debacles—forced road closures for the Cross City Tunnel, the CityRail timetabling shambles, the never appearing smart card for transport, the plans for a metro plan without any action timetables, the thwarted Snowy sell-off, and the on-again-off-again approach to desalination—why would we trust the Government on this? Its record on water management is just as reprehensible. During the 1999 State election campaign the Government admitted that "the issue of water for the environment is crucial" and it promised to set water quality targets and provide benchmarks against which those targets could be managed. We are still waiting. Perhaps we are still waiting because over the past decade the Government has been making money from water, taking dividends from Sydney Water, dividends that should have been used to maintain and upgrade the necessary infrastructure and fund future solutions. If it had done that we would not be in the present situation.

Now it is almost too late, and the Government is attempting to offload the problem. But not only do overseas examples, practical considerations and the Government's own record give us fair warning that this is the wrong path, at heart a philosophical principle is also involved. Water is one of life's essentials, and the Greens are utterly opposed to the privatisation of and competition for life's essentials. Water is such a commodity. Our water resources are held in trust for future generations, and the Greens will continue to strive to ensure that water in New South Wales is managed in an ecologically sustainable and socially just manner.

The Greens will vote against this bill. The community will not support the privatisation of the water supply. The Government and Opposition need only look to the thwarted attempts by the Labor State governments and the Coalition Federal Government to sell-off Snowy Hydro Limited to see that the community is vehemently opposed to placing our most precious resource in the hands of private investors. Applying the profit motive and the consequent drive for market growth to the supply of water in a time of global warming and the worst drought on record is grossly irresponsible and an abandonment by the Government and the Opposition of their responsibilities to the people of Sydney and the Hunter and, indeed, the entire State.

The Hon. HENRY TSANG (Parliamentary Secretary) [5.02 p.m.], in reply: Together the Water Industry Competition Bill and the Central Coast Water Corporation Bill initiate reform of the water and wastewater industries in New South Wales for the benefit of consumers, the economy and the environment. The improvement of the governance of water systems is the aim of both bills, which once enacted will provide for the improved running of water systems, more straightforward decision-making and access arrangements. Ultimately, this legislation will enable more recycling and improved water security, which are imperative at this time as well as through future times of prolonged drought.

For the benefit of the Greens, this is not privatisation. Sydney Water, Hunter Water and the Sydney Catchment Authority will remain 100 per cent publicly owned. They will continue to provide water and sewerage services to customers within their respective areas of operation. This bill is about providing consumers with choices. It will facilitate the entry of additional providers from the private sector to supply recycled water, sewerage services and even drinking water to customers in the future. Water sources—the water in creeks, streams and aquifers—will continue to be under the control of the Crown. These sources will continue to be allocated according to existing legislation. This bill will encourage private sector investment of new capital in innovative water projects. The bill also removes barriers to competition and market entry particularly in the area of water recycling. This will place New South Wales in a position of leadership with regard to innovative management of scarce water resources. Importantly, the bill ensures the continued protection of public health, the environment and consumers. These reforms are a key element of the Metropolitan Water Plan.

The creation of the Central Coast Water Corporation is not a State Government takeover. The councils' water supply, sewerage and drainage assets will remain in local ownership. The bill clearly states that the only shareholders of the corporation will be Gosford and Wyong councils. The bill does not enable the State Government to take over control or ownership of council assets. The assets of the councils may be transferred only to the corporation, which will be wholly owned by the councils. The Central Coast Water Corporation will be a locally owned corporation for the benefit of the local community. I commend the bills to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bills read a second time.

Consideration in Committee ordered to stand as an order of the day.

The Hon. Henry Tsang tabled the following papers:

(1) Annual Reports (Departments) Act 1985—Report of Judicial Commission of New South Wales for the year ended 30 June 2006.

(2) Annual Reports (Statutory Bodies) Act 1984—Reports for the year ended 30 June 2006:

Lord Howe Island Board
Public Trustee
Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust
Zoological Parks Board of New South Wales

Ordered to be printed.

Government Business Orders of the Day Nos 3 to 9 postponed on motion by the Hon. Henry Tsang.

The Hon. HENRY TSANG (Parliamentary Secretary) [5.24 p.m.], on behalf of the Hon. John Della Bosca: I move:

That these bills be now read a second time.

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

Leave granted.

It gives me great pleasure firstly to bring before the House today the Industrial Relations (Child Employment) Bill 2006 to protect children in New South Wales from the harsh impact of WorkChoices.

This is another example to families in New South Wales of the benefit of having a State Labor Government in power. Let's bevery clear, those on the other side would leave working children unprotected from what we now know is the very unfair and unbalanced federal Workplace Relations Act 1996.

I also move that the Industrial Relations Further Amendment Bill 2006 and the Workers Compensation Amendment (Permanent Impairment Benefits) 2006 be read a second time. I will deal with these bills after I have made some comments about the Industrial Relations (Child Employment) Bill 2006.

The New South Wales Government has drafted the Industrial Relations (Child Employment) Bill 2006 to provide a safety net of minimum conditions to protect children from substandard wages and conditions if and when they enter into workplace agreements or other arrangements. The bill also gives children who are unfairly dismissed remedies that are no longer available under the Workplace Relations Act 1996.

Section 16(3)(e) of the Federal Workplace Relations Act 1996 clearly states that State child labour legislation is a non-excluded State law. In other words, child labour remains a matter with respect to which the States may legislate. This Government has independent legal advice to that effect. Minister Andrews has confirmed that the States can make these laws—so that's what we are doing.

Before WorkChoices it was not regarded as necessary to make child specific labour laws in this State. General industrial relations law applied to children and continues to do so. State industrial relations instruments continue to provide appropriate wages and conditions for children at work.

The problem that this bill seeks to remedy is that the Federal Workplace Relations Act generally applies to children employed by a constitutional corporation. If the New South Wales Government had not have used its initiative to propose these new child labour laws those children would remain in the wilderness of WorkChoices, without the safety net of properly maintained award protections.

Employees under 18 years of age are likely to lack the knowledge, skills and ability to directly negotiate their wages and conditions of employment with an employer. The only safeguard that WorkChoices offers a child when presented with a take-it or leave-it individual workplace agreement is that their parent or guardian must authorise the agreement. As there is no real choice and little scope for bargaining, rather than protecting a child, this forces parents and guardians to be accomplices to what in many circumstances will be substandard wages and conditions of employment.

Requiring an adult to sign a child's individual agreement is an admission that the general protections under WorkChoices are inadequate. It is certainly no replacement for the 'no disadvantage test' which previously operated to ensure that employees in the Federal system could not be offered deals that would make them worse off than the relevant award. What is not clear is why the Federal Government and the Opposition cannot admit to this and why the Federal Government has not made laws that take this into account.

The Industrial Relations (Child Employment) Bill 2006 sets out clear and simple rules for employers in constitutional corporations to follow when establishing wages and conditions of employment for children under workplace agreements. Unlike the Federal Government's approach to labour relations, this is a 17-page bill, not a 687-plus wall of legislation for employees and employers to grapple with. Employers will only have to reach for a State award and apply a few pieces of legislation to work out appropriate minimum wages and conditions for children.

Most importantly, this bill protects children employed in constitutional corporations from being capriciously dismissed from employment. Quite deliberately, WorkChoices provides little or no protection from unfair dismissal. Again, this State Government has taken responsibility to protect our children from the harshest aspects of WorkChoices. If the State Opposition had its way it would take the WorkChoices path and leave children unprotected.

Importantly, you will see that this bill does not introduce new and unnecessary red tape which may burden an employer deciding to engage a child. The emphasis in this bill is an appropriate amount of regulation to ensure the well-being of a child at work.
There are at least 150,000 children formally employed in New South Wales under 18 years of age. The bill will introduce a consistent approach to wages and conditions for all employers if they offer Federal workplace agreements in particular industries, for example in the retail and the hospitality industries where the majority of children are employed. Hopefully, it will end the situation where an employer will try and gain a competitive advantage with another business by simply reducing the wages and conditions of children on individual and collective Federal workplace agreements.

It is of great concern that according the Office of Employment Advocate 598 individual workplace agreements were offered by employers to children under the age of 15 between July of last year and May 2006. It is just as concerning that employers have sought to reduce conditions of employment on 7,779 occasions under individual AWAs for children between 15 and 18 years of age. According to the OEA, almost half of individual workplace agreements do not include rest breaks. Half of the individual agreements entered into remove penalty rates, annual leave loading, shift allowances, overtime loadings, skills payments and public holiday pay.

That's the brave new world of WorkChoices that the Federal Government and their supporters opposite are happy to foist on children and the rest of the workforce.

It is important to note that this bill does not prevent employers and employees from choosing what type of industrial instrument they should enter into. It merely provides an appropriate safety net, and that safety net will continue to be monitored and set by an independent umpire, the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission.

This Government has consulted widely about this bill by releasing an exposure draft for comment. Arguments raised about the effects of this bill are as unconvincing and unsubstantiated as the arguments the Federal Government continues to make about the removal of unfair dismissal laws on job creation. There is simply no evidence that removal of unfair dismissal laws have created jobs.

Reading some of the submissions I have received about this bill only confirms that making these laws is a necessity. Indeed, those organisations with children's best interest at heart, the Commission for Children and Young People and the Youth Action Policy Association support this bill in its entirety.

It is important to note that incentives such as penalty rates and shift loadings for apprentices should not be overridden by individual workplace agreements. In all the confusion about individual contracts, this bill will provide some certainty for those children taking up apprenticeships that important conditions of employment established by the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission will be safeguarded.

Part 1 of the Industrial Relations (Child Employment) Bill 2006 defines the terms used in the Bill. Unlike the WorkChoices legislation there are very few new definitions for employees and employers to understand. A 'child' is defined as a person under the age of 18 as has long been the case at common law. Words like 'employer' and 'conditions of employment' have the same meanings as in the New South Wales Industrial Relations Act.

Part 2 clause 4 of the Bill sets out when minimum conditions contained in State law apply to a child. Under clause 4 (1) of the Bill a child is protected by minimum conditions if employed under an agreement or other arrangement entered into after 27 March 2006. The employer must be a constitutional corporation that is not bound by a State industrial instrument. There must also be a State award that covers employees performing similar work to the child which does not bind that employer.

This Bill does not apply to child employees who are already covered by State awards and enterprise agreements. They continue to be directly protected by those instruments.

Nor does the Bill apply to child employees covered by federal awards, pre-WorkChoices agreements, 'notional agreements preserving State awards' or 'preserved State agreements' under WorkChoices. All of those instruments were tested against a 'no disadvantage' or 'no net detriment' test before they came into operation. We do not seek to interfere with their continued application to employer/employee relationships.

Instead, the minimum conditions defined in this Bill apply to those child employees who enter into an individual or collective federal workplace agreement or where wages and conditions of employment are set by a common law contract of employment and the child is employed by a constitutional corporation. These new federal instruments and arrangements are no longer tested for a disadvantage or detriment, and are therefore liable to result in a child missing out on important protections. The Bill's effect is to reintroduce a safety net.

Such an employer must ensure that a child is provided with minimum conditions of employment for a child. An affected employer must provide at least the minimum conditions of employment contained in a comparable State award and the legislation that would have applied if that child were covered by that State award. Importantly, if the conditions of employment provided for the child are different to those minimum conditions I have referred to, then the conditions of employment must not, on balance, result in a net detriment to the child when compared with the comparable State award and legislation.

In other words an employer in a constitutional corporation can choose simply to provide a child with at least the wages and conditions contained in a comparable State industrial award. If an affected employer decides to offer a child employment under an individual or collective federal workplace agreement with different conditions to the State award, then the conditions of employment provided to the child must not, on balance, result in a net detriment to the child.

To provide guidance on what is a 'net detriment', the Bill requires the Full Bench of the Industrial Relations Commission to set 'no net detriment' principles within six months of the commencement of the Act. In determining the 'no net detriment principles', the Full Bench of the Commission is to have regard to pertinent issues surrounding the employment of a child including the provisions of any State award or industrial relations legislation that are particularly important for ensuring the well-being of children at work.

The legislation ensures that all industrial organisations will be consulted and that they can have their say about the setting of the 'no net detriment principles'. Industrial organisations will be able to make submissions to the Full Bench on setting and reviewing the principles.

To ensure that employers and children are aware of the relevant minimum conditions, employers will be required to exhibit a copy of the comparable State award at the workplace.

For each child, employers will be required to keep records consistent with the requirements under the Workplace Relations Act and the New South Wales Industrial Relations Act.

Under Division 2 of the Bill, industrial inspectors may issue compliance notices where an inspector is of the opinion that minimum conditions of employment for a child have been contravened. This will provide an employer with the opportunity to remedy the contravention without suffering penalty. Compliance notices will provide valuable guidance to employers on how to ensure they do not contravene the requirements of this legislation.

Where an employer disputes a compliance notice, that dispute can be taken to the Industrial Court which will determine whether the notice should be varied or revoked.

A failure to provide the child with appropriate conditions of employment will be a civil penalty offence, just like a breach of an award or enterprise agreement under the Industrial Relations Act. Prosecutions for such an offence will only be able to be brought by an inspector in an Industrial Court.

In determining the amount of a pecuniary penalty against an employer, natural justice is introduced by allowing the Industrial Court to take into account whether or not the employer has made a reasonable effort to provide the child with the minimum conditions of employment. Importantly, the Court may also take into account whether the child understood and consented to the provisions that the employer had actually provided to the child.

The Bill provides that the tried and true mechanisms that already exist under the New South Wales Industrial Relations Act will be available for recovery of remuneration and other amounts.

This Government has never hidden behind rhetoric in our opposition to the federal government's removal of unfair dismissal remedies, particularly where that right has been removed from persons who are vulnerable in the labour market.

That is why members of the opposition will not be surprised that the New South Wales Government has introduced under Part 3 of the Bill provisions restoring the right of a worker less than 18 years of age the ability to seek remedies where they have been unfairly dismissed by a constitutional corporation. These will be the same remedies as those available under the New South Wales Industrial Relations Act. All employers, regardless of size, will have to ensure that they exercise their power to dismiss child employees in a fair manner.

The Bill only introduces new provisions where it is necessary given the new unfair provisions under the Workplace Relations' Act, and this Bill is designed to balance employers' needs with the need to protect the welfare of children at work.

Employees under the age of 18 years should not be subject to take-it or leave-it conditions of employment, and they should not be subject to capricious dismissal by a corporation. It has been left up to the New South Wales Government to take responsibility for the welfare of children and return fairness to the industrial relations system. That is what this government seeks to achieve by this Bill.

I commend this Bill to the House.

Industrial Relations Further Amendment Bill 2006


The second Bill I bring before this House is the Industrial Relations Further Amendment Bill 2006.

The Industrial Relations Further Amendment Bill 2006 aims to counteract the destructive effects of the federal government's WorkChoices legislation.

In introducing this Bill, I should make the very important point that unlike the federal government, we don't consider it to be responsible public policy to contemptuously and arrogantly foist unannounced and untested new legislation onto the people of New South Wales.

To that end, on 19 September 2006 the New South Wales Government released an exposure draft of the Bill for consideration.

We circulated the draft to key stakeholders and invited submissions from other interested parties, a testament to the fact that we encourage the public to play a genuine and meaningful role during the legislative process.

In contrast to the Howard Government, we value public comment and feedback. That feedback has now been considered, and where appropriate, incorporated into the Bill now before the House.

The Industrial Relations Further Amendment Bill 2006 aims to deliver stability and comfort for business owners and workers throughout the state by introducing five key measures, as follows:

1. Protection of injured workers

2. Protection for raising legitimate OH&S issues at work

3. Alternative Dispute Resolution services delivered by the NSW Industrial Relations Commission

4. Joint sittings of the NSW and interstate tribunals

5. Electronic publishing of the industrial gazette

6. There are also minor clarifying amendments to other provisions of the Industrial Relations Act 1996

The federal government has claimed that occupational health and safety matters and workers compensation matters will continue to be regulated by the States and Territories.

To ensure that certain occupational health and safety matters and workers compensation matters continue to be appropriately regulated by New South Wales, the Bill adopts and transfers protections for persons raising occupational health and safety concerns and injured workers from the Industrial Relations Act 1996 to the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2000 and the Workers Compensation Act 1987 respectively.

The Bill seeks to ensure that remedies for employees making health and safety complaints or carrying out health and safety functions in the workplace are appropriately contained within occupational health and safety legislation.

The Bill makes an amendment to the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2000. Under the Bill new section 23A provides for reinstatement of a worker, or compensation, where that worker has been dismissed in contravention of section 23 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2000. Section 23 provides that it is unlawful for an employer to dismiss and employee for making an OHS complaint; or for being a member of an OHS committee or an OHS representative and exercising functions in those capacities.

These protections are an essential part of the occupational health and safety framework of this State. Employees must have the freedom and confidence to raise health and safety concerns in the workplace. People participating as members of OHS committees or OHS representatives should be encouraged to accept those roles and be supported in those roles. There should be no threats to job security for anyone functioning in these important roles - or indeed threats to any person doing the right thing by their workmates and their employers by raising health and safety concerns. Everyone needs to be able to raise health and safety issues in the workplace as and when they arise. This is in everyone's interest.

The protections for employees raising health and safety concerns are vital to the occupational health and safety regime in this State. It is appropriate that the Bill provides for these protections to sit within the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2000.

The Bill also transfers the injured worker protection provisions contained in Chapter 2, Part 7 of the Industrial Relations Act 1996 to the Workers Compensation Act 1987. Those provisions provide an injured worker with the remedy of reinstatement. If that worker is dismissed from employment because the worker is not fit for employment because of that injury. The provisions also create an offence where an employer dismisses a worker because that worker is not fit for employment because of the injury and dismissal takes place within 6 months of the worker becoming unfit for employment.

The injured worker protections contained in the Bill are an integral part of the workers compensation scheme to get injured workers back to work and to ensure employers are engaged in this process. The duties of employers to find injured workers suitable duties; to commence workplace rehabilitation programs; and develop return-to-work programs would become meaningless if an employer was simply able to dismiss the worker to avoid these obligations.

The protections for injured workers in the Bill are an essential element of the workers compensation scheme in this State and it is appropriate that the Bill provides for these protections to sit appropriately within State workers compensation legislation.

These initiatives will guarantee that these important remedial provisions live on, providing reassurance to employers and their workers regarding their rights and responsibilities given the current climate of confusion.

As Honourable Members will be aware, various disputes can arise in the workplace from time to time, and sometimes the industrial parties require the assistance of an independent body to help them reach a resolution.

WorkChoices makes dramatic and far reaching change to the processes of dispute resolution, gutting the role of the AIRC and attempting to kick state Commissions off the field altogether. Instead WorkChoices provides for alternative dispute resolution by a body that the industrial parties nominate or in other cases the AIRC.

Many employers and employees want that nominated dispute resolution provider to be the NSW Industrial Relations Commission—a 'thumbs up' if you like, to the prompt and fair manner in which our Commission operates.

The NSW Commission has supervised Australia's largest state industrial jurisdiction for over a century. The merits of our Commission are most clear upon examination of its role in resolving a number of high profile disputes.

People all around the state are telling us that they want the well qualified and experienced members of the NSW Commission to continue to provide conferencing, mediation, conciliation and arbitration in the wake of the federal government's radical industrial agenda.

This Bill ensures that can happen. Where employers and unions in the federal system wish to do so, they can include in their federal workplace agreements terms that identify the Industrial Relations Commission of New South Wales as their preferred provider of Alternative Dispute Resolution.

The expertise and impartiality of our Commission's members has won the respect and confidence of employers, employees and their representatives who value its flexibility and responsiveness, and appreciate that it conducts its activities with a minimum of legal technicality.

By introducing this Bill, the NSW Government is ensuring that the accumulated wealth of knowledge and experience of our Commission will not dissipate and importantly, that this well respected tribunal continues to have an ongoing public role in the resolution of disputes.

This amendment is in addition to and does not derogate from section 146A which was inserted into the Act earlier this year. That section gives the Industrial Relations Commission jurisdiction to deal with disputes where the parties make private agreement to refer any disputes between them to the Commission.

The Bill also provides a mechanism to promote co-operation and comity between state and territory tribunals, enabling the NSW Commission to share resources and convene joint sittings with its other state counterparts.

Joint sittings would provide an effective alternative avenue to achieve consistent, sustainable wage increases and the consideration of the development of new national community standards through test case proceedings.

After this, binding decisions could be made by each state commission in accordance with their respective governing statutes.

The Bill also aims to put the publication of industrial matters, awards, orders, enterprise agreements and contract determinations on a more modern and accessible footing.

To this end, the Bill provides for the online gazettal of official documents. This will also have the added benefit of decreasing the Registry's printing production costs.

Hard copies of the Gazette will continue to be published, albeit less frequently, for the benefit of people who don't have online access.

The Bill will also amend section 127(8) to extend the current offence to include any person who knowingly provides a false statement to a principal contractor regarding the payment of remuneration to employees of subcontractors. This amendment will cover any person, whether or not authorised by a subcontractor, and is intended to reduce reliance on statutory declarations by principal contractors when accepting statements given by any persons on behalf of a subcontractor.

In relation to outworkers, the Bill will include an additional paragraph in the definition of 'industrial matters' in section 6 covering the mode, terms and conditions under which work is given out to be performed by an outworker in the clothing trades.

This provision is intended to put beyond doubt the giving out of work to clothing outworkers, and the regulation of such work within a supply chain, are industrial matters under the IR Act for the purposes of award coverage and the resolution of disputes. Other amendments relating to the outworker provisions under Part 11 of the IR Act will make it clear that constitutional corporations which give out clothing trades work (or any work in the manufacture of clothing products) are required to comply with the statutory conditions applied under section 129B.

This will also extend to the keeping of records and disclosure of information relating to the giving out of work by constitutional corporations. Finally, the amendments will make it clear that the conditions of employment applied under section 129B of the IR Act to outworkers engaged by constitutional corporations are minimum employment entitlements for those outworkers which cannot be contracted out of.

The contents of the Industrial Relations Further Amendment Bill 2006, in concert with legislation passed earlier this year form the basis of the NSW Government's commitment to ameliorate the negative effects of WorkChoices in our state.

And this isn't all that we'll be doing. Let me assure you that the New South Wales Government will continue to examine and implement sensible strategies to circumvent the devastating practical effects of WorkChoices.

I commend this Bill to the House.

Workers Compensation Amendment (Permanent Impairment Benefits) Bill 2006

I now turn to the Workers Compensation Amendment (Permanent Impairment Benefits) Bill 2006. The Bill gives effect to the Government's decision to increase compensation benefits for seriously injured workers.

This increase has been made possible by the Government's workers compensation reform program and the resulting sustained improvement in the overall performance of the WorkCover Scheme and is in advance of the outcomes of the WorkCover Board's work in reviewing the workers compensation benefit regime.

The Bill provides for a ten percent increase in dollar terms, to the lump sums paid to workers for permanent impairment under section 66 of the Workers Compensation Act 1987.

The increased benefits will apply to workers who suffer a permanent impairment from an injury sustained on or after 1 January 2007.

By increasing section 66 payments, the Government is also encouraging injured workers to utilise statutory benefits rather than pursuing expensive and uncertain common law claims.

Sound financial management, improved claims handling and hard work have returned the scheme to surplus. As well as benefiting injured workers, the much improved financial position of the scheme will benefit employers through a further five percent reduction in workers compensation premiums, bringing total premium reductions to a total of 20% in just 12 months.

Employers will also benefit from the Government's new Growing Our Skills Base: Apprentice Incentive Scheme, which will exempt apprentices' wages from the calculation of an employer's premium.

I commend the Bill to the House.

The Hon. GREG PEARCE [5.28 p.m.]: Clearly the major purpose of the Industrial Relations (Child Employment) Bill, the Industrial Relations Further Amendment Bill and the Workers Compensation Amendment (Permanent Impairment Benefits) Bill is to underline the political argument that the Government its trying to run about the Federal Government's WorkChoices legislation. Of course, this week the High Court upheld the Commonwealth Government's right to enact that legislation, which one would expect given that the Constitution is clear on the powers of the Commonwealth Government. For those who have studied and practised in constitutional law, the result was not unexpected.

It is said that the Industrial Relations (Child Employment) Bill is designed to bring all persons under the age of 18 years and employed by a corporation under the New South Wales industrial relations system. I do not need to go into the detail of the exemption that exists under the WorkChoices legislation for child employment. Whether these amendments are in any way necessary will be determined in due course when the Commonwealth Government examines the need to extend WorkChoices to ensure that people under the age of 18 also have the benefits of choice that come from negotiating agreements.

We are told that the Workers Compensation Amendment (Permanent Impairment Benefits) Bill is designed to implement the Government's promise of a 10 per cent increase in workers compensation benefits for permanently impaired injured workers. Of course, that reality is an unpleasant surprise to workers, because that provision does not apply to injuries suffered until after 1 January 2007. This is a bit of a con trick on workers and I am sure the Government will be embarrassed by it in the next few months. The effect is that workers already injured or those injured between now and 1 January 2007 will derive no benefit from this bill. Then there is a lead time of 18 months to two years while matters are determined by the commission, particularly permanent impairment matters, which are complicated and take more time to determine. In the majority of cases the legislation will not come into effect until 2008 or 2009.

The other con in relation to the workers compensation issue is one that has been identified by the Law Society, in particular, and referred to by the shadow Minister, the member for Gosford, in his speech in the other place. I will not go through it in detail, but it relates to the fact that workers compensation benefits are not indexed. The effect of this 10 per cent increase, when it comes in, is that it is basically an inflation increase. Members may wish to read more of the detail that the shadow Minister went through and the Law Society spelled out, which is available in the speech in the other place.

The Industrial Relations Further Amendment Bill is designed to allow the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission to hear cases where an employee claims to have been dismissed for reporting breaches of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. The two industrial relations bills are blatantly political. We will see whether they work to further the Government's attempt to build up an argument in relation to these matters. I believe the community has already spoken in relation to WorkChoices; certainly the economy has. As we all now know, unemployment is down to a 30-year low of 4.6 per cent nationally, with only New South Wales dragging the chain. Disputations are at their lowest level in 30 years, and the economy is still booming along, with the exception of the New South Wales economy. In conclusion, the Opposition will not oppose the legislation; we will not fuel the Government's fairly obvious attempt to drag up this matter as an issue.

The Hon. HENRY TSANG (Parliamentary Secretary) [5.32 p.m.], in reply: The three bills we are considering today—the Industrial Relations (Child Employment) Bill, the Industrial Relations Further Amendment Bill and the Workers Compensation Amendment (Permanent Impairment Benefits) Bill—are each, in their own way, an important part of this Government's vision for maintaining a fair and equitable situation for both employers and employees in this State. The child employment bill will protect young workers whose conditions of employment are undermined by WorkChoices. It provides a safety net of minimum conditions based on the New South Wales State award relevant to their work, and it protects them from being unfairly dismissed.

Section 16 (3) (e) of the Federal Workplace Relations Act 1996 clearly states that State child labour legislation is a non-excluded State law, and this Government has independent legal advice to that effect. When it comes to children at the workplace the Federal Government has shown a degree of neglect that the Iemma Government cannot countenance. In conclusion, I commend the bills to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bills read a second time and passed through remaining stages.

The Hon. HENRY TSANG (Parliamentary Secretary) [5.36 p.m.], on behalf of the Hon. Tony Kelly: I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Miscellaneous Amendments Bill contains a mix of significant and minor reforms to the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998, which is part of the Government's commitment to protect children's rights and promote their welfare. Key features of the bill are the important amendments to improve the protection of children who are at risk of harm by their parents or primary caregivers. I table a document that contains statistics referred to in today's Daily Telegraph. The information includes statistics from the Department of Community Services that report 104 child deaths in 2005. The Ombudsman will report on these and other child deaths in his Reviewable Child Deaths Report to be released later this year.

Document tabled.

Some of these tragic deaths may have been prevented by the amendments that the Iemma Government is introducing tonight. Sixteen of these children had been the subject of a prenatal report and 18 had previously been in care or had siblings previously in care. Of these 18 children, nine had siblings who had been removed or placed in temporary care. Three of these children were in care at the time of their death. Another six of these children were taken into care and restored to their parents. Of these six children, four were subject to Children's Court proceedings and two were subject to temporary care orders. We in the Iemma Government are setting a new direction in child protection with this landmark bill. I seek leave to incorporate the remainder of the second reading speech in Hansard.

Leave granted.

Importantly, the Bill clarifies that mandatory reporters may make reports before the birth of a child, if there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the child may be at risk of harm upon birth.

The Bill strengthens the reporting and information sharing requirements by:

Firstly, amending section 23 to specify that a newly born child is at risk of harm if they were the subject of a prenatal report and the birth mother did not successfully engage with support services to eliminate or minimise to the lowest level reasonably practical, the risk factors that gave rise to that prenatal report.

Secondly, the Bill makes provision by amending section 248 to enable the exchange of information between the Department of Community Services and hospitals or public health organisations about the parents and or family of an unborn child that has been subject of a prenatal report.

Thirdly, the Bill clarifies that the intention of making prenatal reports under section 25, is to provide assistance and support to the expectant mother along with protecting the child upon birth from any risk of harm and that such a child may then be provided support and protection as envisaged by the Act.

A further key feature central to improving protection for children at risk of harm from parents or caregivers is the introduction of the new section 106A into the Act.

This provision specifies that in care proceedings the Children's Court shall allow, consider and give weight to evidence that a parent or care giver has previously had a child removed, and not restored to their care or has been identified by the Coroner or police as a person who may have been involved in causing a reviewable death of a child or young person.

This amendment will remove any technical obstruction to the Court considering evidence of a parent or carer's past history in relation to the removal of other children.

It will require that the Court admit and give weight to a parent or caregiver's past history in relation to the removal of other children, or involvement in causing a reviewable death of a child or young person.

In care proceedings before the Children's Court and where there has been a history of a parent or caregiver causing harm to a child, the Bill places the onus of proof on the parent or caregiver.

They must rebut the presumption that, on the balance of probabilities, the child in their current care is not at risk of harm and in need of care and protection either because the previous factors that put a child at risk of harm are now no longer present, or because they were not personally involved in causing harm in the previous case.

This suite of amendments will go a long way to strengthening child protection by ensuring that prenatal reports may provide opportunity for support and early intervention to a newly born child as envisaged by the Act.

This is by requiring the Court to consider and give sufficient weight to 'similar fact' evidence concerning past child abuse or neglect by a parent or caregiver.

It is critical that the Children's Court be able to consider all available evidence when ordering preventative and protective measures for children.

Providing for the transfer of child protection orders and proceedings between NSW and other States and Territories and New Zealand.

A further key feature of the Bill is that it proposes to insert a new chapter into the Act to allow for the transfer of child protection orders as well as child protection proceedings between NSW and other States and Territories of Australia and between NSW and New Zealand.

The Bill is based on model legislation drafted for the States, Territories and New Zealand for the registration and enforcement of child protection orders, and the transfer of child protection proceedings, from one jurisdiction to another.

Most other jurisdictions have implemented the model legislation and to facilitate national consistency, the NSW government is proposing to adopt similar provisions.

This Bill is part of a legislative reform package being introduced during 2006 to bring NSW into line with other States and jurisdictions.

This State has examined experiences elsewhere to try and get the best legislative solution.

NSW currently has legislation in place which provides for reciprocity between the States and Territories in respect to:

• the transfer of administrative responsibilities for a child or young person under the sole parental responsibility of the State or Territory's Minister or Chief Executive Officer; and

• the provision of services to such a child or young person without any transfer of administrative responsibilities.

Under such arrangements, the current order is simply an order of the original jurisdiction.

If a "transfer of the order" is needed, the process is that the receiving jurisdiction must seek a new order in their jurisdiction.

When this order is in place, the old order in the sending jurisdiction must be discharged.

The amendments in the Bill will enable the transfer of child protection orders so that the administering and supervising of NSW child protection orders for children and young people living permanently interstate will be simpler.

The intended outcomes of the Bill will be to:

• enable children and young people who are in need of care and protection and who are subject to child protection orders to be assisted by appropriate authorities if they move interstate;

• improve the supervision of children and young people who are subject to child protection orders and who move interstate;

• increase the likelihood that a child protection order is enforceable and has effect under the child welfare law of the State where the child or young person resides; and

• facilitate child protection matters before the courts, being dealt with in a timely and expeditious manner by a court in the appropriate jurisdiction.

Overview of transferring child protection orders and proceedings

The Bill provides for the administrative and judicial transfers of child protection orders, as well as the transfer of proceedings.

Administrative transfer of child protection orders

The administrative transfer involves the Director General of the Department of Community Services transferring a child protection order interstate or to New Zealand; provided that the receiving state consents to the transfer and that there exists an order to the same or similar effect in the receiving state.

Depending on the child protection order, the Director General may not be able to transfer the order without the consent of a parent to ensure that this administrative arrangement does not disadvantage anyone.

The principle of the safety, welfare and wellbeing of the child or young person must be given paramount importance in any decision made.

The Bill also emphasises that the child or young person, and the family must be encouraged and given adequate opportunity to participate fully in the decision-making process.

If opposed to the Director General's decision to transfer the order, the child or young person as well as their parents will be entitled to seek a review of the decision in the Administrative Decisions Tribunal.

Judicial transfer of child protection orders

The Bill also allows the Director General to apply to the Children's Court for a judicial transfer of the child protection order.

The Director General can make this application if the order cannot be transferred administratively, or if the order to be transferred is not the same or similar to an order in the receiving state but is considered to otherwise be in the best interests of the child or young person.

The Bill incorporates an avenue for appeal to the District Court if a party to an application is dissatisfied with a final order of the Children's Court transferring, or refusing to transfer a child protection order to a participating state.

Once a child protection order has been transferred to NSW under interstate law, the Bill provides for the filing and registration of such orders in the Children's Court.

The order is then taken to be an order made by the NSW Children's Court.

Transferring child protection proceedings

The Bill establishes a process for transferring child protection proceedings, which depends on the application of the Director General and the receiving state consenting to the transfer.

The Bill deals with the difficulty of legally transferring confidential information relating to a NSW order that is required by another state to perform duties or exercise powers under the child welfare or interstate laws of that State.

The Bill enables the transfer of this necessary information for the benefit of the child or young person.

These amendments will address the operational inconsistency that has existed in handling interstate transfer of child protection orders both internally and in dealing with requests and referrals to other jurisdictions.

The Bill has been developed to provide the practical machinery for co-operation between NSW and New Zealand and the other States and Territories of Australia to protect children by eliminating the current jurisdictional barriers to transferring child protection orders or child protection proceedings.

The Bill will undoubtedly lead to more efficient and effective outcomes for the children, young people and families who move interstate where the NSW Department of Community Services has an involvement.

Clarifying provisions for the benefit of children and young persons in out-of-home care

Another significant area of amendment proposed in the Bill relates to the disclosure of information to parents concerning the out-of-home care placement of their child.

Some carers in out-of-home care have expressed concern that the Act may allow certain identifying information to be provided to parents about the out-of-home care placement of their children.

Their concerns are that information may be given to parents and significant others without adequate consultation or the provision of an avenue for review of an agency's decision to provide that information.

By omitting section 148 and inserting sections 149B-K, the Bill specifically addresses these concerns by establishing a clear and transparent process for providing high-level identification information to parents.

This includes an opportunity for carer consent, participation in decision making by all relevant parties, and a review mechanism through the Administrative Decisions Tribunal.

Further, it is proposed that the Children's Guardian will establish guidelines in relation to disclosure of information, which are to be met by the designated agency when releasing information to the parents of the child or young person in out-of-home care.

Where a carer does not consent to the release of high level identification information, the Bill proposes that the designated agency which made the decision to release the information will be required to apply to the ADT for a review of the decision on behalf of the carer.

This approach is designed to relieve the authorised carer of the burden of costs or remove any perceived barrier associated with making an application for administrative law review of the decision.

However, in the event the authorised carer would rather independently apply to the ADT, the bill confirms that in the alternative the authorised carer may make an application to the ADT without relying upon the assistance of the designated agency.

The provisions are informed by, and are the outcome of, extensive consultation with the Foster Care Association, ACWA, the Children's Guardian, ABSEC, CREATE, the Legal Aid Commission, and the Children's Court.

They aim to balance the concerns of foster carers and the needs of the child or young person to retain links with their birth family.

Some consequential amendments to improve the workability of these proposals are also set out in the bill.

The remaining provisions of the bill consist of proposed miscellaneous amendments to the Act.

The bill establishes that a child or young person for whom the Minister has parental responsibility or for whom the Director-General has care responsibility who has been refused bail in relation to criminal proceedings or has been sentenced to a control order, may be accommodated at a juvenile detention centre.

The intention of this amendment to 246 is to make clear that the current prohibition on accommodating a child or young person who is under the care responsibility of the Director-General or the parental responsibility of the Minister in premises with persons who have committed offences or who are on remand does not apply to children and young persons who have committed offences themselves or are refused bail in respect of a criminal offence.

The bill also stipulates that if a child or young person is detained by police on a warrant issued for his or her attendance at court, the child or young person in this instance cannot be held in a juvenile justice centre pending his or her appearance in court.

The intention of this provision is to prevent detention in a juvenile justice centre where a warrant has been issued merely for the purpose of court attendance.

Encouraging reporters to continue to respond to the needs of the child

Children and young people will only be protected from risk of harm when community members, practitioners and agencies take action on their behalf by making a report to the Department of Community Services.

However, protecting a child or young person from risk of harm does not end in a phone call.

The bill proposes to makes it clear that the requirement to make a report does not prevent the reporter from responding to the needs of the child, nor does it discharge any other obligations in respect of the child.

This amendment to section 29 arises from experience whereby some persons who make reports under the Act are of the view that no other assistance or support is to be provided after they have reported a matter to the department.

This can arise from a misplaced concern about interfering with a child protection investigation.

Making a report does not override the existing duty of care a person has in relation to the child or young person, subject of the report.

The amendment will clarify that reporters may still have an ongoing responsibility to respond to the needs of the child after the matter has been reported to the department.

Enhancing provisions relating to legal representation for children and young people

The Act does not currently set out with sufficient clarity the two distinct models for legal representation of children and young people under the Act.

Older children and young people, subject to a rebuttable presumption, can be represented by a direct representative to whom instructions are given.

To dispel any confusion in the use of the term 'legal representative' in section 99 of the Act, the bill provides that the term "direct legal representative" be used only for legal representatives that act directly on the instructions of a child or young person capable of giving proper legal instructions.

This is distinguished from an "independent legal representative" who acts as a "separate representative" if the child or young person is not capable of giving proper legal instructions.

Currently in parts of section 99 there is no distinction between the two roles under the general umbrella of "legal representative".

The bill remedies this and makes clear the distinction between an independent legal representative and a direct legal representative.

The bill also raises the age at which a child is presumed capable of giving proper legal instructions to his or her legal representative from 10 to 12 years.

It is accepted that children of any age are capable of holding and expressing strong views as to the outcome they desire in care proceedings.

However, there is clear evidence based on child development that most 10 and 11 year olds are incapable of understanding the legal ramifications of their instructions, the intricacies of legal procedure in care matters and the various legal, procedural and jurisdictional issues that may arise.

These children are unable to provide adequate instructions on these issues, placing legal representatives acting on direct instructions from a child in a difficult position.

The bill therefore establishes a presumption that a child who is 12 years of age or less is not capable of giving proper instructions to his or her legal representative and in such circumstances, an independent legal representative may be appointed for the child.

The Children's Court may however make an order to the contrary, appointing a direct legal representative, if evidence is adduced that the child is capable of giving proper instructions.

Ensuring quality children's services

The bill removes the exemption from licensing for children services, operating on Department of Health premises. There has been an increase in children's services connected with Health services so there is a greater need to ensure that these services are providing consistent and quality care for children.

The Department of Health has recommended that formal children's services operating on hospital premises should be licensed to ensure that these services are meeting the standard of care required by the Children's Services Regulation 2004.

It is not the intention of the bill that informal child minding services run in connection with hospitals, or recreational or commercial facilities where the parents are visiting or using the service, be licensed.

Therefore, a specific provision has been included in section 200 (2) (d) of the bill, to make clear that this type of service is excluded from the meaning of 'children's service', and may continue to operate without a licence.

The bill also amends the definition of "home based children's service" in section 199, to clarify that the person providing care at the home based children's service must be the holder of a licence.

This is to prevent inappropriate people, who have not been subject to the relevant checks, providing care in home based children's services.

Facilitating the conduct of prosecutions and proceedings before the Children 's Court

To provide certainty as to the time limit for commencement of a prosecution, the bill provides that the prosecution of an offence under the Act_other than an offence in relation to children's services_is to be commenced within six months of the Director-General becoming aware of the alleged offence.

This amendment is proposed because the Director-General will often not become aware of an offence until a file audit is completed and by that time the existing limitation of six months may have elapsed.

The bill also facilitates the conduct of proceedings before the Children's Court by amending section 69.

This is to make clear that the established practise of the Children's Court to make interim care orders without, in the first instance, making a determination that a child is in need of care and protection is procedurally the correct approach if the court is satisfied it is in the best interests of the safety, welfare and wellbeing the child or young person to do so.

The bill also clarifies that the Children's Court may issue a warrant to secure the attendance of birth parents or adoptive parents who no longer hold parental responsibility in care proceedings before the court.

The proposed amendment to section 96 seeks to address concerns raised by the Children's Court that their current powers to issue warrants may arguably be interpreted to only apply to the limited circumstances of parents who hold parental responsibility at the time the warrant is issued.

The amendment puts beyond doubt that warrants may be issued by the Children's Court to facilitate attendance in proceedings to any parent, including parents that do not have parental responsibility for the child or young person.

This bill is the result of extensive review.

These reforms will contribute to improving and strengthening the Act and reflect this government's commitment to securing the safety, welfare and well-being of children and young people in NSW as well as those who travel across state and territory borders.

I thank everyone who has been involved in the development and construction of the bill.

I commend the bill to the House.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK [5.39 p.m.]: I lead for the Opposition on the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Miscellaneous Amendments Bill. The main object of the bill is to amend the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 to provide for greater protection to children and young persons who are at risk of harm from a parent or carer, and for reciprocal arrangements for the transfer of interstate and New Zealand child protection orders and child protection proceedings. The bill also makes amendments to the Act in relation to the legal representation of children in proceedings before the Children's Court, the disclosure to parents and certain other persons of information concerning the placement of children in out-of-home care, and the kinds of children's services that are required to be licensed under the principal Act.

I congratulate my colleague Gladys Berejiklian, the shadow Minister for Community Services, in another place on the remarks she made in relation to this legislation in the lower House last night. This bill is moving very quickly through both Houses of Parliament and I want to draw attention to why that might be happening, particularly in relation to the measures that were announced, not to the Parliament but initially to the Daily Telegraph. I will come to those issues later.

I begin by referring back to a case I have raised previously in this House in relation to foster care. It is the sad case of three Aboriginal brothers aged six, four and two years who had been removed from their mother because of problems with parenting, domestic violence and drug use. These little boys, who were just babies when they were removed, were, effectively, wards of the State: in other words, they had been removed permanently. For two years they were cared for by foster parents, who loved them and whom they loved. The Department of Community Services [DOCS] reported that the children were thriving in this arrangement and encouraged the foster parents to make longer term care plans. The three little boys had a stable, loving home and foster parents who were willing to fight for them and, in short, they had a great chance that all too few children in care seem to get.
During estimates hearings in response to questions on notice the Department of Community Services provided the committee with some statistics in relation to the number of placements of children in foster care. I will share these figures with the House because I think the stability of placement is crucial to the welfare of children, who are already coming from very damaged environments. The figures given to us on the placement of children and young people in out-of-home care will surprise and disappoint people, even recognising that they are difficult cases.

For children who had been in care for less than six months, out of a total of 1,445 children, 10 had had four or more placements; 40 children had had three placements; 132 children had had two placements and 963 were on their first placement. I emphasise these figures are for children in care for less than six months. Out of the 1,306 children who had been in care for between one and two years, 671 of them had had one placement only, 347 had had two placements, 169 had had three placements and 119 children had had four or more placements.

Out of the 3,516 children who had been in care for five years or more, 1,061 had had one placement, 1,047 had had two placements, 528 had had three placements and 880 of these children had had four or more placements. I understand the Department of Community Services is very eager to address this issue. It is quite clear that if a child has been removed from his or her home and been placed in care, the appropriateness of that placement and the stability that the child was able to have in that placement is absolutely vital to that child's wellbeing and ability to recover, often from years of abuse that may have been endured at home.

I return now to the three little Aboriginal boys who had had a single placement for two years with their foster family. In May 2005 a DOCS caseworker decided that the boys needed to be placed with new parents. This was a fairly sudden decision. Although the new foster mother, who would be the primary caregiver, was white, she had a part-Aboriginal husband. For this reason, the family caring for the three vulnerable Aboriginal children was to be split up by DOCS. The Foster Parents Association was incredulous, pointing out the huge shortage of foster parents for Aboriginal children and the long waiting list. It questioned why on earth DOCS would break up a really wonderful placement where things were actually working. Other children were missing out on placements, and they could have had placements with this alternative family. And the little boys, who had formed a very strong attachment with their foster parents, were being ripped away from them and placed with their third set of parents in two years. The foster parents appealed and the Administrative Decisions Tribunal heard the appeal. The tribunal upheld this ridiculous decision by DOCS stating:

We are satisfied that the applicants have provided children with high-quality care. The three children have developed positive attachments … [but] research has shown very real damage that has been done to Aboriginal people by past policies of assimilation.

During recent estimates hearings I was able to investigate the policy and legislation that underpin the Department of Community Services and resulted in the decision that was given in this case. I asked the Director of Juvenile Justice, Neil Shepherd, the following questions:

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: I would like to ask about Aboriginal children in care. I will not refer to the matter that causes me to raise this issue but my question relates to the guidelines the department has regarding cultural considerations for placing children in foster care. Are cultural considerations more important than the needs and desires of the child?

DR SHEPHERD: It is a complex answer, in a sense. The legislation requires that the interests of the child are paramount. There is then, of course, the Aboriginal placement principle that sits alongside that, which directs the steps that we have to go through in placing an Aboriginal child. Then there is a third thing that we are now starting to work on—more than work on—which will be the need for a child placed in a non-Aboriginal placement, because clearly there are going to be children placed in a non-Aboriginal placement, to have a cultural care plan as part of the care plan. In some cases that already happens but I want a much stronger and more formal process because I suspect, looking at the demographics, that an increasing number of Aboriginal children will need to be placed in non-Aboriginal placements over the next decade.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: The issue that concerns me is the stability of those placements. I understand there have been successful placements of Aboriginal children in foster care, which have been displaced for cultural reasons even though the placement was successful and the children were happy, because it was not meeting cultural requirements. It appears vulnerable to being tipped over. With a change of caseworker or with another family coming forward, suddenly what is working quite well can be overturned.

Dr SHEPHERD: For the reasons you say, that would be unlikely or very unusual. What is more likely is that the children came in to a temporary placement that was viewed as temporary until such time as other kinship options could be explored. Then what happens is the family and the children get along well but then there is somebody, who was a kinship placement, who go through all the training and is deemed to be suitable and so the children are transferred to the kinship placement. If the child had been placed in long-term statutory out-of-home care with a non-Aboriginal carer and there was a cultural care plan in place, and we had explored the kinship options beforehand, which is what we should have been done—
The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: The problem is they are not available beforehand and they become available. I think that is really the problem with the cases that particularly the Administrative Appeals Tribunal would have dealt with. It seems to have found that cultural issues overpower every other matter in many cases.

Dr SHEPHERD: It is not for me to challenge—

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: Parents change their minds and suddenly everyone is ripped up.

Dr SHEPHERD: Yes. The long-term stable placement of children, in my view, is the most important thing that we can do in out-of-home care and anything that we can do that increases the stability of those placements needs to be done. That is particularly so for the under fives because we know that multiple placement breakdown is the thing that leads to disaster for these kids further down the track. You only have to go back to the Fitzgerald Royal Commission report in about 2001 or 2002, the under fives report, to see what happens with multiple placement breakdowns for young children. We asked the Government for an extra 150 out-of-home care caseworkers, which has been agreed to, to strengthen our capacity to provide absolutely first-class casework support to these kids in out-of-home care, and to support the foster carers very strongly in the first 12 months of the placement so that these placements remain stable for much longer periods of time. Anything, be it an administrative process or whatever, even the legislation, that can be strengthened to place early decision making and the stability of the placement at the top of the tree would be the best thing you could do for these kids in out-of-home care.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: I agree. Will legislation be required to strengthen that position, given the attitude of the courts and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal?

Dr SHEPHERD: I will break my previous rule. My view is, yes. The legislation does need change—I am on the record as saying that, anyway, it does need strengthening and some of the principles in that legislation are confusing. They were brought in with good intentions after the 1998 review of the Act, but it would benefit I think from simplification and a clear hierarchy that took the decision makers through a series of steps that had the interests of the child absolutely paramount with no computing interests sitting in there, and then a series of steps that would ensure the stability of placements and the fact that the stability of placements is critical.

I currently support the philosophy and the remedy that is being proposed here by the director general. My question to the Government is: Why was this incredibly important issue not addressed in the legislation before the House? Where are these important amendments? Why have they not been included in this bill? My concern about the legislation—and I will come to the detail of this in a moment—is that it is a mishmash of necessary changes, particularly in relation to interstate transfers of orders and the like, which of course we do not oppose. No person would oppose that, but this bill is being presented to the public as some kind of breakthrough in the management of children who come from families that place them at risk. We have seen this type of approach, the emphasis on spin in the media, with parent responsibility contracts, which I have spoken about previously. I remind the House how farcical that parent responsibility contract legislation was. I believe this is very similar and that aspects of this bill parallel what was done with the parent responsibility contracts. Section 38A of the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Amendment (Parent Responsibility Contracts) Bill stated:

A parent responsibility contract is an agreement between the Director-General and one or more primary caregivers for a child or young person that contains provisions aimed at improving the parenting skills of the primary caregivers and encouraging them to accept greater responsibility for the child or young person.

As I have noted, there are no reciprocal obligations for the Director General of the Department of Community Services to guarantee the supply of programs. Under new section 38A (f) of the Act the director general has unilateral rights to terminate the contract, but the caregivers have no such rights. New section 38C (2) states:

The Director-General may cause a termination notice to be served on each other party to the contract for any reason and at any time during the contract period.

Section 38A deals with the definition of "parental responsibility contract", and subsection (6) states:

However, a parent responsibility contract will not make provision for all with respect to any of the following:

(a) the allocation of parental responsibility for a child or young person,

(b) the placement of a child or young person in out-of-home care.

That legislation was a political fix that really did nothing to address parenting problems. In a sense, the legislation before the House is exactly the same. That should be no great surprise because we already know that the Department of Community Services lacks the resources to achieve the minimum level of investigations expected by the Ombudsman, let alone resources to follow up investigations with meaningful interventions. During the estimates hearing I asked the director general what additional resources and programs would be put in place to support parental responsibility contracts and his answer was "None, it is a tool in the kit." This contrasts the international model on how to implement parent responsibility contracts that exists in the United Kingdom.
Not only do contracts place obligations on government to supply programs, there are multidisciplinary teams in place to work directly with families to implement parenting plans that are enshrined in the contract. This includes teachers, young offender workers, psychologists as well as counsellors. It includes people employed in non-government as well as government sectors. In New South Wales the approach is to co-ordinate across agencies, where client needs have to be prodded and boxed to fit into agency service requirements, an approach that has never worked. In the United Kingdom the professionals come together to assist the clients in a way that actually builds esteem and functionality. And the feedback from the clients to that approach has been very positive. I understand that in the majority of cases the only complaint is that that type of service was not available earlier. These are parent responsibility contracts that people have been obliged to enter into in a last-minute bid to retain their children.

The tired old approach in New South Wales probably fosters greater dependency and reinforces dysfunction in a process that is often described by insiders as being systems abuse. The bill before the House today is, like the parent responsibility contracts legislation, more of the same without any accompanying program change. I note that, with regard to the reversal of the onus of proof and facilitating removal of children from families where siblings have previously been the subject of care proceedings, that these parent responsibility contracts—although they are untested and the legislation has not yet been proclaimed—may well be part of the process that the department uses to explain to the court why a sibling should be removed. I think the legislation all goes together, but the failure to announce any accompanying programs to support this bill is an incredibly depressing admission of failure by the Government.

The bill was, as usual, announced to Parliament via the media. I recall a couple of weeks ago complaining about the Government's action in ramming an important bill through both Houses in 48 hours and was advised by the Minister in the Chair that I "should have read the Sunday papers". I consider that to be a fairly arrogant way of treating the House, given that no bill was printed in the Sunday papers and we only had a journalist's version of what a media person said the bill would contain. On 24 October we were advised of this bill via the Daily Telegraph in an article titled "Laws to save kids from bad parents". I will read that article onto the record:

NSW will have the world's first laws shielding children in danger from bad parents, taking the unprecedented step of removing the need for court orders in some cases.

The blitz on poor parenting will allow Department of Community Services officers to sidestep the courts and automatically remove children from a home if there is a history of harm or neglect.

The onus will now be reversed and placed on parents who have already had a child taken into custody to plead their case before a court as to why any other children should also be left in their care.

The only other jurisdiction to consider such radical measures is the UK. However the UK is still only considering the idea and may use NSW as a model.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal the amendment bill was approved by Cabinet late yesterday afternoon after being brought to the table by Community Services Minister Reba Meagher. It will be introduced into Parliament tonight.

The new laws will address the often-debated logic of allowing parents who have already had a child taken into state custody to retain care of the child's siblings.

The changes were prompted by the possibly preventable deaths last year of nine children who had been left in parental care despite a sibling being placed under state protection because they were deemed in danger. The alarming statistics are contained in an internal DOCS working document within the Child Death and Critical Report Unit from 2005.

Two weeks ago it was revealed that a five-month-old baby had died in 2003 after his mother deliberately gave him methadone. The child's older brother had died under similar circumstances. Despite this, the coroner only ordered that any future children should be drug tested.

The onus will now be placed on bad parents who have previously lost custody of a child to prove in the Children's Court why they should be allowed to have any children in their care at all.

It will remove the need for DOCS to keep going back to the court and applying for child protection orders for every sibling.

The new rules will also apply when a person has been identified by the coroner or police in connection with a child death.

Premier Morris Iemma said the laws were necessary to better protect children.

"These changes mean that a risk to one child will be considered a risk to all children living under the same roof," he said.

"It will also ensure that protection is extended when a new child comes along.

"We're turning the tables on bad parents who have previously had their children removed and pose a risk of harm—it will now be up to them to prove they should keep their kids.

"The truth is some parents are indifferent to the welfare of their children."

NSW Council for Social Services executive director Michelle Burrell said any such "scooping" mechanism would need close scrutiny.

Clearly, they had not seen the bill either. The next day the conscientious big sister of the Daily Telegraph, the Australian, published a story under the headline "Deadbeat parents targeted". It stated:

The disturbing trend for social workers and lawyers to leave children with "deadbeat" parents, even when there is clear potential for abuse or neglect, will be reversed by the Iemma Government.

NSW Parliament was last night debating a bill presented by Community Services Minister Reba Meagher that would allow authorities to remove a child from parents who had previously abused a sibling.

Under the reform, these parents would need to prove to a court why they should be able to keep their other children.

"The burden of proof will be on the parents to demonstrate that the risk of harm has been removed," Ms Meagher said.

"These changes are about ensuring that we can deliver a standard of protection immediately for those children that are born to deadbeat parents."

Premier Morris Iemma told parliament he was "not prepared to find out the hard way" about cases where children had been hurt or killed after a sibling had been removed by authorities. Across NSW last year, nine children with siblings removed from the family home died.

The new laws were lauded by Australian Childhood Foundation chief Joe Tucci, who said the NSW Government's law was a "bold" initiative and "more in line with community expectations on how to protect children".

"It is the beginning of a recognition that child protection needs to be balanced more toward children's rights than parents' rights, as is currently the case," Dr Tucci said.

But NSW Council for Civil Liberties president Cameron Murphy warned the Government's approach was wrong and dangerous. "It is very difficult to prove a negative, and in many cases the parents just won't have the capacity to do it," Mr Murphy said.

Respected child policy academic Rosemary Sheehan said she was wary about commenting on the bill before seeing more details.

Thank goodness for that; an intelligent commentator. It continued:

But Dr Sheehan, who recently argued in the wake of the William Clare pedophile case that the pendulum had swung too far to the side of keeping children with parents regardless of potential risks, said the Government should redirect its resources to early intervention.

Clare was convicted of the manslaughter of a three-year-old boy after the boy's mother handed him and his six-year-old sister to Clare for babysitting.

That was a notorious case. A couple of issues arise from the Government's announcement of these bills through the media. First, the Minister in another place argued that extensive consultation has been undertaken, but only one group has come out in the media and "lauded the legislation"—that is, the Australian Childhood Foundation through its chief executive Joe Tucci. I mean no disrespect to Dr Tucci, but I had never heard of him so I looked him up on the web and discovered that both the good doctor and his foundation hail from Victoria. I give credit to the Government for not being deterred by its inability to find a single group in New South Wales to endorse its legislation. The Government obviously persisted in its search until it arrived at Melbourne, where it was able to find praise and glory from an organisation that had not seen the bill and will not be directly affected by the legislation.

I draw the attention of honourable members also to the claim by Simon Benson in the Daily Telegraph that "the changes were prompted by the possibly preventable deaths last year of nine children that had been left in parental care despite a sibling being placed under State protection because they were deemed in danger". How does Simon Benson know this? Because presumably the Minister or a Government media adviser told him! I was baffled by this because I am well aware of cases reported by the Ombudsman in his reviewable child deaths report in which preventative removals had in fact already taken place. Indeed, the death of one child has still not been prevented. I will cite three cases from the Ombudsman's report of reviewable deaths in 2004 that reveal that the Department of Community Services already has a longstanding practice of preventative removals—in other words, cases in which the sibling has not been notified as being at risk but an intervention has occurred as a preventive measure. The report states:

CaseStudy13

A baby boy who died during sleep at three months of age was one of four children.

There was a long history of reports to DoCS prior to the baby's birth. More than 20 risk of harm reports for his siblings had been made to DoCS over a two to three year period. The reports raised serious concerns about the safety and wellbeing of the children as a consequence of the parents' long-term drug use, their parenting capacity, ongoing domestic violence and criminality. The children were born drug-dependent and were the subjects of reports to DoCS related to chronic neglect, physical abuse, psychological harm and inadequate supervision. Historically, the family had not engaged well with support services.

Protective intervention by DoCS included removing the second born child when she was six days old. DoCS initiated care proceedings for this child and she has remained in care.

There was little evidence of positive change within the family by the time the third baby was born the following year. Nine prenatal reports about this baby were made in relation to the mother using drugs during the pregnancy and continuing domestic violence. DoCS commenced a secondary risk assessment after a further report following the baby's birth. Departmental caseworkers then met with the parents and they signed undertakings to accept the support of health services, attend a methadone clinic daily, undergo urinalysis, refrain from domestic violence and not use illicit drugs. The parents breached these undertakings within three weeks and there were further reports to DoCS concerning domestic violence and parental substance abuse. DoCS took no action in relation to the breach of undertakings.

Over the next 18 months, the parents continued to use drugs and risk of harm reports identified numerous and ongoing safety and wellbeing concerns for the two children. From time to time the children moved between the parents and relatives when the parents were in crisis or in gaol. The care arrangements for the children were made informally by the family and without DoCS intervention.

Although the case remained open, DoCS' assessment of the children's safety appears to have occurred in a disjointed way. Referrals to various services occurred from time to time but coordination of services and monitoring of the family's progress was sporadic. Our review found that DoCS assessed individual reports of risk of crime in isolation to the known history and without consideration of issues raised in other reports that had not been assessed. There appears to have been no holistic secondary assessment of the children's safety and wellbeing and, despite the ongoing involvement of DoCS and other services, by the time the fourth baby was born, no interagency planning meeting had been held in over two years.

In this case a baby boy died and DOCS had been empowered to undertake a protective intervention for one sibling. It leaves me wondering whether a case like that would be assisted in any way by this legislation. The bill is a stunt. It will not assist in such cases. The report further stated:

CaseStudy12

This year we reviewed the death of a baby who died in 2003. The baby was born extremely premature and died within hours of her birth.

The report was made to DoCS during the pregnancy and was recorded as a risk of harm to report for the mother, who was then aged 17 years, and the baby's sibling, aged 13 months. Reported concerns related to chronic drug and alcohol abuse by the mother, including heavy cannabis and alcohol consumption on a daily basis, her very poor health and the poor prognosis for the baby's survival. The mother was said to be resistant to supports and involved in a relationship characterised by violence. A prenatal report was not recorded for the baby.

I remind honourable members that this girl was 17 years old. The report further stated:

The Helpline referred the report to a CSC and recommended a response within 72 hours. The report was not allocated and was closed without further assessment under the Priority One case closure policy one month later.

A second risk of harm report was made four days before the baby's birth and was reported as a prenatal report for the baby and her sibling. The report indicated that the mother was still chronically using drugs and was in poor physical health and agitated. The Helpline referred this report to the CSC and recommended a response within 72 hours. The report was not allocated or assessed. After DOCS was advised that the baby had died the report was downgraded to "No response" and then closed. DOCS made no contact with the family and did not assess the safety or wellbeing of the baby's sibling. I ask the Government: How is this legislation and the fantastic news announcement it managed to get into the Daily Telegraph going to assist that sibling? I refer next to case study 24, in relation to which a preventative intervention took place that virtually resulted in the death of a child. It states:

In 2004, we initiated an investigation into DOCS, NSW Police and an Area Health Service's handling of matters concerning a five-month-old Aboriginal boy and his older sister. Our investigation took into account an internal review by DOCS of the matter.

The baby boy died in 2003. An autopsy indicated evidence of non-accidental injury sustained over a number of occasions. He and his sister, then aged 18 months, were in the care of relatives at the time of his death. DOCS had placed the baby and his sister with relatives six weeks earlier, under a Voluntary Temporary Care Agreement.

The child was five months old when he died. He had been placed in care six weeks earlier, so he was presumably two and a half months old when he was placed in care. It continues:

There was an extensive child protection history for the children and also their older siblings who were continuously exposed to intense and violent domestic abuse and neglect as a consequence of their parents' addictions. These risks remained unresolved at the time of the baby's birth. Six risk of harm reports for the baby, and another four for his sister, were made to DOCS in the first 14 weeks of his life. We found that DOCS response to the first four reports was limited to a telephone call to police to establish the whereabouts of the family. Given the seriousness of the issues raised at the time of the baby's birth, it was our view that DOCS should have convened a Protection Planning Meeting with agencies involved with the family at the time. Such a meeting could have provided for the exchange of relevant information between the agencies, the development of a case plan to monitor and protect the baby, and an opportunity for the parents to discuss and to identify ways to address, the issues of concern.

However, DOCS did not commence a secondary risk of harm assessment until the day the children were placed with their relatives. We found that, given the seriousness of the issues raised for the children's safety, this was unreasonable. We also found that the risk assessment, when it finally occurred, was inadequate.

DOCS decided that the children would remain in the care of relatives for three months, even though the children's mother indicated that she did not want them to stay with these family members. The mother entered a drug and alcohol residential rehabilitation program the following day. DOCS did not sight the children again prior to the baby's death five weeks later.

DOCS did not assess the suitability of the relatives to act as carers for the children, nor did they assess the relative's home environment. The department did not arrange for any criminal records checks on the relatives. Had it done so, Police would have alerted the department that it would not be appropriate to place the two children with the relatives.

I again remind honourable members that we are talking about a 2½-month-old child and his 18-month-old sister—completely vulnerable and helpless. It continues:

Support and supervision of the placement was inadequate. The children were not seen by a DOCS caseworker throughout the duration of the placement, and the carers were not supervised.

We found evidence of poor casework supervision; poor documentation and file management; risk assessments did not comply with a supervisory direction; inadequate investigations of significant allegations; and case plans abandoned while identified risks remained unresolved.

DOCS internal review of the case found that the department's assessment and support of the placement was inadequate.

"Inadequate" is a marvellous word. I think it means a disgrace. It continues:

It noted that, following the death of the baby, the relevant DOCS region completed an audit of all carers in the region to establish whether relevant checks on the carers had been completed. Checks were completed for those not previously checked.

A week before the baby died, there was a domestic violence incident between the relative carers, during which the woman was injured. Police attended the incident but did not make a report to DOCS as no children had witnessed the assault. However, police knew that there were children in the home but were not aware of their status, as DOCS had not undertaken the required criminal checks prior to the temporary placement. Nevertheless, we found that the police should have recognised risk of harm on this occasion and made a report to DOCS.

DOCS internal review made no finding or recommendation in relation to the adequacy of the department's decision to pursue a temporary care agreement for the children rather than making an application to the Children's Court for a care order. We noted our concerns that, in such an environment, the needs of the children can be easily overshadowed and the focus of intervention becomes something other than the paramount consideration of safety, welfare and wellbeing of the child. We concluded that given the extensive child protection needs for the family, and the two younger children in particular, DOCS should have dealt with the case formally through the Children's Court, rather than informally through the use of a Temporary Care Agreement.

The department's internal review also noted that the discussions were under way between the department's staff development branch and the relevant region concerning the specific needs of staff working in the region. These staff often have to cover vast geographic distances, work alone, and in communities that have a history of conflict with the department. DOCS also told us that following the death of the baby, new practice guidelines were published, outlining care assessment and approval requirements in a range of care situations.

As a result of the concerns raised by our investigation we recommended that, if it had not done so already, DOCS should review the adequacy and efficiency of the supervisory arrangements for staff working with the DOCS office in question. We also recommended that DOCS, amongst other things:

• advise us of the outcome of the discussions between its central office and the region concerning staff development needs for the staff in the region, including strategies and actions resulting from these discussions

• provide us with details on the findings of the audit of carer checks that was conducted following the baby's death

• ensure that the review of the interagency child protection guidelines scheduled for 2006 consider the adequacy of the Guidelines as they relate to the exchange of information between DOCS and other agencies

• develop a consistent, statewide strategy for informing mandated reporters of DOCS assessment decisions following referral of risk of harm reports from the department's Helpline to its CSCs.

DOCS has informed us that it has accepted these recommendations. We will monitor their implementation.

The Ombudsman also made recommendations concerning the police and their failure to advise DOCS in relation to the children being in the home. NSW Police also accepted the recommendations and advised that it was taking steps to implement them. They are cases of protective intervention being undertaken, but according to what I read in the Daily Telegraph a week ago that is not possible as that has never been done in this State. However, these reports refer to countless examples where it may have happened for one person but not for another or where it does happen but is not done properly, with disastrous results. Clearly, this bill would not have prevented any of those deaths and does nothing for children in such a situation today.

During estimates hearings the director general gave a different version of this legislation from that given by the Minister as reported in the Daily Telegraph. I draw the attention of the House to a statement made in estimates on Tuesday 7 November. The Hon. Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans asked:

Dr Shepherd, I know there are some changes to the Adoption Amendment Act that reversed the onus of proof such that if one child is damaged the assumption is that the second one in that family would be removed, rather than the other way around. Is that right?

Dr Shepherd replied:

That is not in the adoption legislation. I thought that is what I heard you say. It is in the child protection legislation. There were court decisions a few years ago that determined that we could not rely on previous removals of children in taking the next job before the court. What happened in those cases was that you might have had six children removed because of the risk of harm. The seventh child comes along, as happens in these cases, and we would seek to have that child removed, relying on the evidence of the previous six in order to prevent any risk of harm to the young child, to the infant. The court determined that we could not do that.

The transcript continues:

The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS: Does that mean that you cannot lay that evidence?

Dr SHEPHERD: That evidence was not relevant. We had to prove for the seventh child that the seventh child was actually at risk of harm without relying on the previous evidence. What this amendment is about is the capacity to introduce similar fact evidence, as it is called, as a primary piece of evidence into the court. The court must consider it under the new proposals. The court does not have to just go with that evidence; the court makes its own decision, but at least it must consider it under the new proposals. Reversing the onus of proof was designed to get the person who was the birth parent of a child to demonstrate that the circumstances had changed. If they wanted to challenge the decision to remove, based on the similar fact evidence, then they would need to be able to show that circumstances had changed. So it is really just to protect children early in life when there is a series of similar circumstances in the history of the family.

The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS: Have there been any cases where the court did not take that into account and bad came out of that?

Dr SHEPHERD: It was as a result of court decisions that we were unable to take that evidence into account. This piece of legislation seeks to address the issue that was raised in the appeal court—

The Hon. Amanda Fazio: Point order: Whilst I am reluctant to raise a point of order on this issue, much of this material is already in the public domain. Newspaper articles and transcripts of estimates proceedings have been read out. It is in contravention of the standing orders that such publicly available material should be read out verbatim. I would ask you to consider my point of order and look at rulings of former Presidents in relation to this matter.

Ms Sylvia Hale: To the point of order: The material that the Hon. Catherine Cusack is reading out is absolutely germane to a central issue in this legislation. It is important for members of the House to have the benefit of the questions that were asked at the budget estimates hearings and the responses that were given by the director general of the department. The Hon. Catherine Cusack read articles from the Australian and the Daily Telegraph that were relevant to the points she was making when dealing with other aspects of the legislation. But when we are dealing with an issue that is central to the concerns of the Council of Social Service of New South Wales, Burnside Homes and the Law Society it is absolutely crucial that the director general's words be quoted in full so that members can understand the significance of the debate.

The Hon. Amanda Fazio: To the point of order: It is well recognised that it is acceptable in the course of debate for members to refer to comments made by people. My point of order arose because the member was reading verbatim onto the record articles from newspapers or Hansard transcripts of budget estimates, and I believe that is clearly outside the standing orders.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: To the point of order: The information I am giving to the House goes to the heart of the real reason for the bill being introduced. The information that is contained in what I am reading to the House gives a completely different reason for the bill being introduced. None of this information appeared in the Minister's second reading speech or in the newspapers. That is the point I am trying to make by drawing it to the attention of the House. I would not be so impertinent as to paraphrase Dr Shepherd and the information he gave to us regarding a court decision. It is absolutely crucial that the House have his precise words and explanation as to why the bill is before the House. As I said, it is a totally different version from that given by the Minister and the Government. It is very much in the interests of the House's consideration of the bill to understand exactly what is behind it. I need to have clearly on the record of this debate the words of Dr Shepherd.

The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Penny Sharpe): Order! Although Standing Order 91 (4) provides that a member may read reasonable extracts from books, newspapers, publications and documents, I ask the member not to read lengthy extracts.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: The committee transcript continues:

They do not have to prove the fourth one without the judge knowing about the previous three. Presumably if the judge knows about the previous three, you do not then have to reverse the onus of proof, which is one step further. The reason the legislation is in there is because the judges said they would not consider the evidence of the previous three. If you are working in the best interests of the child, the issue surely is that if there is substantial evidence from the previous, say, three, four, five or whatever number you want, then it ought to be up to the carer to show that the circumstances that led to the removal of those previous children had changed.

The Hon. Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans then sought further clarification. The transcript reads:

I am therefore worried that you wish to empower DOCS rather than empower the court …

Dr SHEPHERD: No. The way this works is that an appeal court determined that the similar fact evidence could not be taken into account. That binds at the Children's Court, even if the Children's Court wanted to take it into account, which previously the Children's Court had wanted to do. Previously we used to roll up with the evidence of the previous half dozen children or whatever and the Children's Court would say, "Yes, this child is clearly at risk of harm."

It seems that the newspapers are suggesting that this is the first time not only in Australia but also on the whole planet that this has ever happened; yet the director general told us that that is what they have always done. Quoting Dr Shepherd, the transcript continues:

Someone appealed that decision and the appeal court said, "No, you cannot take that into account." It is still the court that will make the decision, not DOCS. All this does is allow the court to take that evidence into account. It reverses the appeal court decision and so it is a positive step in the protection of children.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: Is it possible to cite the case? Has it been published?

Dr SHEPHERD: Yes. I can get the case, but I do not have it off the top of my head, and I will get the citation right.

I was very interested to learn that the court decision was the real reason for the bill before the House today. I believed that the judgment would have been very useful to have in our consideration of the bill. So when we re-scheduled a further estimates hearing for the Department of Community Services I followed up with this email request sent on 9 November to the budget estimates secretariat:

Can a request please be put to Community Services to bring and table the judgment for the court case concerning protective removal of children. (This was referred to in last Tuesday's estimates—it should be a simple document to find and bring).
Catherine—

I received the following reply at 9.00 a.m. the next day, 10 November:

Catherine, your request has been passed on to the Minister's office.

It was in my view the simplest of requests. Given that the case was at the heart of the legislation before the House, it could easily be cited. At an estimates hearing on Monday 13 November I again asked for the citation. The transcript reads:

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: At the last hearing I sought a reference to the High Court ruling in relation to protective removal of siblings.

Dr SHEPHERD: It was not a High Court decision; it was a District Court decision in New South Wales.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: A higher court.

Dr SHEPHERD: Higher court, yes. I said that we would get that for you, which we are in the process of doing. I need to get the judgment and also need to try to get the transcript from that case. I can certainly get the judgment, but what you will really need in order to get your head around it is the transcript.

It is disappointing not to have that reference to the court case that is the cause of this legislation. It is almost as disappointing as the Minister's failure to mention the court case in her second reading speech. The Minister presented the bill as an initiative to crack down on so-called deadbeat parents, when in fact from what the director general was telling our committee its objective is to restore existing practice. There is concern amongst groups in the community that the bill reverses the onus of proof. That perception is based on the Minister's version of the purpose of the bill. But on the director general's version, the bill restores past practice. How are we to know what this is all about? The only evidence I have before me today are newspaper clippings from the Daily Telegraph and the Australian, and some pages of draft transcript from the estimates committee hearing. However, I also have the Ombudsman's reports on reviewable deaths, and they certainly support the director general's version.

What the Minister is proposing is not new. Indeed, it was a lie in the name of political spin. Is it a coincidence that the director general has been unable to supply the committee with simple advice regarding the judgment, saying instead that we cannot have it until he can get the full transcript so we can "get our heads around it"? What is the use of giving us full information after the bill has been passed by the Parliament? Surely in the interests of honesty and credibility, the information should have been provided in time for our consideration of the legislation. I am sick of this Government's lies and cover-ups. It is clear that what we read in the media and now what we read in ministerial second reading speeches bears little resemblance to what is factually before the Parliament. This Government is withholding the judgment given by a higher court, all at taxpayers' expense. Taxpayers are not allowed to see it even though it is on the public record. The Government is denying the Opposition the reference it needs to find it. We needed the judgment prior to the bill being introduced so we could give it proper consideration. Given that according to the director general the issue arose "years ago", why has nothing been done until now? Maybe that is the question the Government is avoiding.

In the interests of transparency, I have placed on notice an order for papers to get the information given to a Daily Telegraph journalist but initially denied to this Parliament. I was reluctant to do this, because I do not want to interrupt the important processes of reviewable child death investigations. These are due for release in December—in just two weeks. Again, that is too late for consideration by the Parliament. Given that the Minister says these deaths are the reason for the legislation, we have a serious interest in learning more about them. Frankly, as a point of principle, I do not see why the Daily Telegraph should be given more information about a bill than the Parliament. Clearly, that is what would have happened had we not given notice of the call for papers. However, after the motion was put on notice, Minister Reba Meagher in another place tabled a document as part of her second reading speech. It contained some information, which I believe may be the same information given to the Daily Telegraph. Therefore, we have not persisted with our call for papers. The information provided by the Minister is a document entitled "Child Deaths and Critical Reports Unit—2005 Statistics". It appears to be a briefing note supplied by the department. It states:

The Minister's Office has requested information about:

1. the percentage of 2005 child deaths where there had been pre-natal reports

2. the percentage of 2005 child deaths where the child had been previously in care or siblings previously in care.

DoCS is aware of 104 children who died in 2005. It should be noted that the figure is different to the figure quoted in the Ombudsman's Draft Reviewable Deaths Report (117) as not all deaths of children are reported or known to DoCS.

Of the 104 children on the CDCR database:

? 16 (15%) - had pre-natal reports

? 18 (17%) - had previously been in care or had siblings previously in care.

Of the 18 children or their siblings in care:

? 9 (9%) had siblings who had been removed or placed in temp care

? 6 (5%) were taken into care and restored to parent:

? 4 subject to Children's Court Proceedings

? 2 subject to temporary care orders

? 3 (3%) were in care at the time of death

According to this document there were 117 reviewable deaths. I will take a moment to clarify what is a "reviewable death". The Child Deaths Review Team is an independent group that looks at all child deaths across the State and gathers statistics and analysis on the causes and the location of deaths. These cases are all referred to the Ombudsman, who runs a check of all cases through DOCS systems to ascertain which children were known to DOCS or the Department of Aging and Disability. In addition, if the children have a sibling known to either department, the cases become reviewable. As the Ombudsman Bruce Barbour said in the introduction to his 2003 report:

Reviewing the deaths of people for whom the government accepts at least some responsibility through the provision of services for their safety, welfare and wellbeing is an extension of the core work of an Ombudsman's office.

Our role is not only to ensure that agencies within our jurisdiction comply with the law, but also that they provide services ethically, fairly and to the standard expected by the community. Our review of the circumstances in which people died has allowed us an opportunity to assess the level and kind of services provided and to make recommendations for improvements.

The development of this new function has been challenging, not only because of all the administrative issues associated with setting up a team and establishing the best ways to approach the work, but because of the subject matter itself. We are mindful of the impact of any death on those who loved or cared for the person who died.

I plan to take some time of the House on this issue of reviewable deaths. Every year in December the Ombudsman's report is released, and unfortunately in the end of year rush it does not get the profound, sympathetic and detailed attention it deserves. I wish to express my deep respect and admiration for the task the Ombudsman Bruce Barbour has undertaken and for the integrity and professionalism with which he and his officers investigate and prepare reports. The reports make difficult and challenging reading, especially in the days leading up to Christmas, which should be a joyous time for children. They should be filled with thoughts of baby Jesus and Santa Claus, not enduring sustained and even fatal abuse. The Ombudsman's role is established under the Community Services (Complaints, Reviews, Monitoring) Act 1993. His key functions under the Act are:

(a) to monitor and review reviewable deaths,

(b) to formulate recommendations as to polices and practices to be implemented by government and service providers for the prevention or reduction of deaths of children in care, children at risk of death due to abuse or neglect, children in detention centres, correctional centres or lock-ups or persons in residential care,

(c) to maintain a register of reviewable deaths occurring in New South Wales after a date prescribed by the regulations classifying the deaths according to cause, demographic criteria or other factors prescribed by the regulations,

(d) to undertake research or other projects for the purpose of formulating strategies to reduce or remove risk factors associated with reviewable deaths that are preventable.

The Ombudsman is required to make a report each year on the work and activities related to the review of deaths. This report is to include data collection and relevant information, recommendations and information about the implementation or otherwise of previous recommendations.

All the agencies whose work is referred to in this report were given an opportunity to comment prior to publication. None made any critical comment about the content of the report. Where updated information was provided, it has been incorporated.

As I said, I congratulate the Ombudsman and his team on the fantastic job they do. Of course, their job is not simply to research and report on systemic issues revealed in the review of individual deaths; rather, their role includes keeping reporting systems under scrutiny, undertaking detailed reviews of information relating to reviewable deaths and analysing that data to identify patterns and trends and consulting people with relevant expertise. The difference between the Coroner's role and that of the Ombudsman is that the Coroner's investigation is focused on determining the manner and the cause of an individual's death. Only the Coroner is entitled to make those determinations in relation to an individual case. Of course, the Coroner does not investigate all reviewable deaths. The Coroner has a role in the issuing of death certificates for those individuals, especially in cases where they cannot be signed by any other person.

The coronial processes tend to focus on events immediately relevant to the death. The Coroner may hold an inquest to underlie systemic issues surrounding a death, but that is done in only a small proportion of cases. In contrast, the Ombudsman is able to look not so much at the cause of the death but at the context of it and the system-wide issues. The Ombudsman looks at individual deaths in order to prevent future deaths. Both agencies play a very important role. By co-operating, they are able to maximise the use of information in relation to child deaths I understand that the co-ordination of the two agencies is excellent and is doing a great deal to advise government.

The issue of concern for me relates to what is being done with all that advice and whether we are using that information to plug gaps and prevent future deaths. Two advisory committees have been established by the Ombudsman's Office to deal with the process of child death review. The membership of those committees is worth noting because they are both expert committees, they are not well known, and the work they do is immensely valuable, particularly with regard to complex child or disability death matters, as the Ombudsman said. They are also able to provide independent advice to the Ombudsman on policy, health and practice issues. Both committees play an important role in the preparation of the Ombudsman's annual report.

I will not to refer further to the Reviewable Disability Death Advisory Committee because that committee is not the subject of this legislation. I wish to acknowledge the hardworking members of the Reviewable Child Death Advisory Committee and the marvellous job they do. I thank them for their work, which must be very difficult indeed. The committee is chaired by Mr Bruce Barbour, who is the Ombudsman. Mr Steve Kinmond is the Deputy Ombudsman and Community and Disability Services Commissioner. Dr Ian Cameron is the Chief Executive Officer of the New South Wales Rural Doctors Network, based in Lismore. Dr Judy Cashmore, an outstanding academic who is internationally known for her work, is Associate Professor of the Faculty of Law at the University of Sydney and an honorary research associate at the Social Policy Research Centre of the University of New South Wales. Not many people bridge those two great institutions. Dr Cashmore is also Chair of the Association of Children's Welfare Agencies, a member of the Ministerial Advisory Council to the Minister for Community Services and a member of the New South Wales Department of Community Services' Research Advisory Council.

Dr Michael Fairley is a consultant psychiatrist and head of the Department of Child and Adolescent Mental Health at Prince of Wales Hospital and Sydney Children's Hospital. Dr Jonathan Gillis is a senior staff specialist in intensive care and Chairman of the Division of Critical Care and Diagnostic Services at the Children's Hospital at Westmead. Dr Bronwyn Gould, AM, is a child protection consultant and medical practitioner. She is also deputy chair of the Commonwealth Ministerial Advisory Council for Children and Parenting and Chair of NAPCAN Advisory Council. She is a member of the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, and the Association of Children's Welfare Agencies.

Ms Pam Greer is a community worker, trainer and consultant working in the Northern Territory, Queensland and New South Wales. Ms Greer has worked on projects for the Aboriginal community for a range of government departments, and also worked extensively in the fields of child protection and domestic violence. Ms Greer is a member of the Indigenous Women's Committee through the Women's Legal Centre. Dr Ferry Grunseit, AM, whom I remember from many years ago and who has devoted a lifetime of work for children, is a consultant paediatrician. He is also a former director of emergency and outpatient services and head of the Child Protection Unit at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, at Camperdown. Dr Grunseit was formerly chair of the New South Wales Child Protection Council and the New South Wales Child Advocate.

Associate Professor Judith Irwin is the head of the school of social work and policy studies, in the faculty of education and social work at the University of Sydney. Ms Tracey Sheedy is the Acting Registrar of the Local Court Family Matters, the Children's Court at St James, and a Children's Registrar. She is also the Manager of the Guardian ad Litem Panel, which was set up for the Children's Court, and editor of Children's Law News. She is a part-time member of the Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal. Ms Alice Silva is an Aboriginal senior consultant for Disability Services, in the Department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care. Ms Toni Single is a senior clinical psychologist with the child protection team at John Hunter Children's Hospital in Newcastle.

This fabulously well-qualified, committed and proven team of people underpin the work of the Ombudsman, and each of them is nationally known for their work, their independence, and their compassion and concern for children. It is very reassuring to know that that is the calibre of the people who underpin the Ombudsman's report. In addition to the role of the Ombudsman I have just outlined, during 2003-04, the committee's initial year of operation, the committee undertook additional tasks that have assisted in terms of our understanding of and policy responses to the deaths of children known to the Department of Community Services. Five investigations were conducted under section 16 of the Ombudsman Act, and three preliminary inquiries were conducted under section 13AA of the Act. The Ombudsman made risk of harm reports to the Department of Community Services in relation to 11 children, who were siblings of children whose deaths were reviewed by the committee. It is disturbing that a child can die yet the Department of Community Services does not investigate what is happening with the other children in the family. However, thankfully the Ombudsman is there to draw attention to that.

The committee notified DOCS of the death of a child in very similar circumstances to the previous death of a sibling. This is where having a register is so beneficial and having an overview of what is going on to be able to detect that type of case, which may otherwise slip through the cracks. The committee also referred four matters to the State Coroner for further consideration. The committee also undertakes a strong educative role, and I congratulate it on that. It conducted seven seminars across New South Wales to inform non-government disability service providers about the new requirements for reporting deaths in their services. The committee also delivered two seminars on the deaths of people with a disability and epilepsy management issues. Working across both types of deaths is an enormous task. It is not a well-known area of work for the Ombudsman, particularly because of the timing of the tabling of the reviewable deaths report, which has always been in December. It is a shame that that amazing document and the work that goes into putting it together is not better known in the public arena, and I hope that I may be able to shine light on that in the House today.

The Ombudsman maintains a register of reviewable child deaths. This register lists children who died during the reporting period. The initial information on the register comes from the New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. That is the primary source of information regarding reviewable deaths. As the Government is well aware, because I had been raising this issue for nearly two years without success, I believe the source of information is too narrow and excludes many child deaths in communities where a death certificate is normally issued by an interstate hospital. For example, I refer to my region of the New South Wales, the North Coast, which is also known as the Northern Rivers. It relies on Brisbane hospitals for tertiary level services. A gravely ill or injured child will often be transported by ambulance or helicopter to Brisbane Children's Hospital. A New South Wales child may be fatally injured over the border in Queensland, with the same result. There is lot of movement between our communities who live on the border.

These deaths of New South Wales children are not recorded by the New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages because the death certificates are issued in Queensland and apparently it is too much to expect States to share that type of information. It profoundly affects the North Coast. It also affects the Monaro, the South Coast and the Southern Tablelands regions around the Australian Capital Territory. The tertiary hospital services are in Canberra, and information is not being shared. For the northern sections of New England, including Tenterfield, the nearest teaching hospital is in Brisbane. For Broken Hill and the far west, dying children will be transported to Adelaide and their deaths will be recorded in South Australia. For children living in the Riverina and along the Victoria border, there is a likelihood that hospital services for chronically ill and injured children will be in Melbourne.

These are very substantial communities; it is logical to be accessing interstate resources. However, the lack of information sharing means that deaths in those areas are not being recorded by the New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Because the registry is the sole information source for data collected by the Child Death Review Team and the New South Wales Ombudsman, I believe more than 100 child deaths in New South Wales have been excluded from the review of the Child Death Review Team and an unknown subset of that will have been excluded from the Ombudsman's review.

It is important to point out to NSW Health that this has an effect on organ donations and distorts figures relating to the number of organs available for transplant. New South Wales is notorious for having the lowest proportion of organ donors. However, I am not sure that this is the case because organs are recorded at the place of collection and are then available to the particular State for its organ transplant programs. New South Wales has the longest transplant waiting lists in Australia. I am convinced this is because of the red tape involved in recording the collection of organs and relates to so many of our citizens having their deaths recorded in hospitals outside New South Wales. I wrote to the Minister for Health on this issue and received a reply from the then Parliamentary Secretary, Cherie Burton, conceding this point.

I know that cross-border issues and red tape between States are not simple issues to address. However, they are problems worth solving. Without doubt, patients die while on transplant waiting lists in New South Wales who would not have died if all the organs that were donated by our citizens but collected interstate could be counted towards New South Wales waiting lists. I note that those cross-border communities would benefit because their transplant operations normally occur in those interstate hospitals.
Many Aboriginal people live in cross-border communities, such as Lismore, Casino, Broken Hill, Bega and Queanbeyan. I believe that Aboriginal child deaths are being substantially underreported. The data is presented by the team as being comprehensive. I note that since I have been raising these issues there are some footnotes, but they remain footnotes. It still presents itself as comprehensive and thus very credible information. However, the truth is that child deaths are being underreported from some very underprivileged communities. Underreporting can lead to under reaction by the Government, which may fail to see emerging trends and issues as a result. Ultimately, this can lead to underservicing. I first raised the issue of recording New South Wales child deaths in interstate hospitals with the Commissioner for Children and Young People on 15 December 2004. The Commissioner for Children and Young People, Ms Calvert, replied on 24 December 2004. I will read, in part, her response:

As indicated in the Teams Annual report (page 4), our principal source of data is Death Registration data for the state of New South Wales obtained from the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. We receive information on all child deaths registered. The Child Death Register, maintained by the Child Death Review Team, only includes deaths which are both registered and occur in NSW. Deaths of children who die outside of NSW are not included.

She continued:

The Child Death Review Team in NSW is not able to access death registration data for deaths registered in other states, such as Queensland, nor access information from authorities outside NSW, even if the children were residents of NSW.

Ms Calvert suggested that the Child Death Review Team would, however, have a look at the issue and identify whether it was statistically significant and whether many deaths were being missed. As a person who lives on the North Coast, it seemed to me that many of our child deaths occurred in Queensland. The North Coast is two hours away from Queensland by ambulance. The Westpac helicopter does a fabulous job. If it is called to an incident on the surf, it will pick the person up and once they have been triaged as being gravely injured or ill they will be taken straight to Queensland. Such deaths are being recorded in Queensland.

I was grateful that the Child Death Review Team was going to look at this report. I subsequently met with Ms Calvert again. She has written back to me and indicated that the team did some more work on this issue by looking at statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS]_which records the person's death, residential postcode and the postcode in which he or she dies. I was not previously aware that it undertook that statistical task. It seems to collect data on everything. The statistics suggested that 40 per cent of child deaths in the Richmond-Tweed statistical area may be registered in Queensland and not recorded in New South Wales. I believe that figure applies substantially to local children. For example, some children who are not from the community may be injured_for example, in a road accident on the Pacific Highway. They may be but passing through our community. They would be taken to Brisbane. But, I refer to the 40 per cent—a huge percentage of deaths. Deaths in the Richmond-Tweed are being under reported to the tune of 40 per cent, which is a huge distortion—and that is just for our region.

On 25 October last year I again raised the issue in the House. I reminded that House that we are talking about dozens of infant and child deaths that they had looked at through the ABS figures over three years. I expressed my hope that the matter could be resolved so that those deaths that are captured are properly recorded and reported upon. As an interim solution I suggested that parts of the data that has been published in the report should not be published at all. I am particularly referring to the map of New South Wales. They are colour maps. The maps indicate by using various shades of red which areas are recording statistically high numbers of child deaths. A lighter shading of red indicates a below average number of State deaths.

I refer to the map of New South Wales, where we find exactly what I predicted. For some reason, the areas around the Broken Hill region are dark red and in Broken Hill it is very light. My explanation for that is that many of those children's deaths are not been recorded. We should not assume that there is a much lower rate in Broken Hill. Nor should we assume that the Tweed has the lowest infant mortality rate in the State, which continues to be claimed. This data could mislead NSW Health. Because that type of data is so comprehensive and credible it could have follow-through effects that are negative for our area.

During the estimates committees I took the opportunity to raise again with the Commissioner for Children child deaths in cross-border regions. I asked her whether it is still fair to say that when a death certificate is issued in an interstate hospital_such as Brisbane, Adelaide or Melbourne_New South Wales is not notified of the death. Therefore, it is not included in the Births, Deaths and Marriages Register, it is not being included in the review of all child deaths and it is not being captured as part of the reviewable child deaths process. The Department of Community Services, for example, could be misled into thinking that there are no child deaths in those cross-border regions when, in fact, there could be a large number that are just not being reported. Ms Calvert replied and confirmed that the legislation governing the Child Death Review Team requires it to look at and analyse the deaths registered in New South Wales. Unfortunately, she again said:

The deaths that are registered in other States are not included in the study that we undertake. We called a National Child Death Review or an Australian and New Zealand Child Death Review Team meeting at the end of last year and there was agreement that we should try to explore ways in which we can overcome that. It requires changes to legislation if it is to be done nationally. Some States are at this stage less than keen to change their legislation for a variety of reasons so we are now trying in New South Wales to enter into some bilateral agreements between the States that border pass, particularly the Australian Capital Territory and Victoria, to see whether we can get an agreement for them to release that information to us.

There is a huge region surrounding Canberra. I am very conscious of those issues, having grown up near Yass. Canberra is the regional centre. For example, the maternity unit at Yass Hospital was closed some years ago. Therefore, women in Yass now go to Canberra to have their babies. It would appear that no deaths are associated with births for women in Yass. However, that is a false impression because any such death would be recorded only in the Australian Capital Territory. New South Wales surrounds the Australian Capital Territory so why can we not possibly have some arrangement of sharing health records from the territory with the rest of the New South Wales system? So much of the health budget in that area goes into Canberra.

I recall hearing somewhere that the major funding source for the Australian Capital Territory health system is the New South Wales Government. I have heard the Minister for Health talk about his efforts to try to come to better funding arrangements. Why not include some equitable arrangement for records, particularly relating to child deaths? That is valuable and important information. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be able to be organised. Ms Calvert has agreed to give me some ABS figures. She thought they may have been reported in the annual report. However, I checked the annual report this year and they are not included in it. However, I hope those statistics will come to me through the estimates committees process.

[The Deputy-President (The Hon. Amanda Fazio) left the chair at 7.00 p.m. The House resumed at 8.00 p.m.]

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK [8.00 p.m.]: Earlier I was expressing my disappointment about the way the bill had been presented.

The Hon. Amanda Fazio: Who cares?

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: I note the Hon. Amanda Fazio's interjection that no-one cares and this is a lot of rubbish.

The Hon. Amanda Fazio: As if anyone cares about your contribution.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: I care a great deal about this legislation. I am sick to death of the Government's misleading political spin that is covering up a very serious issue, the way the bill has been brought before the House and the dishonest way it has been represented. The Minister claimed that the Government will crack down on deadbeat parents in order to get a great run in the media versus the director general explaining that this is the result of a court decision made a number of years ago—two completely different versions. Of course, the real version is not available to the House because of the contempt with which the Government treats the Parliament when it puts such stunts through.

The Hon. Peter Primrose: Be concise! That's all we are saying.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: The Hon. Peter Primrose is asking me to be concise. The Government pays no attention to anything. I apologise if it is inconvenient for Government members to listen to the results of the Government's neglect and its excuses over 12 years. However, tonight I will put it on the record and for as long as it takes because, believe me, the wreckage in the community is substantial and it takes quite some time to describe—the missed opportunities, the things that could have been done, the things that the Government is ignoring. I am in the middle of talking about child deaths and the way reviewable deaths are recorded and reported. There is a gaping hole in how that information is collected. I have been asking about that gaping hole for nearly two years now, and again nothing has been done.

I am so tired of reading in newspapers the Government's stunts at the expense of real action to protect children, because the Government's neglect is a disgrace. The neglect is not just a political disgrace; it has real human impacts on children who are utterly helpless, vulnerable and unable to assist themselves. Our community expects the Government to do a better job. The Government gets 10 out of 10 for the spin. However, I am tired of it, and I take this opportunity to do so, as is my right as a member.
[Interruption]

I note Government members interjecting, complaining and carrying on because a member of Parliament wishes to exercise her right to place these matters on the record. That is so typical of the Government's arrogance, love of secrecy and hatred of hearing the truth, and that is what I am here to do tonight. The Government has misled the Parliament about the purpose and intent of the legislation. It claimed to have consulted on matters on which it has not consulted at all. The only thing I will say about this legislation is that despite the lion's roar that the Government has put out in the media, it is a tempered bill and, as a result, the Opposition will not oppose it. However, we will highlight the deficiencies in the way the Government administers child protection and the consequences of it. That is why I take this opportunity to put my protest on the record tonight. Earlier I spoke about the Child Death Review Team's use of the New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages—

The Hon. Henry Tsang: Your speech for the past two hours is on the public record so you do not need to repeat it now.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: I am not repeating the estimates committee. Earlier I was quoting a transcript from Neil Shepherd, the Director General of the Department of Community Services, which has direct relevance and bearing on this legislation. The estimates process was invaluable. It is ironic that this Parliament has become such a show. Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile referred to 45 pieces of legislation. I am not aware of 45 pieces of legislation but nothing would surprise me. I can only anticipate that it is the Government's desire, in a very brutal way, to ram these important reforms through the Parliament, and it is my right, as a member of Parliament, to say, "I've had enough."

The Hon. Amanda Fazio: Point of order: My point of order is relevance. The Hon. Catherine Cusack has spent the past six minutes whingeing and whining about conspiracies that exist only inside her head. She has not addressed the bill before the House. I ask you to direct her to the leave of the bill and to stop boring us with her insane ranting.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: To the point of order: If the Hon. Amanda Fazio is so eager to allow me to contribute and to continue with the rest of my prepared remarks, I suggest that you advise her and her three colleagues to cease interjecting. It will enable this to go much more smoothly.

The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Christine Robertson): Order! I remind members that injections are disorderly at all times, and I advise the Hon. Catherine Cusack that it is out of order for the member with the call to respond to interjections.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: Earlier I referred to the great gaping hole in the manner in which the New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages does not record cross-border deaths of children. Clearly, the solution is collaboration between the States so that deaths are recorded in other States, including Queensland, South Australia and Victoria, which have borders with New South Wales. Deaths occur in other States but because tertiary hospitals for certain New South Wales areas are located in other States, there should be a system in place so that deaths recorded in those places where New South Wales residents are sent to as a matter of course can be captured and, as a result, be included in the child death review process and in the report of reviewable deaths collected by the Ombudsman.

As I said, I raised this issue nearly two years ago. During the estimates committee hearings I tried to clarify what progress has been made, and I was advised by the Children's Commissioner that the issue with Queensland is not simply legislation; it also has to do with sensitivities in the police force and the release of that information by the police.

It is quite clear to me that the situation is complex because it involves multiple agencies in a cross-border situation, but at least the information concerning death surely could be reported and captured in the New South Wales system so that we do not have this gaping hole into which information is escaping. I repeat: When the annual reports are published and these maps of New South Wales—colour-coded—are published, they are grossly misleading and understate the number of child deaths in those cross-border areas. We would not have a clue about what is happening with child deaths but we are publishing information that gives the impression that we do know. That is dangerous. I do not apologise for raising that problem again.

The problem can be solved between governments but the matter must be given priority. The Minister and the department need to tell the Premier how ridiculous the situation is, and the impact it is having on data, which potentially flows through to the way resources are allocated and what services are delivered. This is one of the most important issues affecting cross-border communities and it is directly relevant to reviewable deaths and what is being excluded from the process. It distorts the information being received by the Department of Community Services. As I said earlier, I think Aboriginal deaths, particularly, are being underreported.

The Children's Commissioner, Gillian Calvert, has tried. I am grateful that she and her team have looked into the issue. They know the situation is wrong but they need political clout. This is why we have elected governments and people in power to set priorities. Unfortunately, this Government, through ignorance, distraction or for whatever reason, does not regard it as a priority. That is why this ridiculous situation is allowed to persist—two years after it was raised and people agreed it was a serious problem. Some bilateral agreements are now being negotiated but this issue is particularly urgent and requires action at a political level.

The Government needs to take up this issue and deliver results so that those communities can have proper information about potential patterns of problems that remain secret. The impression is given that we have the full information, but those communities do not. I urge the Government to address that. I state formally my disappointment with the lack of progress. It seems to me that Government commitment is missing. It is clear that the Government is not troubled by the deaths of these children even though it is aware that these deaths are not being recorded. It knows they are not being captured or investigated, and that is a disgrace.

The Hon. Henry Tsang: What about the legislation?

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: The legislation needs to be introduced by the Government. It involves privacy laws and cross-border agreements, which must be conducted at a political level. This matter will just drag on ad infinitum unless somebody picks up the ball and runs with it. As I have said, I believe that in excess of 100 deaths of children have gone into this black hole. The lack of care and attention to detail, and the skin-deep obsession to the media destroy any shred of respect we might have once had for the Labor Party. This is no longer the traditional Labor Party. These are vulnerable, helpless children and the community expects the Government to protect them and accord their needs the highest priority. But Government members turn a blind eye; they offer excuses, bluster and interject. Indeed, when the Government gets caught out, the default position appears to be to lie.

I am convinced that the true purpose of this so-called deadbeat parents legislation is to pre-empt the release of the 2005 reviewable child deaths report. I fear we are facing yet another report highlighting, for the third year in a row, deficiencies in the system that have been the subject of prior recommendations that have not been implemented or have been otherwise ignored. Today I want to put a human face on the problem and to take House through some of the reviewable child deaths that have been highlighted in past Ombudsman's reports by way of case studies. I emphasise that this is not all of the reports. For example, a small selection of case studies, and the worst case studies, involving people who are now facing charges for their crimes against these children, are not included in the report because of the need to respect the judicial process.

Nevertheless, these case studies are more than adequate to highlight what these children have endured during their short lives at the hands of parents and carers and at the hands of a system that does not give them sufficient consideration. That is why I would like to read some of these stories to the House tonight. I believe some good can come of this if honourable members realise the appalling and urgent nature of these problems. It is too late for the children whose cases will come up but it is not too late for those children who can be saved if the Government gives the issue the high priority it deserves. There can be no higher priority for any civilised community.

In the 2003 reviewable child deaths report the Ombudsman reviewed 84 deaths of children known to DOCS. During the period in which deaths were reviewed, which ran from 1 December 2002 to 31 December 2003—a 13-month period—605 children died in New South Wales. Of those 605 children 161 deaths were reviewable under the Ombudsman's functions, which I have already outlined to the House. The Ombudsman examined age, gender, Aboriginality, place of residence and then cross-referenced information about any risk of harm reports to DOCS in the three years prior to the death, and then also examined whether any siblings were notified to the department prior to the death of the child. I emphasise that the Ombudsman has a fairly tight definition of "sibling". It is not somebody unknown who lives in another State. One needs to be in the same household and related. It is a very fair definition of reports involving the household or the family to which the child is attached.

In 2003-04 the Ombudsman reviewed 161 deaths. Of the total number of 605 deaths, 48 were of Aboriginal children. Thirty of the deaths of Aboriginal children were reviewable—that is 30 out of 48. Fourteen Aboriginal children died in circumstances related to abuse or neglect or in suspicious circumstances. Of the 161 reviewable child deaths, 137 were reviewed more closely. The additional information the Ombudsman obtained related to police reports of the deaths to the Coroner, autopsy reports, coronial findings where available, and inquest decisions, the reason being the difficulty in establishing cause of death or the research that needs to be undertaken to get the system to give up what the final decision was in relation to the death.

Of those 137 deaths, 10 were of children who died in care—five in foster care funded by DOCS, three in DOCS placements and two in non-government organisation placements. Three children in voluntary care were in services funded by the Department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care, so I do not include them for the purpose of this discussion, and two children were in respite care. Of the 137 deaths reviewed more closely, 103 were deaths of children where there had been a risk of harm report to DOCS for the child and/or a sibling within three years preceding the death. Information recorded on DOCS database about risk of harm reports and protective intervention for 101 of the children was included in the Ombudsman's report. Of the 137 deaths, 83 were of children who died in circumstances related to abuse or neglect or in suspicious circumstances. Thirteen died in circumstances related to abuse, 23 died in circumstances related to neglect, 47 died in other suspicious circumstances and 53 were of children who themselves or their siblings had been reported. No child died in a children's detention centre, a correctional centre or a lock-up during that reporting period.

The age and gender of the 161 children who died were reviewed, and 52 per cent of the deaths were of children aged under five years. Rightly, that is a major focus of the Department of Community Services because such children are even less able to fend for themselves than older children, although I must place on record my great concern particularly for adolescents, who appear to be not being serviced by DOCS at all. About a third of the deaths—57—were of infants aged under one year, 31 of the deaths were of children aged 5 to 12 years, and 46, or 29 per cent, of the deaths were of teenagers aged 13 to 17 years. Interestingly, slightly more boys than girls died. Other reports show a much greater disparity between the numbers of boys and girls. It seems that the gender balance of children notified to DOCS was more even in this year.

It was found that 83, or 61 per cent, of the 137 children died in circumstances related to neglect, abuse or suspicious circumstances. I will not detail the definitions. The Coroner could not determine the cause of death in nine of the 137 matters, and that is of concern. But I imagine that it is difficult to identify a cause of death for babies. Fifty-four, or 39 per cent, of the 137 children whose deaths were reviewed died from natural causes with no suspicious circumstances. Health issues were the most frequent cause of death of those 54 children. With regard to abuse deaths, one child died by drowning, one by shooting, two by stabbing or having their throats cut, one through strangulation and one through suffocation. For 70, the coronial process is not finalised yet.
With neglect deaths, two died of disease, six of drowning as a result of neglect, seven in traffic accidents, and for 48 the coronial process is not finalised. With suspicious incident deaths, particularly in relation to infants, one died of disease, one died in a shooting accident, another in a traffic accident, two of an overdose, nine committed suicide, and for another 20 the coronial process is not yet final. With natural or unexpected deaths that were not suspicious, 31 died of disease, one of sudden infant death syndrome, two of choking or suffocation, two from a fall or a jump and three in traffic accidents, and for 15 the coronial process is not yet finalised.

What is particularly interesting is the place where the death occurred. In 46 per cent of cases it occurred in the child's own home. In only 5 per cent of cases it occurred in somebody else's home. In 20 per cent of cases it occurred in a hospital or health facility, presumably after the child had been transferred there fatally injured or ill. Three occurred in residential services, one in a swimming pool, two in a natural body of water, 11 on a roadway or a driveway, two at a railway station and 10 at another location. With 46 per cent of the deaths occurring at the child's home, it is clear that the most likely place for such children to die is in the home. It is a sad reflection to say that for these children the most dangerous place in the world is their own home. It is difficult to give information on the cause of death by age from the tabulated form in which it is given so I will leave that information.

The majority of the 137 children came from smaller families. Sixteen had no siblings, 61 children, or 45 per cent, had one or two siblings and approximately one-third of the children came from larger families with three or more siblings. The majority of children, or 82 per cent, lived with at least one biological parent. Twenty-four children, or 18 per cent, were not living with a biological parent at the time of their death. That included eight infants aged less than 10 weeks who had health complications at birth and were never discharged from hospital. Five children died in a disability accommodation service, five lived in foster care and three in care provided by DOCS and two were with non-government service providers. Two children lived with extended family and two teenagers lived independently. One child lived with an adoptive parent and one child lived in a nursing home.

In terms of the weeks between the date of the last DOCS reports and the actual date of death, for 32, or 23.4 per cent of cases, the last report to DOCS had been less than 13 weeks before; for 11.6 per cent the last report to DOCS had been between 14 and 26 weeks before; for 4.4 per cent the last report had been between 27 and 39 weeks before; for 3.7 per cent it had been between 40 and 52 weeks before; and for 18 per cent it had been more than 52 weeks before. That figure of 23.4 per cent in the under 13 weeks group is disturbing. I will deal with some of them in the case studies mentioned by the Ombudsman in his 2004 report. The first five case studies deal with children who passed away under the care of the disability department. I will restrict my comments, as I said, to the children who were reviewable because they were known to the Department of Community Services.

Case study No. 6 refers to a nine-week-old boy who died of sudden infant death syndrome. When he was three days old a report was made concerning his mother's failure to seek appropriate antenatal care, drug use during pregnancy and a recent episode of drug-induced psychosis. Helpline staff did not conduct a full search of the client information system [CIS] when the report was made. As a consequence, the infant's family history was not considered when determining the level of risk to the newborn infant. Fourteen reports were made to DOCS about the infant's three siblings in the previous three years. Issues raised in those reports included parental drug and alcohol use, lack of parenting ability, inadequate food, inadequate supervision, unsuitable housing and lack of adequate medical attention. The Helpline recorded the report in relation to the newborn infant as requiring a level four or information only response. The report was not transferred to the local community service centre [CSC]. In other words, the notification was never assessed as being one to be acted on. DOCS advised that it was not aware of the infant's death until the Ombudsman sought further information eight months after the infant had died.

Case study No. 7 involved an adolescent who died after falling from a cliff at the age of 15. She had been reported to DOCS 17 times in the three years prior to her death. A number of people including mandatory reporters made these reports but they were similar in nature: they concerned carer drug use, parental neglect and abandonment, physical abuse and domestic violence. Four reports were assessed as being for intake only or for information only. Ten reports were recorded as an initial assessment but were closed at the CSC without further assessment. The last report, made five months prior to the girl's death, was assessed as level four, requiring action if future reports were received and to assess risks and available resources. The report was closed under priority one policy eight weeks prior to the girl's death.

It is important to highlight these cases because there is no connection between the bill, which the Minister says is going to save young lives, and the cases that I am highlighting tonight. Case study No. 8 involved a 3½-year-old girl who was found dead in a neighbour's swimming pool. She was first reported to DOCS four days after her birth, the report of neglect being confirmed and registered. The child's mother had already had a child removed due to a history of neglect including inadequate food, clothing and supervision, together with reports of chronic domestic violence and alcohol abuse. The risks do not appear to have diminished: in the last 14 months of the child's life nine reports were made about her, including four further reports of neglect, six of which were closed without assessment.

A secondary risk of harm assessment was conducted following a second report about neglect, at which time the child was two-and-a-half years old. The allegations of neglect and inadequate supervision were not substantiated by this risk of harm assessment. The caseworker reported her as "a small, very thin and pale child, completely nonverbal during the visit and very keen to climb through the back fence to the neighbour's yard". The caseworker also noted that she was a child at risk in view of the circumstances of her older sibling, but concluded that the future risk level to the child was low and that DOCS could monitor the situation by engaging the services of a non-governmental organisation with the mother, attendant groups, speech pathology and dietetic services. The mother was also given information about local childcare centres. No appropriate protection planning meetings were held with other agencies, even when recommended by the Helpline.

There were eight further reports following the secondary risk of harm assessment. Concerns expressed about this little girl were that she was filthy, inadequately dressed, had significantly delayed speech and was cross-eyed, but no corrective intervention was occurring. She was also being physically, verbally and emotionally abused by her relatives and she was left unsupervised in the backyard for long periods. She was regularly seeking food and comfort from neighbours, and became distressed when escorted home. Not all the reports were confirmed and the outcome of some assessments is not recorded. However, there is no indication of a re-evaluation of the previous conclusion that the risk to the child was low.

In case study No. 9 a young child was reported to DOCS three times by three different mandatory reporters in the six weeks prior to his death. All three reports concerned the mental health of the child's parent and the parent's threat to kill the child and to commit suicide. The first report was assessed as requiring a level two response. DOCS contacted the mental health team and was advised that it had arranged follow up with the parent and there were no immediate concerns. DOCS then left two phone messages for the parent to make contact. This report was still open when the child died in circumstances that reflected the concerns reported to DOCS. The second report, made nine days after the first report, concerned threats by the parent of self harm and harm to the child. This report was not linked to the first report because the child's surname was spelled differently and a phonetic check was either not done or failed to link the two names, although the address was the same. According to files, the report was closed under priority one 16 days later, two weeks earlier than prescribed by priority one policies.

A third report was made to the Helpline three weeks before the child died, again concerning the parent's threat to kill the child and commit suicide. The reporter was told that DOCS was aware of and was following up the issues. Despite the child not attending preschool, DOCS records note that the family member and the preschool would contact the Helpline again if they had any "future and/or major concerns". The second report was not identified in the initial assessment of this report. DOCS issued a formal request for information from the relevant mental health team, but did not sight the child or parent. Honourable members opposite wonder why the shadow Minister continues to ask about home visits. It was established during the estimates committee hearings that home visits are not recorded because apparently they are not relevant in assessing the department's performance. No response was received by the time the child died. The third report was closed under priority one some months after the child's death.

Case study No. 10 involved a four-month-old infant who died in a bed-sharing incident. The Coroner was unable to determine the cause of death. At the time of her death the child was sharing a bed with her 15-month-old brother and her mother, who was intoxicated. There was an extensive history of DOCS involvement with the family as a result of long-term parental drug and alcohol abuse, neglect and poor parenting. Six other siblings had been placed in relatives' care and one other sibling had reportedly died from "cot death". Four reports concerning neglect, carer drug and alcohol use, and parental homelessness were made in the 12 months prior to the infant's death. The family was living on the streets in the weeks leading up to the infant's death. Despite the long history of DOCS involvement with the family and the two risk of harm reports about the mother's transience while caring for two children under 15 months of age, no secondary risk of harm assessment was undertaken by DOCS, and the department provided no assistance to the mother to help establish stable accommodation for her and the two children. The issues of homelessness, substance abuse and inadequate parenting would have been more readily identified in the conduct of a comprehensive secondary risk of harm assessment.

Case study No. 11 involved a mandatory reporter making a report to DOCS about an adolescent's psychosis and disclosure of possible sexual abuse. The Helpline allocated the case a level one priority and forwarded the report to the local community service centre [CSC] and Joint Investigative Response Team [JIRT]. The JIRT rejected the referral. The CSC downgraded the response to level three on the basis that it could not have been urgent because the reporter had seen the child on a Monday and had not sent a fax to the Helpline until the Wednesday. The CSC advised the reporter of the downgrading and the report was subsequently closed under priority one. A further report was made about the child's sibling three months later concerning physical abuse and neglect. The report for that child was also closed at priority one. How on earth is this bill going to save these children? The adolescent committed suicide two months later aged 17.

Case study No. 12 involved a five-and-a-half-year-old boy with global developmental delay, autism and severe epilepsy who drowned in a bathtub while suffering an epileptic seizure. No traces of anticonvulsant medication were found in his system at autopsy. Four reports regarding parental noncompliance with anticonvulsant medication were made by DOCS in the 18 months prior to his death. Three of those reports followed the boy's admission to hospital with seizures. On two admissions, blood levels revealed inadequate levels of anticonvulsant medication in his system, leading doctors to warn that failure to properly mediate the boy placed him at risk of suffering an epileptic seizure and drowning while in the bath. This child was five and a half years old and he simply needed his medication. The last report concerning the boy was made 13 months prior to his death following another hospital admission for seizures. A secondary risk of harm assessment was commenced three weeks later. The assessment noted the boy's vulnerability due to developmental disability, the history of parental noncompliance with medication, the potential for seizures—

The Hon. Peter Primrose: Point of order: The point of order has been made consistently before_that is, it is perfectly in order under the standing orders for a member to read reasonable extracts. I would argue that "reasonable" has an objective standard. That objective standard is being abused by this member. She cannot be concise on this issue. I would not wish to say that that reflects on her understanding of it. However, having said that, Madam Deputy-President, I ask you to draw her back to making her arguments concisely and not reading lengthy extracts that are beyond reasonable. The member is perfectly entitled under the standing orders to read reasonable extracts of books. However, she is not entitled to read the whole book or chapters. I believe she is abusing the standing orders, and I ask you to bring her back to delivering a speech and not simply reading lengthy documents into Hansard that are publicly available.

The Hon. Melinda Pavey: To the point of order: If the honourable member were taking greater notice of the Hon. Catherine Cusack's contribution, he would appreciate that she is not reading great extracts out of the Ombudsman's report. In fact, she is reading relevant parts of case studies involving the dreadful deaths of children. She is not reading the whole report; she is reading relevant parts that highlight the fact that many of the children who have died in the past will not be captured under this legislation. It is a very relevant process to pursue.

The Hon. Peter Primrose: Further to the point of order: I accept in part what the honourable member has indicated; that is, that this material is publicly available. Those of us with an interest have read it and it is perfectly reasonable for the honourable member to read reasonable extracts into Hansard. However, the honourable member has now spent hours reading great lengths of publicly available material, including entire articles from the Daily Telegraph, into Hansard. I ask that you direct the honourable member that she may only read reasonable extracts.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: To the point of order: I am deliberately reading these case studies into Hansard because I hotly dispute the Hon. Peter Primrose's suggestion that members with interest in the issue have read them. These case studies are not known about. I point out that these case studies are extremely concise. They refer to entire lives, multiple reports and people being dealt with in concise case studies that have never before been raised in the Parliament. The children referred to in these case studies were the responsibility of the Government because it was notified of their distress. These children have never had their cases brought before the Parliament. I believe that what happened to them needs to be placed on the record of this Parliament. It stresses and disturbs me that the Government would hinder every one of these stories—

The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Christine Robertson): Order! I ask the Hon. Catherine Cusack to confine her remarks to the point of order.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: The Hon. Peter Primrose's point of order suggests that I have not been concise. I submit that these case studies are concise. This is an enormous report. It does not deal with every single child death, but only the deaths that the Ombudsman has highlighted. I do not believe it should be too inconvenient or onerous for this Parliament to listen to the stories of what has happened to these children. It is disgraceful that the Government does not have the patience to hear the stories of these children placed on the record. The stories have never before been placed on the record of this House, yet they are relevant and have a direct bearing on this legislation.

The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Christine Robertson): Order! The point of order relates to Standing Order 91 (4), which provides:

A member may read reasonable lengths of extracts from books, newspapers, publications or documents.

On 13 June 1990 President Johno Johnson ruled:

It is a waste of Parliamentary funds that Members should quote extensively from material which is readily available in the Parliamentary Library. Standing Order 77 should not be abused.

On 9 November President Johno Johnson further ruled:

While reasonable quotation is perfectly proper in order to emphasise a Member's argument, Members should generally curtail quotations as far as possible. Members should also clearly state when they are quoting and when they are not.

The Hon. Catherine Cusack may continue, but I ask her to refrain from reading lengthy quotations.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: The core of my argument is the cases of these children. I will avoid reading large tracts of this detailed and important report and will confine myself to the barest facts of each case, in deference to your ruling. I refer now to case study No. 13. A six-week- old infant was found dead face down in his crib. The Coroner was unable to determine the cause of death. An initial report had been made to DOCS when the infant was six days old, prior to his discharge from hospital. The report concerned his mother's emotional volatility and her difficulties managing the new baby. Two further reports were made, the first by a mandatory reporter following an incident of domestic violence between the infant's parents. Concerns were the mother's emotional state and her threats to harm the infant. An attempt to sight her and the child failed.

The intake worker at the community service centre to which the report was referred upgraded the urgency of the required response because of prior knowledge of the mother's history. A DOCS caseworker and a non-government organisation worker made a home visit. The caseworker did not speak to either of the parents during the visit, only to another family member. The caseworker's later statement included observations that the infant's mother demonstrated "flat affect consistent with a depressed person" and that the father did not interact with the infant.

Although the caseworker did not engage with the parents or discuss the child protection concerns, he or she concluded that the infant's welfare was not in jeopardy. The caseworker did give a family member contact details to enable that person to make direct contact if necessary. After the home visit the caseworker contacted a number of other agencies about possible support for the mother, but there was no follow-up action. When the family member contacted the caseworker about a month later, the family member was told to make a report to the Helpline. The Helpline forwarded the report back to the community service centre and an attempt was made to contact the mother. When this failed, the caseworker wrote to the mother offering assistance if she needed it. Another home visit was attempted about a week later, but the mother and child could not be located. The infant died two days later.

As we have constantly raised with the Minister, home visits are extremely important. The community needs to know whether home visits—which were one of the objectives of Families First, which has now been transferred from the Premier's Department to the Department of Community Services—and follow-up action are occurring at the system level. It is incredibly disappointing to learn that that information is not recorded on people's files and that there is no system-wide understanding of whether home visits are occurring, and, if they are occurring, whether they are successful.

The department has argued that it may not necessarily be appropriate to meet a child and its family in the home, that it may be better to attempt the visit at the child's school. That is perfectly understandable. However, surely it is not beyond the wish of man to have a data field that records where the visit was made. With regard to the case studies I have cited, nearly half of these deaths occurred in the child's home. Given that half of these deaths relate to children aged under five, clearly the home is the most appropriate place to undertake such meetings. An infant boy was the subject of five risk of harm reports—

The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Christine Robertson): Order! I remind the Hon. Catherine Cusack of my previous ruling relating to lengthy quotations from documents that are available within the Parliament. The member may continue but she should desist from reading lengthy quotations from a document that is publicly available.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: Madam Deputy-President, I respectfully submit that this is not a lengthy quotation but a concise case study about a child. It is unique and different from other case studies. The point I am seeking to make to the House is that the individuals are being completely lost in this process and the only way to ensure they are not lost is to draw attention to each of their cases.

The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Christine Robertson): Order! I ask the Hon. Catherine Cusack not to canvass my ruling. I remind her that she has read many lengthy quotations from a document that is available within the Parliament. As I ruled earlier, is not an appropriate use of the debating time of the House for members to quote extensively from a document that is available within the Parliament.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: Certainly the volume of cases that is being dealt with is disturbing, and the amount of time that has been taken to deal with those cases is obviously annoying Government members.
The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Christine Robertson): Order! I ask the Hon. Catherine Cusack to desist from canvassing my ruling.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: I was agreeing with your ruling, in fact. Without quoting from the report I will continue to summarise the case studies. Case study 15, involves six reports being made to the department two years prior to the child's death. The main topic of the notifications was neglect and five of the reports related to that subject. [Quorum called for.]

[The bells having been rung and a quorum having formed, debate resumed.]

As I was saying, this child had been the subject of five reports and it is unfortunate to have to record that the fourth report was closed on the grounds that it was identical to the fifth report, none of which involved an actual attendance. Both children in the household were sexually assaulted and still there was no action taken in relation to the case. Tragically, four months after the last report was made and closed under priority one, the little boy died in suspicious circumstances.

The Ombudsman's report highlights the disproportionately large number of Aboriginal children among the number of reviewable deaths. The Ombudsman, having investigated all of the deaths—but not those that I am concerned are escaping attention because of the problem with cross-border notification—noted that 17 of the Aboriginal children who died were aged under 17 months, four were aged between one and five years, two were aged between six and 10 years, two were aged 11 to 14 years and five were aged 15 to 17 years.

In relation to missing persons, the people in our community most likely to go missing are Aboriginal girls aged from 12 to 16. In fact, a very large number of Aboriginal girls seem to have simply vanished. This is of such concern that a special report on the matter has been prepared by the police department's missing persons unit. The girls were found to have a common pattern of abuse and low self-esteem with problems in their family backgrounds, and, therefore, were exceedingly more likely to go missing than other groups of people. I would like to know more about what has happened to these girls. Of course, as is often the case with missing persons, people return. However, this particular group of girls has not returned. We need to be a little bit more interested in what is going on out there, particularly with such cases.

The Ombudsman has highlighted not only cases involving very young children but also a different category of cases involving adolescents. One such case involves a boy who was aged 13 years. He had begun exhibiting some very difficult behaviours, had stopped attending school and found himself suspended. Basically, he had made such a nuisance of himself that people were not interested in what was going on in his life. Such young people are obviously difficult to place, and because of the emphasis on very young children resources seem to be pouring into that area. But, as I have found over and over again in juvenile justice—and I will come to this later—these kids are left to fend for themselves and because there are no breaks their dysfunctional behaviour is reinforced.

The Kings Cross Adolescent Unit found this boy one night at Kings Cross and made arrangements for the child to return to his home. By that stage he was aged 14 years. Tragically, the caseworker in the case refused to even accept a notification and did not undertake a risk assessment report. The boy was so concerned and felt so unsafe at home that he attended a police station and told the police that he did not wish to be in his home. He was therefore listed as homeless, even though he was already known to the department. These sorts of children end up with no accommodation whatsoever.

The Department of Community Services was contacted by the family with requests for support. The department's response was to put in the post some information about crisis situations and health services that it thought the young man might like to access. The department offered advice rather than help and support, which is what this young man clearly needed. The Government has requested I not be allowed to read the concise version of this case, so I am putting it in my own words.

The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Christine Robertson): Order! Again I ask the Hon. Catherine Cusack not to canvass my ruling.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: The boy then, not surprisingly, got himself into trouble with the law. Prior to being charged with criminal offences he had been notified to the Department of Community Services because of his behaviour and his case was accorded high priority. But under the department's priority one policy his case was closed. He was 15 when he faced his first charges. He was given a probation order and came into the juvenile justice system. He was given support through the Juvenile Justice Intensive Program Unit, and the Department of Juvenile Justice was assisting him to live at home. I believe the Department of Juvenile Justice has some marvellous adolescent workers. They do not give up on the kids and they appear to be providing a DOCS-like service now. It is unfortunate that young people need to get into trouble with the law before they find some support, which of course comes as a result of being involved in the criminal justice system.

The Hon. Peter Primrose: Point of order: Again I take a point of order that the honourable member is reading more than a reasonable extract. I ask that she be brought back to your earlier ruling on this matter_that she not continue to read more than reasonable extracts. I have been listening to the honourable member's comments and I believe that it is appropriate for members in this House of review to make extensive comments and to refer to reasonable extracts from books, newspapers and other items. However, I believe it is totally inappropriate to go beyond that objective standard of being reasonable.

The Hon. Don Harwin: To the point of order: I am cognisant of the standing order. The Hon. Catherine Cusack has not been reading large slabs from the report. She has referred to a number of specific cases that are enumerated in a report, but she is not necessarily reading extracts. She is therefore not falling foul of the standing order. She is making a number of observations of a general nature, which are entirely within the standing orders, bearing in mind the wide latitude allowed in a contribution to the second reading debate. Even when she refers to those examples, as far as I heard, she is not reading large slabs of them. She is referring to facts as shown in the report. Therefore, in my submission, she is not necessarily falling foul of Standing Order 91.

The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Christine Robertson): Order! I remind the Hon. Catherine Cusack that Standing Order 91(4) states that a member may read reasonable lengths of extracts from books, newspapers, publications or documents. I remind her also of the ruling of a former President to the effect that it is a waste of parliamentary funds for members to quote extensively from material that is readily available in the Parliamentary Library. The Hon. Catherine Cusack had paraphrased a number of case studies rather than read lengthy extracts from them. However, she appears to have reverted to quoting large portions of documents that are publicly available, and I ask her to refrain from doing so.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: I am flattered that people would think my summation of the information would be of the quality of research in a written public document.

The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Christine Robertson): Order! The member must not canvass a ruling from the Chair.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: It is unfortunate that I am not able to go through these case studies. They involve Aboriginal children and special issues affecting their families. These children, often in remote communities, have less access to services. The Child Death Review Team found that the rate of fatalities is much higher in those communities where there is less access to services than in the metropolitan areas where there has been greater success in keeping down the number of deaths. There are some really shocking cases of neglect that I regret cannot be brought to the attention of the House tonight. I regard each case as significant and important. The cases I have been referring to were from the initial 2003 Ombudsman's report. In the 2004 report, there were 104 reviewable deaths, including 96 children whose families were known to the Department of Community Services.

According to the document tabled by the Minister, Reba Meagher, in another place on 24 October, the number of deaths that were reviewable for 2005 was 117, including 104 children who were known to the Department of Community Services. It is not clear to me whether that includes children whose siblings were known to DOCS. We will have to wait until December when that report becomes available, but it is clear that there has been an increase of at least eight deaths, or 8 per cent, in the number of children known to DOCS. That is disturbing. As I have said, I believe this bill is part of a political strategy to pre-empt the release of the report and I do not believe that it is coincidence. It is certainly not the way that the media was managed on 24 and 25 October, and I think it is disrespectful to the experiences of those children and the loss of their lives. It is very depressing that it is just another issue to be tossed into the grist mill of the spin machine, because I believe these cases and these children and the people they leave behind are a little more significant than that.

As I have said, it is really disturbing that, after three years of these reports and these recommendations, the number of child deaths of children known to DOCS would be increasing. In the 2004 report, 72 of the deaths were reviewable because the child had been reported to DOCS. The status of their cases with DOCS at the time of their deaths was: open and allocated for 19 children, open and unallocated for 16 children, open with allocation status undetermined for two children, and the case files had actually been closed at the time of their deaths for 85 children. I think that is really the heart of the problem I have with this bill, which I regard as being managed by the Minister as a stunt. The department does not seem to have the resources or the systems in place to address these cases properly. How can this bill, which will allegedly crack down on deadbeat parents, save any of these children or any of these cases?

I am not convinced that every member of this Parliament has taken the time to read the reviewable deaths reports published by the Ombudsman. The next report will be released in a month's time and I urge all honourable members to take the time to sit and go through those cases. They are very disturbing. One cannot read those cases without feeling different and changed in regard to this issue. Otherwise, we are left with a whole lot of statistics that are pumped out of computers and processed into documents, and they then roll off people's tongues. Tonight I have sought to remind honourable members that we are talking about individuals with their own cases. I have no information about the personalities of these children or about the things that were important about their lives. The best I can do is highlight the circumstances of their deaths. I think that is worth doing in this House and worth listening to.

I refer to assessing reports of children at risk of harm who died. I received some information on this issue during the estimates process. As honourable members may be aware, a lot of questions have been asked about home visits and what type of follow-up is being made in person in relation to these notifications. It would appear that no information is really available. Therefore, we attempted to say, "Even if we do not know if they have been visited in person, are these matters actually being followed up after they have been processed by the Helpline?". As I have indicated to the House, some of these cases have not been followed up at all well. Indeed, unfortunately, recommendations from the Helpline have not been implemented. The files were closed without the children having been visited at all.

That is why this issue is so important. It is great that the Helpline is working and that the department has a computer with its three data fields. However, we need to know what is happening after reports are fed to the community service centres and the joint investigative response teams. Based on the computer information provided, we now know that secondary assessment stage one or two reports are being undertaken by the department. The primary assessment is done by the Helpline. The second assessment stage one or two report is the action taken in the field.

We found that in 2004-05 only 39.8 per cent of secondary assessment reports were concluded with an outcome recorded, 13.1 per cent involved ongoing secondary assessment investigation, but no secondary assessment outcome was recorded for 47.1 per cent. That is a disturbing figure. In the absence of any other information about home visits and follow-up, that figure suggests that action is unable to be taken. I am sure there are multiple reasons that action is not being taken, but it is an indicator of systemic failure that translates into the human stories I have focussed on tonight.

The Ombudsman found that there had not been follow-up in three-quarters of the cases involving children referred to the DOCS community service centres or the joint investigative response teams. Most children—69 per cent—were the subject of one report in this period. Children were the subject of two reports in 17 per cent of cases and three reports in 7 per cent of cases. As I said, I have taken time to highlight case studies because behind these statistics are real people in real trouble. I believe intrinsically in the value of the individual. Every child is special. Certainly, we should all believe in the international Convention on the Rights of the Child. Those rights are set out in 54 articles and spell out the basic human rights of children everywhere: survival; to develop to the fullest; to protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation; and to participate fully in family, cultural and social life.

The four core principles of the convention are non-discrimination; devotion to the best interests of the child; the right to life, survival and development; and respect for the views of the child. Every right spelt out in the convention is inherent to the human dignity and harmonious development of every child. The convention protects children's rights by setting standards in health care, education, and legal, civil and social services. I thank UNICEF for that information. When we stop and contemplate these cases it is clear that we are failing these children. The cases I have cited are the most catastrophic imaginable. Unfortunately, they are only the tip of the iceberg. Further down the iceberg are young people who physically survive but whose spirits are broken and their prospects destroyed. They are not physically dead but in many respects they are dead to our society.
I wish to clarify that many people in the community seek to assist these children, and I do not want to undervalue the work they do. Indeed, there are amazing stories of generosity and lives spent working with troubled youth. Last Monday I met Anglicare volunteers at Parramatta Children's Court. One woman has been attending the Children's Court to offer drinks for children and a shoulder for those in strife for decades. There are also the Salvation Army, Rotary, the Council of Social Service of New South Wales and other organisations. But to our economy, our institutions and our impersonal systems that govern daily life, these young people may as well be dead. It is up to others because our system as a whole is not inherently compassionate about or caring of their needs. The reviewable deaths report shines a light on cases in which children do not survive. It excludes the worst cases, which are before the courts, but it highlights cases where unfortunately it is all too late for the child. It is all after the event. This bill is designed to empower the department to prevent child deaths. However, I do not believe that it would have made in any difference in the cases I have been allowed to highlight. This bill would not have prevented any of those deaths.

I am also concerned about those young people who survive but who are awfully damaged. In 2004 there was a population health survey of 242 young offenders in custody. The results of that survey have been placed on the web site, and I refer honourable members to them. There is a document not publicly on the record, but I will highlight a couple of issues in the document to give honourable members an understanding of just how damaged many of these young people are. Many of them have fallen through the cracks in terms of being the subject of DOCS orders but never being followed through. About 800 young offenders participated—it is a very large group. Some 27 per cent of these young people had one or more parents who had been in prison and 5 per cent had a parent who was currently in prison; 64 per cent of these people were living in the family home and 11 per cent were in unsettled accommodation; and 6 per cent of these young people were themselves parents of one or more children.

That provides an indication of the profile of the living circumstances of and risks to these people. It is difficult to understand how they can fulfil their potential when they are in these circumstances. Young people minimised and denied their experiences of abuse and neglect. Nevertheless, 31 per cent reported low, moderate or severe levels of physical abuse; 46 per cent, emotional abuse; 40 per cent, sexual abuse; 50 per cent, emotional neglect; and 37 per cent, physical neglect. It is fairly obvious where those kids are coming from and their life experiences, and frankly the need for stable, successful and quality intervention before they enter the criminal justice system.

I shall mention two more issues before I conclude. One is the visit I made on Monday to the Parramatta Children's Court, where care matters are dealt with. Unfortunately, the Department of Community Services is being driven by the Attorney General's Department in a policy decision to centralise Children's Court matters at Parramatta. As a result of that decision, the St James Children's Court and the Lidcombe Children's Court closed on 9 November; the Bidura Children's Court began hearing both care and criminal matters on 13 November, and the Cobham Children's Court ceased hearing care matters on 10 November. This means that the most disadvantaged and in many cases disorganised families must now travel up to 30 kilometres to have their care matters heard in Parramatta.

In some cases people travel from the Blue Mountains, the eastern suburbs and the northern beaches. People are expected to arrive at Parramatta on time for their court hearings. Parramatta Children's Court is nearly one kilometre from Parramatta station. I walked the distance, which took me more than 15 minutes. It would take considerable longer for people with prams who have no directions, because there is no information on how to get there. It would also be a nightmare to push a pram and children that distance in the rain. Nevertheless, that system has been put in place for those families. My concern is that fewer people will be able to attend court on time. It will be tougher on witnesses, and we risk having more delays and greater difficulties in these proceedings, which will result in poorer outcomes for the children.

I am concerned that the separation of care and criminal matters in the court building does not reflect what the Government has said. The two lifts are literally side by side; the only difference is that one has "criminal" on it and the other has "care" on it. The parents room is located in the criminal section of the waiting room, and is simply divided by an open staircase. The volunteer station has been placed in the criminal section, which is odd because the volunteers are there to help the care courts, and it is simply separated by a thin ribbon. Unfortunately, the building has been built and the centralisation marches on. However, I do not believe this is in the interests of the clients and the children. Time will tell how much more of a hindrance this system will be.

Finally, I draw the attention of the House to a paper produced by Children's Magistrate Crawford, who talks about shortcomings in the law and in the administration of supervision orders in care matters made under the Act. It is a very enlightening paper. It is published as part of the Children's Court Law News. I have forwarded a copy to the department. I conclude on these philosophical notes. Magistrate Crawford makes the point that in the past:

The focus of State intervention in care matters was then, to a much greater extent than now, on the behaviour and welfare of young adolescents. This focus has shifted to issues concerned with the protection of younger children. Yet, the present legislative model follows that of earlier times and is outdated and otherwise seriously deficient.

The suggestion here is that we have all the good intentions but the legislation under which everybody is operating has a lot of problems, and the problems have come by disengaging from a welfare and a criminal system and not making it clearer what type of orders can be made and how strong those orders can be. Mr Crawford makes this point:

A supervision order must be considered at best as a "weak" form of protective intervention. It neither involves an assumption of care responsibility for the child by the State nor does it necessarily offer to the parents the assistance, guidance and support that they need to meet their obligation as carers. The process of enforcement of breaches of an order is slow and cumbersome. Feedback to the Court suggests that administration of supervision orders in terms of active supervision and frequency of visits to the home by officers is patchy.

In summary, a "supervision order" needs to be brought forward from the 1920's and redefined in terms of a contemporary legislative model that offers an effective child protection response.

That is the bottom line. This bill does not go to the trouble of achieving those outcomes. This bill is very much a stunt brought on by a government going into election mode. It is being included in an avalanche of legislation with the objective of it flying through Parliament without proper scrutiny or thought, which is very much in keeping with this Government's approach to putting politics ahead of substance. I regret that the House has not had the benefit of me referring to all the cases. I urge honourable members to obtain a copy of this report. Unfortunately, it is not available on the web site or in the Assembly office. Hopefully, copies can be purchased from the Ombudsman. Certainly members can be provided with a copy of the 2005 report. When the report is issued it will show that the department continues to lose more children than it did last year. That should be a matter of concern for all of us.

Ms SYLVIA HALE [9.22 p.m.]: On behalf of the Greens I will speak on the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Miscellaneous Amendments Bill. Before I do so, I note that Ms Catherine Cusack has been subject to some criticism for speaking at length on the bill. She is perfectly entitled to have done so and deserves to be commended for looking in depth at this legislation. The Government needs to be criticised severely, because it is seeking to push through in the last gasps of the parliamentary year significant legislation. The Government has not consulted the community, nor has it given the House the opportunity to examine it to the extent that it deserves. As a result, we will all suffer from a prolonged sitting. I again emphasise that Ms Catherine Cusack should be commended for speaking at such length and in such detail on matters as critical as these; they go to the heart of the operation of the Department of Community Services [DOCS].

Having said that, the Greens cannot support this bill unless it is amended. It abandons a fundamental principle of law—that is, that any person is entitled to be presumed innocent unless and until the contrary is proven and the burden of proving guilt rests with the accuser. In this bill, the Government is trying to reverse the onus of proof and place it on particularly vulnerable members of the community. The Greens will move an amendment during the Committee stage to ensure that the State continues to bear the burden of proof when seeking an order for child protection. The Greens will also continue to urge the Government to put sufficient resources into DOCS and into changing its prevailing culture to enable it to respond more quickly and appropriately to reports of children at risk, since the evidence indicates that both a lack of resources and inappropriate attitudes are the main reasons for DOCS failure to adequately protect children and young people.

The Government claims that this bill will ensure that it is easier for DOCS to remove the siblings of children already under care and protection orders. This is in response to the fact that a number of the 104 reviewable child deaths last year were of children who were already the subject of a DOCS report, or who had previously been in care, or had a sibling in care. The bill will require mandatory reporters to alert DOCS, before the birth of a child, if there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the child may be at risk of harm upon birth. The bill also enables the sharing of information between DOCS and hospitals and public health organisations about the parents or family of an unborn child who has been the subject of a prenatal report. The bill specifies that the intention of such reports is to provide assistance and support to the parent, along with protecting the child upon birth, from any risk of harm, and that, if necessary, the child can be protected. The Greens support these provisions.
However, proposed section 106A is a different matter. It will allow the Children's Court to consider evidence that a child has been removed from the care of a parent or caregiver, or the parent or caregiver has been involved in causing the death of a child or young person, such that the death has been treated as a reviewable death by the authorities. Reports and orders made with regard to siblings are to be correlated with a perceived increased risk for the other children of the same parent, hence the court must consider the child protection history. The Greens have no quibble with that provision. We believe it is appropriate to take into account similar fact evidence.

The Greens take issue with subsections (2) and (3) of proposed section 106A. These subsections will have the effect of reversing the onus of proof, so that the parent or caregiver must show that they are fit to continue to care for the child or children, and therefore those children should not be removed. The current situation is that DOCS is obliged to substantiate the case for the removal of the child or young person. The Greens will be seeking to amend this proposed section to remove the offending subsections (2) and (3). The Greens agree with the position put by the New South Wales Council of Social Services, Uniting Care Burnside and the Law Society, that reversing the onus of proof is not in keeping with legal tradition and that it seriously disadvantages many vulnerable parents. I will elaborate on these concerns during the Committee stage. Suffice it to say now that it is time for the State Labor Government to stop undermining hundreds of years of legal principle in order to find easy solutions to chronic underresourcing of its departments, in this case DOCS. DOCS cannot cope with its workload—and I would suggest that, rather than the existing DOCS processes and court procedures, this is the real cause of concern here.

The Ombudsman's report into reviewable deaths for 2003-04 indicates that 19 of the children who died were known to DOCS and that concerns brought to the department's attention were relevant to the circumstances of their deaths. The Ombudsman found that a number of reports were closed without assessment by a local DOCS office, even though there were indications that the child was in a high-risk situation. The Ombudsman noted, "the basis for closure [of reports] is lack of resources, and relative urgency of cases at an individual local DOCS office". It is hard to argue with this assessment when allowances for competing priorities are contained in the department's own interagency guidelines, which state that "closure [of files] can also occur because of the relative priority of this report compared with other reports, together with the current casework resources of the community services centre".

Obviously the guidelines allowed DOCS to close cases which are not adequately examined merely because of the pressure of other work or because other matters are given higher priority. This clearly indicates the lack of appropriate resourcing for DOCS. According to the guidelines, when making an assessment DOCS is supposed to take into account factors such as child protection history, including reports and orders about a child's siblings, drug use and so on. The Ombudsman found that in some cases the DOCS assessment was not holistic and discounted the child protection history. Sometimes the DOCS database was simply not accurate enough to allow a proper assessment, and there were cases where a child who was the subject of a report and whose siblings had been the subjects of reports, was noted as having "no child protection history".

A major issue is that DOCS cannot allocate all reports from the Helpline to caseworkers quickly enough. This inevitably means that some children and young people at risk of harm are not assisted. The Ombudsman's report chronicles three case studies where the DOCS Helpline did not pass on information to a DOCS community service centre until it was too late. Children and young persons died where a file was closed or there were weeks or even months of delay in following up a number of reports. It is reprehensible, and shaming to us all, that our child protection agency does not have enough staff to follow up all high-risk cases in a timely and appropriate manner. Although the Government has now allocated more resources to DOCS, it is still disturbing that the Ombudsman's report noted undue delay and the failure to allocate reports quickly to DOCS workers.

Another disturbing aspect mentioned by the Ombudsman is that DOCS makes decisions about children about whom little is known and whom no-one has actually visited. If nothing else, this fact alone would raise the question of whether it is appropriate to place on parents the burden to proving that their behaviour is not beyond the pale. The Ombudsman's report shows that child deaths are linked to the failure of the Helpline to pass on calls, or for a caseworker to be allocated, rather than the failure of the courts to make an appropriate determination. Hence the Greens question whether the parts of the bill that aim to instruct the courts on how to deal with evidence and to reverse the onus of proof will significantly reduce abuse, harm or deaths. Especially so, given that most deaths reviewed occurred because of the failure by DOCS to respond quickly after receiving a report rather than because the court ordered the return of the child to a parent.
The Greens support in principle the Government's proposed changes relating to disclosure of high-level information to parents and other significant persons, as proposed in new sections 149B to 149G. The Greens are satisfied that these provisions will ensure that the release of high-level information about foster parents can be adequately protected. We note that the department will be required to consult closely with groups on the guidelines referred to in section 149D (b). The Greens would like to support this bill. We want strong protection for children and young people who are at risk of abuse, serious injury and death. However, we can support this bill only if the sections reversing the onus of proof are removed, because they are neither necessary nor justifiable.

Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES [9.34 p.m.]: I will speak concisely and briefly on the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Miscellaneous Amendments Bill. The principal object of the bill is to amend the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 to provide greater protection to children and young persons who are at risk of harm from a parent or carer and to facilitate reciprocal arrangements for the transfer of interstate and New Zealand child protection orders and child protection proceedings. A number of other significant and miscellaneous amendments are made, including an amendment to provide disclosure to parents and certain other persons of information concerning the placement of children in out-of-home care. I will speak about this from a personal point of view in a few moments. I thank the House for its generosity in giving me this time to speak on behalf of the Christian Democratic Party to place our viewpoints on the record and add to the whole debate a number of issues that have not as yet been raised. But I will not do this in anything other than a very succinct manner.

Members will be aware of the excellent work by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare in collecting data, statistics and other information and presenting this information in an intelligible, clear manner. The report entitled "Child Protection Australia 2004-2005" is one such work. This report portrays a disturbing picture of the level and extent of issues in the realm of child protection in Australia. Over the past six years the number of child protection notifications in Australia more than doubled, from 107,000 in 1999-2000 to 252,000 in 2004-05. The total number of notifications in New South Wales alone was reported at 133,000. A proportion of these notifications are investigated. During investigation, notifications are declared to be either "substantiated" and thus worthy of further action or "not substantiated". In 2004-2005, 15,000 cases were substantiated where emotional abuse was the most common phenomenon. There were also increases in the rates of child deaths, as we have heard tonight from the Hon. Catherine Cusack, particularly in areas on the South Coast such as Nowra and Bomaderry.

In some cases, although some action may have been taken by the department to address the risk of harm or abuse endured by a child, that action has not been enough and the child concerned has died. Members will be aware that every year the Child Death Review Team hands down an annual report that outlines how many children have died in the past year and the causes for those deaths. Members will be only too well aware that earlier tonight the Hon. Catherine Cusack gave a large number of examples of these deaths and their causes from the previous year's report. A total of 599 deaths of children and young people were registered in New South Wales. The Hon. Catherine Cusack pointed out that if the children taken over the border into other jurisdictions such as Queensland were also included the number would be greater.

Two thirds of the deaths were infant deaths, children aged below 12 months. Sadly, infant deaths increased from 299 in 2004 to 367 in 2005. Most of these deaths are during the perinatal period_that is, between five months before the child is born and one month after the child is born. It is interesting that the report for this year, 2005-06, has been printed and has been available to some people, although the Hon. Catherine Cusack does not have a copy. That report of the Child Death Review Team was handed around yesterday among some people but has not yet been tabled in the Parliament, and certainly has not been made public. I do not have a copy of it, although I am sure that what I saw was this year's edition. I am very interested to know when the Government has decided to table the report in Parliament. I do not think it will be in the next week or so. The Minister may care to take up that point when speaking in reply to the debate. I will ask the question very simply so that he can understand it clearly: Has this year's report of the Child Death Review Team been published and is it in the hands of the Minister?

One principal motive for some of the reforms found in the bill, which the Christian Democratic Party supports, is the endeavour to prevent further child deaths in New South Wales. Not one honourable member would find fault with that motive. All honourable members would agree that everything must done to avoid children dying through negligence and abuse in our State. I preface my comments by saying that although many amendments have been proposed relating to numerous issues, I will for the purposes of this debate make comments only on a couple of salient amendments.
According to the Government, of the 104 child deaths that came within the purview of the Department of Community Services, 16 of the children had been subject to a prenatal report and 18 had previously been in care or had a brother or sister previously in care. Of those 18 children, nine were siblings who had been removed and placed in temporary care and three of those children in care were in care at the time of their death. It is often the case that if one child is the subject of abuse by his or her parents or carers, it is likely that the child's siblings will also be at risk of abuse, and it is enduring abuse. Child abuse is an indictment on this society and is utterly reprehensible.

Honourable members will be aware that part 2 of the Children and Young Person's (Care and Protection) Act 1988 deals with mandatory reporting. Included within this context are "prenatal reports" in section 25. At the time I praised the Government strongly for including that in the legislation. As the name suggests, prenatal reports may involve a person reasonably suspecting that before the birth of a child that child may be at risk of harm after his or her birth. Prenatal reports may be made to the director general. However, we know that there are cases in which due to a violent domestic environment between mother and father, frequently in the days just after birth, children are at great risk. Honourable members might recall the grievous case of Kylie Flick, whose unborn child died because the father, Phillip King, punched and stamped on Ms Flick's abdomen numerous times until the child was dead. In cases where women are in a precarious situation like that, wherever possible the Government must provide a place of refuge and assistance for the woman and her child.

This bill seeks to expand provisions dealing with reporting such situations where it is thought that a child is at risk of harm upon birth, relying upon whether a prenatal report has been made in the past. Amendments are proposed to section 23, which lists the circumstances in which a child or a young person is taken to be at risk of harm. The Christian Democratic Party praises the Government for ensuring that there is the possibility of a person being reported if a child is at risk of harm. It becomes particularly relevant for the purposes of parts 2 and 3 of chapter 3 of the Act. The bill will also introduce additional circumstances where the child was the subject of a prenatal report under section 25 and the birth mother did not engage successfully with support services; namely, those provided by the Department of Community Services or, most frequently, by those providing foster services from the not-for-profit sector. If the mother refuses to engage successfully with the support services available to her, she can be reported.

Further, the proposed amendments will allow for information exchange between DOCS and relevant health or caring organisations. It is extremely important to ensure that those who have the hands-on work of providing foster care are fully aware of the circumstances behind the child being declared at risk. Amendments will draw attention to the reported intention of section 25, which is to provide assistance and support to the expectant mother and to protect the child upon birth from any risk of harm, and that such child may then be provided with support and protection as envisaged under the Act.

I appreciate the Hon. Catherine Cusack's point that we cannot save the lives of children simply by passing Acts of Parliament. Of course, that is true, and it is true in many other circumstances. However, I congratulate the Government for making this kind of reporting and exchange of information possible. Given the myriad privacy laws, people in foster caring situations and members of organisations sponsoring them have had to delicately tiptoe through the various provisions. As with all requirements in this vein, it is important that appropriate levels of support and funding be provided for services assisting women in this situation, particularly indigenous women and, as was mentioned by a previous speaker, women in remote and rural areas.

Proposed amendments to the Act will allow the Children's Court in care proceedings to consider and give weight to evidence about a parent's or caregiver's history in circumstances where a child has been removed from care. It will also allow that to occur where a parent or caregiver has been identified by the Coroner or police as a person who may have been involved in causing a reviewable death of a child or a young person. That is an important reform, and I realise that some civil libertarians may respond very negatively. However, I congratulate the Government on having the gumption and strength to indicate that this should be regulated. In this context, the onus of proof will be placed on the parent or caregiver rather than on the State. The general rule is that the State is responsible for proving on the balance of possibilities why a child should not remain with a parent or caregiver. Any change to this rule is a fundamental and critical change in the manner in which the legal system has dealt with people for hundreds of years. Of course, opposition has been voiced by a number of organisations, including those involved in civil liberties and others such as the Council of Social Service of NSW [NCOSS], which believes that this could be going beyond the Rubicon of our normal rights. NCOSS, as a peak voice in relation to social issues, has asked whether reversing the onus of proof is the best way forward. I could outline its arguments, but I think we have heard enough on that issue tonight.
NCOSS notes the comments in the Ombudsman's 2005-06 annual report, which cites the case of a secondary death of a five-week-old child. In that case DOCS had failed to take the family history into account at its risk assessment or to consult with other services working with the mother. The Ombudsman continued to have serious concerns that some children who are at high risk of harm are not being allocated to a child protection caseworker for a full risk assessment. Continued attention should be given to the Ombudsman's finding to understand the rationale behind the nature and extent of complaints made about care and protection services. The Christian Democratic Party took the opportunity to make contact with the Commissioner for Children and Young People, Gillian Calvert, who said:

There is merit in the proposed amendment so we welcome this bill. However, judgements involving a child's future are always very difficult to make because they have lifelong consequences. Therefore we need to have a proper evaluation process in place. This will help us to understand if the amendment is meeting its intended goals and will help us to avoid unintended consequences. A thorough and effective evaluation process will also go towards building up our knowledge and understanding of child protection in New South Wales. This knowledge and experience will help the courts and agencies to be more confident about the sensitive decisions they make around children's lives.

The Christian Democratic Party agrees with that. I am sure that this amendment will be warmly welcomed in the not-for-profit sector. Concern has been expressed about the disclosure of what is known as "high-level identification information". That simply means information that could identify, for example, foster carers. That could be the use of the surname of the authorised carer, the street address, the telephone number, details of employment and activities, the name of the school the child or young person is attending or any other information. I believe that this is a wonderful new development. I refer to my experience in overseeing out-of-home care programs at Wesley Mission for 27 years and the risks attached to the disclosure of this kind of information to volatile persons, who can forcefully demand to know where their child is, who has responsibility for the child, where the child goes to school and so on.

I have been responsible for a large number of children in out-of-home care. In the late 1970s I was responsible for 134 children and last year I was responsible for 5,500 such children. All these children were placed in the care of full-time Wesley Mission staff or in the care of many hundreds of foster parents or foster carers. I wish to acknowledge the wonderful work that foster parents and foster carers do in this regard, particularly when the birth parents may be extremely volatile. It is a sensitive task to open one's home to a child that is fraught with difficulties and to expose one's own children to that child. One of my concerns is that if foster carers are faced with the risk of high-level identification information being passed on to birth parents, the foster parents and their other children will suffer potential fear and apprehension. This is because the personal details of the child's care, and thus the foster carer's details, could become common knowledge to people who may be potentially volatile.

In the past weeks I have received representations from the Foster Carers Association that have reiterated and emphasised several concerns I have with this bill. The association, which is one of the representative bodies for foster carers in New South Wales, has urged the Government not to proceed with the original set of amendments relating to the disclosure of high-level identification information against the will of foster carers. That is most important. I commend the Government for being willing to accede to the association's request. I believe that these amendments were introduced in the other place yesterday.

It is clear that proposed section 149G, which provides for the making of an application to the Administrative Decisions Tribunal for a review of a decision to disclose such information against a carer's consent, is intended to act as a safeguard. However, even if it could be said that a birth parent has not acted violently in the past, there is no guarantee that this will not occur in future and against the foster carers themselves. The consent of foster carers should not be violated, because this will compound the pressures they are under and may potentially expose them to violence. Rather than their home becoming a haven for rest and recreation, it could possibly become a place where carers and their children hide from risk of harm.

The prospect of the release of such information may deter current foster carers from continuing to care for children or deter future foster carers from taking children. As part of my research on the bill, I contacted some of the foster carers I know and asked them for their opinion on the matter. Universally they said they did not want their private addresses, names, and so on released. The Government's latest amendment will largely remove the possibility of an authorised carer being exposed through the disclosure of his or her private information: it provides that the carer's view on whether this information should be released must be taken into account by the designated agency.

At one point while I was at Wesley Mission, my life and the life of some of my staff were seriously threatened on many occasions because a father demanded information as to where his children were to be taken. The father threatened my life on a daily basis, at five minutes past seven every morning. The father had been in gaol after having come close to murdering his wife by dousing her with petrol and setting her alight, leaving her with horrendous lifelong burns. Upon his release he found out that the court had ruled that his children be placed in the custody of Wesley Mission and that I would place them in the care of a good family in an anonymous location. The father proceeded to threaten my staff and me that we would be killed unless we passed on to him the information of his children's whereabouts.

On one occasion he came to my home with a double-barrelled shotgun, which was loaded, and made it quite clear that unless I gave him the indication then and there I would be killed. As commonsense would dictate, I urged my staff not to disclose the information. My wife was active on the telephone, having seen the father come up the front path. That went on every single day for months. As a result, several of my staff who faced the father when he went to where they lived and worked, walked off the job. When I was debriefed, police told me that this man was also the main suspect in another murder for which no person has been convicted. This kind of release of information can be extremely threatening to foster carers and those who work with them.

In cases such as this it is clear that, given the father's history, the department would not rule in favour of giving him high level identification information. However, the father had been released from gaol because the Parole Board had deemed him ready to return to the community and adopt a normal life once more. Clearly, he was not ready, and he did pose a significant risk to the community. There are instances where we can judge people as having the necessary character to be trusted with sensitive information, but we can never be completely sure whether the person will use that information wisely. Frankly, I do not want bureaucrats in any public department making decisions about whether such information about our carers is released.

It must also be said that foster carers should be offered the necessary support to carry out their responsibilities as carers. Given all the benefits and struggles it entails, foster carers should be allowed to create a new family without interference. The work that foster carers do, by and large, is absolutely superb, particularly given that they are entrusted with caring for children who are at risk of harm or neglect in the first place. They are usually not easy children to care for. I believe we must do everything possible to support carers. One way in which we as decision makers can support them is to endorse their ability to decide what type of information about them is released to the blood parent.

The bill also introduces myriad amendments by inserting a new chapter into the Act. I will not take up the time of the House going through these matters because they have been traversed by other speakers. However, under the reforms, New Zealand will now be on an interstate level with other States of Australia. This aspect of the bill is based on model legislation drafted for States and Territories and New Zealand in this area of operation.

Clarifications are made to the definitions of "legal representative" to ensure they reflect the manner in which children and young people are represented. Members of the House may not realise that the bill raises, from 10 to 12 years, the age at which a child is presumed capable of giving proper legal instructions to his or her legal representative. In my view this amendment is commendable, especially in view of studies that most 10-year-olds and 11-year-olds are incapable of understanding not only legal instruction but all that legal proceedings entail. As the legislation impacts upon children, I believe it is worthwhile that people of senior years be given the responsibility of guiding children in this respect. Amendments are also made in relation to the types of children's services that are required to be licensed under the Act. I have raised a number of matters of concern, and I hope the Minister will address them in his reply. The Christian Democratic Party commends the bill to the House.

The Hon. AMANDA FAZIO [9.38 p.m.]: I support the Children and Young People (Care and Protection) Miscellaneous Amendments Bill. In particular, I support the proposals that will strengthen child protection for vulnerable children. In the 1970s I served on a ministerial advisory council on family and children's services. Child support, how we could do more and change the ways in which we protect vulnerable children, was the subject of a number of inquiries at that time because there had been a particularly unfortunate death of a child in the inner city, which in part had resulted from a deliberate attempt by the parent responsible to avoid identification. I believe that the provisions of the bill that allow for greater information exchange, particularly section 248, go a long way towards helping to ensure that we provide support to vulnerable children. I believe some aspects of this bill are very important, particularly where the caseworkers and the courts are to rely on all the available evidence when seeking preventative and protective outcomes for children. The Government is proud that the fundamental principle of the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 has its focus on the best interests of the child. I believe that this bill goes a long way to ensuring that those aims are furthered.

It is of fundamental importance that we ensure that front-line staff in the Department of Community Services—the people who day in and day out, year in and year out, deal with children at risk and deal with child protection issues—are able to see good outcomes arising from this legislation. In the past they have taken matters to court and they are very concerned about the safety of particular children but the court has not supported their concerns. I believe this legislation will overcome that. It is very disheartening to note that often in relation to the death of a child the Department of Community Services is mentioned as having known the child was at risk and having received reports as to the child's welfare. What we need to remember is that in 1988 this department was gutted by the incoming Coalition Government: offices were closed and thousands of front-line child protection staff were sacked. The social welfare anarchy that the Coalition Government wreaked on that department and on the capability of the State Government of the day—of any day—to provide care, support and protection for children and young people was horrendous.

Since Labor returned to government in 1995 it has been a matter of rebuilding and recruitment of those specialist staff. This legislation will allow specialist staff recruited into the department over the past 10 years to ensure that the most vulnerable children will be protected by these strengthened child protection measures. To see the almost crocodile tears coming from people who happily drew their incomes to support their middle-class lifestyles as staffers of the Greiner-Fahey Government that wreaked so much havoc on child support, and to listen to them give us their bleeding-heart speeches is stomach turning. I think that level of hypocrisy is outrageous. I strongly support this bill and I believe that the provisions in the bill are necessary. I do not support the amendments foreshadowed by Ms Sylvia Hale: I believe the bill deserves to go through in its present state unamended.

The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS [10.02 p.m.]: Child protection is a very serious issue but I do not believe the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Miscellaneous Bill is a very significant bill. This is a series of relatively minor amendments. One might ask why is this bill here? Is it because there is an election coming?

The Hon. Melinda Pavey: The Ombudsman's report is about to be tabled.

The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS: I note the interjection. Is it because there are some adverse figures coming out that the Government wants to say it has already addressed? What is the reason for this bill? I have been in politics long enough to ask these sorts of questions. It needs to be put on the record why such a relatively minor bill in terms of procedural matters is being dealt with now. It could have waited until more substantive changes needed to be made. I do not think the length of the debate should deceive anybody: it is a fact that the amount of time this House spends debating bills is not necessarily related to how much difference they will make.

I am not sure that all these amendments are as important as people say except for one key amendment, and that is the controversial proposal to revoke the onus of proof in a court. The bill proposes to amend the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 and the Minister for Community Services claims it will offer greater protection to children and young persons who are at risk of harm from a parent or carer. The bill also establishes reciprocal agreements for the transfer of interstate and New Zealand child protection orders and child protection proceedings, and changes to the legal representation of children in proceedings before the Children's Court.

One of the more contentious issues surrounding the bill has been the disclosure to parents and certain other persons of information concerning the placement of children in out-of-home care. I noted the comments of Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes on this subject. Clearly, it shows that people do take this very seriously indeed and of course carers are very concerned. I think it is somewhat difficult for groups that are dependent in the end on the Department of Community Services for their funding to comment on bills like this. I think most of the people who might have commented are scared; they do not want to stick their heads out because they believe they will be defunded. Certainly, the Howard Government has been ruthless in defunding any group that criticises it even slightly. I believe this Government will do the same, although I have not got examples I could cite now.

The Council of Social Service of New South Wales [NCOSS] is a peak body that can get information from these groups as part of its routine surveys and can take a position for the sector that is objective and well thought out. I would like to put the council's position onto the record very clearly. The Council of Social Service of New South Wales said where do we draw the line on the onus of proof in child protection matters? In a world first, the Government is making sweeping changes to child protection laws in New South Wales so that people who have previously lost custody of a child need to prove to a court why they should keep custody of any other children in their care. These changes are contained in the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Miscellaneous Amendments Bill 2006 introduced into Parliament on 25 October.

Whilst supporting the Government's intention to better protect children, NCOSS and other child welfare peak bodies have considerable concerns regarding the impacts of these changes on the broader legal system. These changes mean the onus of proof, which generally rests with the State, is being reversed for these particular cases: where a sibling has been taken into care, or has died. Unfortunately, reversing the onus of proof undermines the longstanding legal principle that the State must prove its case. This is one of the most important cornerstones of our legal system and should not be tampered with unless there are absolutely compelling reasons for doing so.

This is the second time in as many months that the onus of proof has been reversed in legislation put to the Parliament by the Minister for Community Services. NCOSS supports the Government's intention to improve protection for children who are at risk of harm by requiring that courts receive and give weight to evidence that a parent or carer has previously had children removed or has been identified in connection with a reviewable child death. Under the bill paragraphs (a) and (b) of proposed section 106A (1) compels the court to admit such evidence. This complements and reinforces the existing duty of the court to give primacy to the best interests of the child. Subsections (2) and (3) of proposed section 106A will have the effect of reversing the onus of proof. This option was not canvassed with stakeholders prior to it being announced in the media. The Council on Social Services of New South Wales, the Association of Child Welfare Agencies, AbSec or the New South Wales Family Services Association were not informed of, or consulted during, its development.

The question we must ask is: Is reversing the onus of proof the best way forward, given the very clear direction already given to the court by proposed section 106 (1) and when the court is already under a duty to put the best interests of the child at the forefront of its thinking. Clearly, Cabinet has taken the view that it is necessary. However, this sends a message to the community that the Government may not have faith in the judiciary to put the best interests of the child first when the court has evidence of a sibling death or care order before it. This is a very serious state of affairs. Focusing solely on the courts also precludes proper consideration of the role of DOCS case management in this very complex issue. NCOSS notes the Ombudsman's comment in his 2004-05 annual report, citing the case of a secondary death of a five-week-old child. In this case DOCS had failed to adequately take the family history into account in its risk assessment and it also failed to consult with other services working with the mother.

The Ombudsman continued to have serious concerns that some children who were at high risk of harm were not being allocated to a child protection caseworker for a full risk assessment. NCOSS urged the Government to take a more comprehensive approach to managing the issue of siblings and secondary cases by refocusing efforts around risk assessment and case management. If we rely solely on moving the evidentiary burden as a response to child deaths, the systems failures that lead to these tragedies will not be fully resolved. NCOSS noted that in at least three of the nine secondary deaths referred to in the Premier's media release about the bill, the children died whilst in care. For those children at least, the provisions contained in this bill may not have made a significant difference as the court had made care orders. Without details on each case, it is difficult to know where the child protection system failed these children.

NCOSS agreed that the best interest of the child is paramount. However, in the absence of effective case management across the spectrum of DOCS child protection services there are no guarantees that reversing the onus of proof will necessarily achieve the results we are all hoping to achieve. NCOSS welcomed the Minister's reassurances that the effect of the reversal will be felt in very few cases, however it urged caution in regard to these reforms. At the very least, very close scrutiny of outcomes of the change will need to be undertaken to ensure that particular population groups, including Aboriginal people and people with intellectual disabilities, are not indirectly discriminated against through its application. In the absence of more detailed evidence that reversing the onus of proof is the best way forward and a clear action plan for improving case management by DOCS in relation to siblings, we are left between a rock and a hard place. As the Government proceeds with the bill in the hope that children will be better protected, we must all hope that we are not sacrificing a very important part of our legal system in vain. I note from contacts I have that there is a very high incidence of intellectual disability in some of the mothers where there have been previous adverse incidents involving children. The idea that an intellectually disabled mother—
The Hon. Catherine Cusack: Or a mother with mental illness.

The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS: I acknowledge the interjection—or a mentally disabled mother being able to convince a court is farcical, given that they are mostly relying on legal aid and often meet the legal aid solicitor just before the court appearance. It is ridiculous to think they could put together a case or a real assessment of their ability, or help the court to make an assessment, when the onus of proof is on them rather than on the State. The idea that the State does not have an obligation to prove its case, and puts the burden of proof on those who may be quite unable to meet that proof, is inequitable. It is one thing to be able to look after a child but another to be able to make a case in the strange surroundings of a courtroom. It requires skills in advocacy within a legalistic framework and that is difficult.

I understand that in one of its more progressive aspects the Children's Court has used psychologists to assess families and that has worked to very great effect. A professional psychologist has been delegated to work out an assessment of the child and the family, and indeed relevant parties. That has been a step forward in the way the Children's Court has been working. There is some suggestion that that is not being as well managed as it was, but certainly that aspect needs to be maintained. It is unacceptable that the State would simply say to someone who is intellectually disabled or mentally impaired, "You prove your case." Surely the answer in that instance would be to treat the mental illness and keep a watching brief, or indeed support an intellectually disabled person.

One thing that has become very clear from a number of inquiries I have made into the way society works, in terms of putting people in gaol and the treatment of drug-affected and mentally ill people or even aged people with physical infirmities, is that we need not a series of institutions that have criteria but greater community support for people in proportion to the things that they need. In this case that may be support and help as they try to look after their children. The question is how can that be done? How can they make the case that they should not lose their children when the onus of proof has been reversed? Certainly not in an adversarial framework.

The Hon. Catherine Cusack referred in her contribution to the difficulty I had getting from Neil Shepherd, the Director General of the Department of Community Services, an explanation as to why there should be the reversal of the onus of proof. It was said that there was a legal precedent in a higher court, as distinct from the High Court. At a hearing of the estimates committee on 9 November I sought the legal precedent on which that decision was based. I was promised a copy of the judgment and the transcript but that has not eventuated. It is farcical that a longstanding legal precedent that the State must prove its case should be reversed to place the onus on mothers who may be intellectually impaired or mentally ill, when it is well known that the legal aid available to them is often minimal and made available at the last minute. It is necessary that the Government make out its case.

To come up with an important precedent or decision that gave weight to this fairly extreme measure would be at least expected, but there was nothing in the second reading speech of the Minister in the other place and no member of the Government in this House has given even a legal citation. I think that really shows the arrogance and cavalier approach of the Government. If one accepts that this bill is a curate's egg and is good in parts, then relying on the other relatively minor amendments to carry this extraordinary reversal of standard legal practice is unsatisfactory.

I note that the Greens propose to move an amendment to remove subsections (2) and (3) from proposed section 106A which would remove the reversal of proof. I note the Government has said that it will not accept the amendment. If the Government does not accept the amendment, I am certainly not going to support the bill. I was a little surprised that the Legislation Review Committee did not note the reversal of proof in its report, Legislation Review Digest No. 16 of 10 November. The issue of foster carers has been quite controversial in that the birth parents of children in out-of-home or foster care can apply for information, including the address and contact details about their children's foster carers. Foster carers across the State had threatened a boycott and there was an article in a Sunday paper—

The Hon. Melinda Pavey: The Sun-Herald of 5 November.

The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS: The Sun-Herald of 5 November, thank you. I acknowledge the interjection. Sue O'Connor, President, Foster Parents Support Network, addressed a letter to crossbench members, a copy of which I received, in the following terms:

To Whom It May Concern

I write to advise that I attended a meeting with representatives of the Department of Community Services and the Foster Carer's Association on Friday 10 November 2006 in relation to concerns held by the Foster Carer's Association in respect to proposed amendments to the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act concerning the disclosure of information about placement in out of home care.

All concerns were addressed and for clarification it was agreed that an amendment be made to section 149D (a), by inserting the words "authorised carer" so as to make clear and to put beyond doubt that when considering the type and amount of information to [be] disclosed by a designated agency regard must be had to the wishes of both the child and foster carer.

The Government circulated this letter. It is interesting that the letter is a photocopy of a fax from the Government, rather than a letter from Sue O'Connor directly to the crossbench. That suggests that the Government solicited the letter from Sue O'Connor, rather than Sue O'Connor enthusiastically lobbying the crossbench. Indeed, I wonder who wrote the letter or who wanted the wording. I note that the Foster Parents Support Network provides information sessions for foster carers from people such as the Ombudsman and the Children's Guardian. While Sue O'Connor of the Foster Parents Support Network attended the meeting on 10 November, the peak body funded by DOCS, which provides support and advocacy to foster parents and carers—the Foster Carers Association (New South Wales) Incorporated—apparently knew nothing about this amendment until my office called Paulette Macfarlane this afternoon.

Ms Macfarlane was upset that the Foster Carers Association name had been used to legitimise the Government's amendment. Apparently the Foster Carers Association did not know about a letter that mentions the association; obviously, the association had not written the letter. The Foster Carers Association was happy to have generic non-identifying information provided to birth parents, such as in the case of the child with foster parents in the Sutherland shire who has a cat called Toby and a parrot named Trevor, and who attends second grade in a public school. However, the association is not willing to support more specific identifying information, such as names and addresses, being given to birth parents arbitrarily.

The association relayed an anecdote about a carer, a registered nurse, who was looking after a girl. She had quite good relations with the birth mother. The birth mother had access and could speak to the child pretty much whenever she liked. However, sadly, the birth mother slipped back into alcohol abuse, which had been an earlier problem, and harassed the foster carer family members and the child. That is a relatively mild example by the standards of the ones Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes referred to earlier. Obviously, if specific details are provided, children in foster care can be kidnapped by disgruntled parents or partners and foster carers can be physically assaulted or abused.

I was informed by the Foster Carers Association that it was informed about the amendment at about 5.30 p.m., and it approved the amendment on the condition that information can be released to the birth parent only with the consent of the carer. Interestingly, the association was unaware of the amendment before 5.30 p.m. today. The Director General of DOCS, Neil Shepherd, has given an assurance that the consent of the carers would be obtained. To my knowledge, the Minister has not yet said anything about that. One thing to come out of this, however, has been people who are extraordinarily critical of DOCS. Having listened to the director general in estimates hearings, I must admit that I got the feeling from him in a managerial sense that the benchmarks by which one might measure DOCS are improving and that he is gradually rebuilding a battered department.

I had contact with the principal officer of Phoenix Rising, Christine Lisle-Williams. Phoenix Rising is a fostering agency with five years accreditation—that is the maximum—from the Office of the Children's Guardian, and it has a header agreement with the department. She sent a letter to the Premier on 3 November this year, in which she vented her frustration with DOCS. The letter stated:

… the problem we have with regard to current foster care arrangements and providing services and care to children and young people not residing with their family. The current arrangement we have with DoCS and limitations on our service have had significant impacts on children placed with our service and abuse in care situations. Whilst I have pointed this out on numerous occasions it has fallen on deaf ears.

I would sincerely appreciate your personal assistance with regard to the utilization of carers with our organisation and providing long-term care.

This is written to the Premier, not to the Minister, which in a sense has its own message. The letter further stated:

Whilst Senior Department personnel inform me that the future EOI process will resolve this issue, I am seeking to resolve this matter on an urgent basis as we have numbers of placements available that the department is not utilizing.

Further issues have been raised. The letter also stated:

Whilst the Department of Community Services (DoCS) advertises its need for good foster carers, the situation is that we have been seeking to negotiate to provide long-term care and for DoCS to place numbers of children with our carers for 5 years.

In recent times DoCS has been working on structures within its organisation. Structure however is not an indicator of a functional system but may be considered to be one aspect of functionality. This is evident when you look at Fascism and in particular Germany under the Nazi rule as this was amazingly structured, precise and cruel.

On a daily basis I am made aware of significant levels of incompetence and cruelty perpetrated by DoCS staff. As guest speaker at the recent ACWA AGM Neil Shepherd spoke about his vision. Neil Shepherd sounded more like the CEO of his own organisation rather than as a public servant heading up a government department.

I (and I am clearly not alone here) find the Department's attitude, which is embedded in all its actions, arrogant and lacking in accountability at an extreme level.

With the significant increase in funding it would appear that DoCS has the opportunity to make significant inroads in its level of functionality and to improve the outcomes for the children, parents and families of New South Wales. However, when you have a dysfunctional department giving it money to spend is only part of the solution, as it requires attitudinal change.

… the level of functionality of DoCS is due to past political decisions. Within a short time of Nick Greiner becoming premier DoCS staff were offered redundancies and it was made known how the Department would operate under Greiner's government. Many of the people who took redundancies were those whose level of integrity meant that they were not prepared to offer their services or participate in working in ways required by Greiner and they left.

What was left behind formed the basis of the current Department and these people have recruited others, many of whom are like them. Of the new recruits those with levels of competency and integrity find it hard to participate in the corrupt and incompetent work practices and leave. At a management level it is difficult to find personnel with competency together with integrity, courage and commitment to a humane society. The level of turnover of caseworkers is high and unfortunately many of those who leave do so for reasons of integrity although they may identify other reasons. From time to time resigning senior personnel have attempted to highlight the level of functionality within DoCS.

Information given to me on a daily basis forms the basis of the understanding I have of the way that DoCS undertakes its work and manages the child protection and OOHC sector. Whilst much is made of DoCS healthy partnerships, in truth they don't exist, as DoCS operates with arrogance and exercises its current power base in unhealthy ways that include favouritism and behaviours intended to divide.

That is a pretty strong letter. I have been in this Parliament for a while, and not many people, particularly those trying to get money from DOCS, would go so far as to write such a strong letter to the Premier. One can only say that they must be fairly committed to their cause. Certainly, it is impressive, and it is even-handed in the sense that it gives a reason for the culture that seems credible in historic terms. Indeed, if the report on the parliamentary inquiry into DOCS—I was the originator of that inquiry—had a fault, it is that it did not have a historical perspective on the origins of the problems in DOCS, perhaps because those defending DOCS were from the Labor side and those criticising it were dealing with it in its current situation. Certainly, this suggests that Dr Shepherd is dealing with a great level of problems.

During the estimates hearings I asked Dr Shepherd about the accreditation process, because another group—the group still chooses to remain nameless—has accreditation at a high level but cannot get any contracts from DOCS. Certainly, one wonders about the process for awarding foster care contracts. I gather that DOCS has not placed children with this group and will not offer it long-term plans. The group complained that children are going to Barnados and Life Without Barriers. Life Without Barriers is not accredited but is a designated agency. "Designated" means that Life Without Barriers looks after foster carers, and trains and supports foster carers; "accredited" means that a group goes through this new process with the Office of the Children's Guardian.

The director general, Neil Shepherd, said in answer to a question during the budget estimates hearing that the designated agency was a historic reality, that groups that had been successfully looking after children were re-awarded contracts so they would continue to look after foster children they had looked after earlier, and that the accreditation was a more recent process that all designated agencies—both current and those wishing to pick up contracts in future—would have to go through. So, it was an improvement strategy for the sector. Obviously those who had gone to the trouble to get accreditation because they believed they could offer good quality of care are quite dissatisfied.

DOCS, like other agencies, sometimes fail in Children's Court in the sense that their cases are not well prepared. It is important that a neutral judicial agency such as the Children's Court assess the evidence in a transparent way, according to a time-honoured process. It is important also that the power of the judicial process is maintained rather than more power being given to departmental discretion. As far as is reasonably possible the separation of powers between the Executive Government and its departments and the judiciary must be maintained in order that the judiciary can make neutral and transparent decisions.

If there are delays in the courts, one must determine the reasons for those delays. Is it because one party or the other is sufficiently disadvantaged or disorganised that it is unable to put together a decent case? If that is so, the problem needs to be addressed. If the problem is resources or government disorganisation, that too should be addressed. If there is insufficient legal aid to enable a family to respond, that problem must be addressed also. If the court simply does not have enough resources to do its job properly, likewise that matter must be addressed. I do not believe that merely giving arbitrary powers to a department on the basis of the so-called failings of an independent judicial review process is the answer to the problem. The bill contains a number of relatively small amendments that may or may not be important. Of importance is the reversal of the onus of proof, and if that onus is not reversed by this amendment, I will not be able to support the bill.

The Hon. MELINDA PAVEY [10.32 p.m.]: The Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Miscellaneous Amendments Bill is about spin over substance. It is about protecting the Government rather than the children. It is about a Minister for Community Services more concerned about the Daily Telegraph than accountability. Tonight we should be demanding answers from the Government about the Ombudsman's report that was referred to by Reverend the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes. He believes that Ombudsman's report is out there. It should be with the Parliament; it should be in this House. It should have been in the lower House when this important legislation was debated in that Chamber. The Opposition's concerns about the bill have been well put by my colleague the shadow Minister for Juvenile Justice, the Hon. Catherine Cusack, and also by the shadow Minister for Community Services, the honourable member for Willoughby, in the other place.

The Hon. Catherine Cusack and I spend many hours talking about these sorts of issues. I was greatly offended by the slur directed at the Opposition earlier by the Hon. Amanda Fazio. She claimed that because members of the Opposition come from an allegedly middle-class environment they would not be concerned about the shocking rate of death of children in this State. Such a suggestion is abhorrent. It is a disgrace that the honourable member has little concern for what is happening in this regard. She and her colleagues have not requested information about those children as reported by the Ombudsman, and the Minister has failed to table that report in the Parliament.

The point remains that the bill is all about spin over substance. It is about the Minister getting out from in front of the truck before it runs her over. This Minister does not deserve to be responsible for the protection of the children of this State, as evidenced by her big announcement on 1 November to launch a billboard to get more foster carers in Sydney to look after children, which was followed by the back down and the change to the legislation in the Committee stage in the Legislative Assembly yesterday. The Government had to revisit the legislation because of confidentiality concerns—and rightly so—by the Foster Carers Association.

Tonight we have been able to shine some light on a serious problem. From a regional perspective I refer to the summary report of the New South Wales Child Death Review Team released by Commissioner Gillian Calvert on the last day of last month. I am a member of the Committee on Children and Young People, as is the Hon. Kayee Griffin. I believe that the Hon. Tony Catanzariti was also a member at one stage. The key findings in this 2005 report are interesting. The summary report states that the overall death rate of children aged between nought and 17 is falling. Interestingly, the number of infant deaths has increased—from 299 in 2004 to 367 in 2005. That is why we need to see the Ombudsman's report. In her second reading speech on 24 October the Minister referred to that day's Daily Telegraph and said:

The information includes … statistics from the [Department of Community Services] and reports 104 child deaths in 2005.

Information was tabled suggesting that the Ombudsman's draft reviewable deaths report is concerned about 117 children, because not all deaths are reported or known to DOCS. It is worth mentioning that during the budget estimates process DOCS and Neil Shepherd confirmed that of the order of 47 per cent of cases reported to the department for follow-up were not followed up. That is a concern for everyone. I am not critical of the people on the ground in the Department of Community Services—we all know the difficulties they face on a daily basis—but the department has some fundamental issues in relation to management and resourcing. As the shadow Minister, the honourable member for Willoughby, said in the other place, the Minister failed to talk about those resourcing issues in her second reading speech.

It is regrettable that Government members, including the Minister, continue to peddle a misleading and dishonest campaign that in government the Coalition will reduce the number of front-line workers in DOCS. We will not, and we have good reason not to do that. The incidence of infant death in this State is increasing. The Ombudsman's report that is floating around this place will require considerable analysis.

The Hon. Catherine Cusack has raised officially for the past couple of years—as we have raised among members of the Committee on Children and Young People—the lack of statistical information available concerning cross-border communities. According to a graph I have in my possession Queanbeyan, which is in my duty electorate of Monaro, has a crude death rate of less than four. However, the crude death rate is even lower in Tweed Heads and the border regions near Victoria and Broken Hill. This is because children who are involved in an accident or an incident in a border region of New South Wales may be transported to Brisbane, Melbour