Queensland

Parliamentary Debates [Hansard]

Legislative Assembly

THURSDAY, 8 JUNE 1989

Electronic reproduction of original hardcopy

Ministerial Statement 8 June 1989 5349

THURSDAY, 8 JUNE 1989

Mr SPEAKER (Hon. L. W. Powell, Isis) read prayers and took the chair at 10 a.m.

ADDRESS TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR; REMOVAL OF MR JUSTICE ANGELO VASTA FROM OFFICE

Presentation Mr SPEAKER: Honourable members, I advise the House that today I presented the address agreed to by the Legislative Assembly at the sitting of 7 June 1989 to His Excellency the Goveraor and His Excellency has advised that he will consider the address and convey to me his response thereto.

PAPER The following paper was laid on the table— Regulation under the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (Land Holding) Act 1985.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

Used-car Salesmen Hon. V. P. LESTER (Peak Downs—Minister for Employment, Training and Indus­ trial Affairs) (10.02 a.m.), by leave: Mr Speaker, I have a ministerial statement dealing with used-car salesmen. I seek leave to table it and have its contents incorporated in Hansard. Mr SPEAKER: I will be happy to put the question. Mr Warburton interjected. Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member for Sandgate would have heard what it was about if the people behind him had kept quiet. Leave granted. Whereupon the honourable member laid on the table the following document— The fast-talking used-car salesman—the butt of many jokes—is alive and well, and regrettably, living in Queensland. It is a sad fact that while many used car yards carry on business in a responsible manner, there are some notable exceptions. The Consumer Affairs Bureau has had a substantial number of complaints this year against Kingston Star Motor Market at Kingston Road, Slacks Creek. It appears that the current manager, who has been there some five months, is well-known to the bureau. The manager, Daniel Arnott, has been known to the bureau as a "problem" salesman for some years. Any car firm he was associated with was likely to be the subject of complaints to the bureau. I understand that Kingston Star Motor Market's business has increased considerably since Mr Amott's arrival. Unfortunately the number of dissatisfied consumers has also increased, and Mr Arnott has been less than helpful in resolving complaints received by the Consumer Affairs Bureau. There have been numerous complaints of broken promises concerning repairs to vehicles, unsatisfactory workmanship when repairs are done, and serious defects in vehicles bought from Kingston Star Motor Market. It also appears that one customer seeking to return an unsatisfactory vehicle has been subjected to undue pressure to sign away any rights to redress. 5350 8 June 1989 Ministerial Statement

I urge used car buyers to steer well clear of Kingston Star Motor Market and its manager.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

Waterfront and Shipping Reform Hon. D. McC. NEAL (Balonne—Minister for Water Resources and Maritime Services) (10.03 a.m.), by leave: Virtually two months after the release of the Inter-State Commission's waterfront investigation final report, the Federal Government has finally made a position statement on waterfront and shipping reform. And after two years of investigation through the workings of the Inter-State Commission and two months of abortive attempts by the Federal Goverament to get the waterfront unions and employers to see that real reform is an imperative, not just a passing phase, they have now decided to allocate a further three months to achieving an "in-principle" agreement. The agreement is to be reached between the Federal Government, the unions and employers before any start can be made to implementing reforms. Australia cannot afford the luxury of waiting an additional three months and still run the risk of any reform agreements being thrown out the window. The Federal Government thinks it can dispense a couple of aspirin and the headache will go away. But the Inter-State Commission has identified our waterfront problems as conservatively costing the Australian economy about $620m per year and the Queensland economy up to $100m a year. This means that a three-month delay in implementing reforms will cost the Australian economy at least a further $ 150m, and the Queensland economy about $25m. It is worth remembering the commission's reasons for providing conservative estimates for these cost-savings. Lessons were learnt from the widespread criticism that resulted from the potential resource cost-savings of more than $100m per year claimed by the royal commission into the grain industry which would result from deregulation. However, in the case of the waterfront, there is general consensus throughout Australian industry that a more realistic estimate of the direct benefits to be achieved by waterfront reform could be as high as twice the commission's estimate. Indirect benefits through improved reliability not included in these estimates would also serve to increase the potential advantages to our economy. Most of the current problems on the waterfront have been brought about by dealings between the unions and the employers, which have always been characterised by relentless self-interest to the total exclusion of all other concerns. Unions could not even agree on a submission to the Inter-State Commission through the Stevedoring Industry Review Committee during the commission's investigation. They have not been able to agree on preliminary implementation details since the final report was released, so why suddenly should they start to agree in the next few months on issues on which they appear to be poles apart? It is quite clear that the Federal Government's current gradualist approach to solving the waterfront problem is totally inappropriate. At present, everybody's interests are being protected by the Federal Government, except for the bulk of the population who wear the unnecessary costs of delays incurred on the wharves. The State Government recognises that the "in-principle" agreement would be a desirable basis on which to proceed, but cannot accept that it is a prerequisite for reform. The Federal Government must be prepared to pass appropriate legislation to enforce the reform package proposed by the commission. I consider that the commission's waterfront industry plan constitutes a more than acceptable basis for reforms and should be implemented immediately. While the Queensland Government does not agree with all the plan's details, it is prepared to compromise on some of the minor details, if need be, to achieve major reforms. What the Government sees as the ultimate objective of the reform process must be commonsense work practices by the waterfront industry. Ministerial Statement 8 June 1989 5351

Arguments in support of treating the waterfront as necessarily different because of extreme and hazardous working conditions and variability of workloads all have historical relevance, but do not apply today. Normal industry-wide employer/employee relations must be introduced in areas of— • permanent and casual employment, • training levels provided by employers, • decisions on staff retention and retrenchment, • exposing the market-place to competitive influence, and redundancy arrangements. I am particularly concerned at the level of the redundancy package that has been proposed. For example, the present proposal provides for a total of 247 weeks for a 55-year-old with 30 years' service compared with 13 weeks under normal redundancy arrangements. Furthermore, abnormal rather than normal arrangements are still being proposed for the period after the restmcturing process. There is widespread concem at the excessive level of these redundancy arrangements from the viewpoint of potential flow-on effects to other industries involved in restmcturing. The Federal Government has identified that State Goveraments have a responsibility to assist the reform program by improving the operational efficiency of the port authorities under their control. Queensland accepts this responsibility, but also considers that it has wider interests in the entire reform process and would seek to be kept fully briefed by the Federal Government on the progress of the "in-principle" agreeements. In relation to Queensland's port authorities, the Queensland Government has already decided to initiate a review of pricing policies aimed at providing and documenting policies which are rational and acceptable to port-users. This is not to say that this State's pricing policies must be, or need to be, drastically altered. However, it indicates the State Goverament's commitment to the waterfront reform question by examining current arrangements and poUcies in an objective manner to see whether improvements can be made. We will also continue to provide a strategic overview of port authority operations and encourage and sponsor moves for port authorities to operate in a more commercial manner. However, it must be highlighted that many of the commission's recommendations in relation to port authority operations are already in place in Queensland. Because of the major importance of this industry on the well-being of the State and Federal economies, we have established a waterfront reform task force from the private and public sectors to closely monitor the waterfront reform process and to provide expert advice to the Govemment. The Federal Government's failure to grasp the nettle and immediately implement waterfront reforms will further burden our economic recovery. The three-month delay also mns a very serious risk of losing the momentum that has been gained by the commission's findings. This is what the waterfront unions are hoping for, but the Queensland Government intends to maintain pressure on the Federal Government so that it does not back down on its promises to achieve significant microeconomic reform in this vital area.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

Exclusion of Students from Kedron State High School; Appearance of Department of Education before Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Hon. B. G. LITTLEPROUD (Condamine—Minister for Education, Youth and Sport) (10.10 a.m.), by leave: During the past week, there have been media reports relating to appearances by the Department of Education before the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. These media reports refer to two instances in which a 5352 8 June 1989 Ministerial Statement total of six students were permanently excluded from Kedron State High School. The incidents took place on 30 March and 6 April. As occurs with the passage of time, the initial events, once removed from the immediate agenda, tend to be forgotten or, at the very least, taken out of their meaningful context. As Minister for Education, I believe the last statement to be very pertinent to the unfortunate and very emotional set of circumstances that are now occurring. The week-end's media reports of appearances before Justice Einfeld bear headlines such as "Students expelled because of their race" and "Student race case to go to the commission". I have sought to make this statement in the House in the interests of presenting the full set of circumstances that relate to this case—not the abridged and very emotional interpretation that has come to the fore in the press because of an alleged complaint relating to race. I advocate equal opportunities for all and I make this statement to set the records clear. On 30 March, Lincoln Carson was excluded from Kedron State High School for bad behaviour on the previous day. The grounds upon which this action was taken relate to gross misconduct at the school, which, in the opinion of the principal, was likely to prejudice the good order and discipline of the school. When Lincoln Carson's parents received notification of their son's exclusion from school, they were informed of their rights of appeal. Let me make it quite clear from the outset that the incident which led to the exclusion of Lincoln Carson was fully and impartially investigated. His exclusion related entirely to disciplinary matters—the physical striking of a teacher and a tirade of abuse which was witnessed, and attested to, by other students in the school. Incidentally, the verbal abuse was of the nature that no person should have to put up with, least of all a teacher who, in the performance of his duties, had the right to expect courteous behaviour from the student. More than 142 000 students attend secondary schools in this State and, in order to deliver quality education to all these students, there are certain minimum standards of behaviour which are considered acceptable. Physically striking a teacher and the use of extreme profanities are not acceptable. Without fear, favour or regard to race, Lincoln Carson was excluded from school. Under similar circumstances any one of those 142 000 students would have received a like punishment. In fact, last year a total of 41 students were excluded on matters relating to misconduct. On 6 April 1989, incidents took place at Kedron State High School which gained significant attention in the media and subsequently led to the exclusion of six students. It did appear amazing that the media tumed up at a school on the particular day when, to use media words, a "sit in" occurred by a group of students who were allegedly protesting Lincoln Carson's exclusion—an exclusion that was on disciplinary grounds for gross misconduct. On 6 April, not only did a group of students conduct the alleged sit-in, but a splinter group denied the principal, Mr Bielby, access to his office. Subsequently, allegations were made that the principal was jostled and subjected to insulting language. It was this deliberate provocation and the failure of students to carry out the instructions of the principal which led to their exclusion—again significant matters of misconduct. The incidents on that day were emotionally charged, and it became necessary to call the police. Curiously, the media were at the school at a very early stage in the proceedings, certainly prior to the calling of the police. No charges were laid against students but the police did escort them from the school premises. As is the case with all temporary exclusions, parents of students are given an opportunity to appeal the decision. The appeal takes the process of a departmental inquiry in which a senior officer conducts interviews with students, parents and members of the staff and student body. In the interests of the students whose education was at Ministerial Statement 8 June 1989 5353 stake, the department sought to expedite the appeal quickly. All students have been offered alternative access to education within the system. The parent appeal interviews were scheduled to be heard on 14 April 1989, a date which was notified by letter. Because of a request by the solicitors acting on behalf of the students for additional information, a subsequent delay in hearing the appeal occurred. I should point out that, when the parents were finally available for interview, the proceedings were conducted in the presence of an officer of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service. It was after an exhaustive inquiry of all matters relating to Lincoln Carson's initial exclusion and the subsequent exclusion of the six other students that the Director- General of Education took the decision, with the approval of the Acting Minister, to permanently exclude the students from Kedron State High School. They were all offered alternative access to education within the State system and one student, who was considered to be on the periphery of the events of 6 April, was allowed back into Kedron State High School. The alternatives ranged from other State high schools, a centre for continuing secondary education to the School of Distance Education. Let me repeat that the content of these exclusions relates to gross misconduct which is prejudicial to the good order and conduct of the school. As Minister for Education, I, and the Department of Education, must take the interests of an entire school into consideration in circumstances such as these. These students have since sought legal counsel, and on the advice of that counsel, the decisions to exclude the students have been referred to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. The Department of Education has taken action based on verifiable incidents of gross misconduct, yet the legal advisers acting for the students have chosen to argue racial discrimination. The matter went before Mr Justice Einfeld on Tuesday, 30 May. In a preliminary hearing based on student claims of racial discrimination, Mr Justice Einfeld sought to negotiate a process of conciliation between the department and the six students. What Mr Justice Einfeld wishes the Department of Education to do is to set aside the exclusions from Kedron State High School and allow the students to return to school, pending a full hearing of the Human Rights Commission, and he purported to make an interim determination to that effect. In the light of the full history, neither I nor the department was prepared to comply with this mling. Counsel for the students then sought to enforce this determination in the Federal Courts. On Thursday, 1 June, Mr Justice Spender, of the Federal Court, declined to issue such an order of enforcement. He based his decision on the evidence put before him, and he said that the interim determination was not validly made under the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. At the preliminary hearing before Mr Justice Einfeld, counsel for the Department of Education challenged the Human Rights Commission's jurisdiction over this matter. On Friday, 2 June 1989, Mr Justice Einfeld, of the Human Rights Commission, ruled that the Human Rights Commission did have jurisdiction over the matter. A full hearing has been set down for 19 June. In summary, let me again set the record straight to this point in time— • The Department of Education, after fuU investigation and evidence available to it, permanently excluded six students from Kedron State High School for matters of gross misconduct prejudicial to the good order and conduct of the school. 5354 8 June 1989 Ministerial Statement

• The matter has been taken up by the Human Rights Commission based on the students' claim that they were excluded on racial grounds. • The Department of Education affirms the matter is one of discipUne and not of race. • An interim mling by the Human Rights Commission for the students to retum to school was not enforced by the Federal Court based on the evidence presented to it. • The Human Rights Commission ruled that it does have jurisdiction on the matter and will hear the case in full commencing on 19 June. In order to ensure that appropriate disciplinary measures can be taken in the future, I plan to submit to Parliament certain amendments to the legislation governing the authority vested in the Director-General of Education. The amendments will make provision for exclusion from all State schools of those students whose behaviour is clearly prejudicial to the welfare of both students and teachers. Let me reiterate that this is not a matter of racial discrimination. It is a matter of discipline. For the sake of the education of all students, such behaviour by students cannot be tolerated.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

Development of Comprehensive Policy in Support of Queensland Families Hon. C. A. SHERRIN (Mansfield—Minister for Family Services) (10.18 a.m.), by leave: I wish to acquaint the House with the progress of the Queensland Government in developing a comprehensive policy in support of Queensland families. As the statement is quite long, I seek leave to table it and to have it incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. Whereupon the honourable member laid on the table the following document— There is no doubt that the family is the single most important and cohesive element in our society. It is the greatest bastion we have against a descent into social chaos. Parents who love, respect and cherish their children are almost by definition going to be more responsible, and more generous, members of society. Children who are loved, and who develop a sound understanding of their responsibilities to others through the discipline and mutual caring within families, have a massive headstart in life over those who have missed such experience, or whose experience has been unsatisfactory. In recent times there has been a massive growth in pressures, and equally massive changes in social priorities, that have had a negative impact on the good things and family has represented in our western Christian society for thousands of years. In our generation, the generation of the "nuclear family" the extended family, has ceased to exist for many. It has been spread to the four winds by greater ease of transportation and the need to chase employment around the country. This phenomenon has isolated many families and perhaps helped make some more vulnerable to other pressures that began developing in this country about two decades ago. The greater ease of divorce that appeared in the 1970's was hailed by some as a means of freeing people from unsatisfactory relationships. Far too often it has been abused as an easy means of escaping responsibilities. The sanctity of marriage, and the massive responsibilities that go with marriage and family, have therefore been downgraded in the interests of selfishness. The sexual revolution of the same era was another basically selfish development that has helped to undermine the family. But not all of the developments that have hurt the family have been signs of a moral decay. Others, and perhaps some of the most powerful and insidious, are related to the pace and pressures of the modern world. Holding a family together in a financial sense has perhaps never been harder. The pressure to succeed in the workplace, and the penalties for failing to do so, are as harsh, if not harsher, than they have ever been. This form of pressure has created extreme stresses in many families. Ministerial Statement 8 June 1989 5355

The symptoms of the impact of all these and other pressures on the family are now at an alarming level. Divorce is endemic. In many of our schools more than half the children are from single-parent families. Thousands of children of very tender years, as young as 10 and 12, roam our streets late into the night. Juvenile crime is at disturbingly high levels. Many thousands of children have been literally cast aside by their families and are homeless. Thousands of children are abused in Queensland each year, either sexually, physically, or emotionally-often by troubled parents. Domestic violence is rife in many of our homes. We must reverse these trends before it is too late. One of the most disturbing facts I have learned as Family Services Minister is that many of these problems are cyclical. It is a fact that an abused child is very likely to become a child- abuser, just as it is a sad fact that a boy who sees his mother bashed has every chance of becoming a violent man himself We must break this cycle, which is gaining even more members each year. We must restore the family to its pre-eminent role in society while we still have the opportunity. Within weeks of becoming Family Services Minister, I took to Cabinet a proposal that we develop in Queensland a comprehensive policy to support the family. It will be aimed at providing strength, sustenance and nurturing to the family in whatever way we can. Cabinet agreed willingly to that proposal, and I want honourable members to know that work has been in progress on development of that policy since early this year. The task is a comprehensive one. We are not merely setting out to combat the negatives. Nor do we intend to isolate, or in any way discriminate against, those people whose family lives, often through no fault of their own, have broken down. I am sure that uppermost in the minds of very many single mothers, and fathers, is the importance of providing their children with a loving, caring, disciplined, family environment. The aim of this policy will be to nurture those and all families. It will be a positive, not a negative, set of proposals. In some areas, the potential of the State Govemment to have an impact is Hmited. Income maintenance, a cmcial factor in the modem pressures on the family, is principally a matter only the Federal Government can influence to any great degree. There are, however, many areas in which State administrators can play an important role. Areas that the Government is looking at include family living standards, the effectiveness of family centres, the availability of child care, housing, health and education issues, the aged, services to youth, special programs for those in need, community responsibilities and involvement, partnerships with Commonwealth and Local Government and non-Govemment agencies, encouragement of volunteers, and the effectiveness of existing programs. It is an exciting project, and the Government are seeking the input of the community through a series of seminars across the length and breadth of the State. Progress towards our goal of greater support for the family is being made in other areas as well. The recently passed Domestic Violence (Family Protection) Act is humane and caring legislation based on the premise that most women do not want their relationship to end, they simply want the violence to stop. There is incontrovertible evidence from around the world that early intervention is the way to achieve this, and that is the mechanism that the Govemment has set in place. The Government has also embarked on the development of an aged policy, in a bid to improve our services to the elderly, and to restore some of the dignity to which they are entitled, and which has suffered in recent years under many of the same pressures that have affected families. The Government is rewriting our juvenile justice legislation in a way that more effectively translates our view that the task of rehabilitating offending youth is a shared responsibility between the judicial system and families. The Government has established a specialist youth unit in the Fortitude Valley area of Brisbane in a bid to tackle the problem of homeless youth in a more positive and long term way. If the pilot succeeds, as I fully expect it will, we will expand these groups to other areas of the State. The emphasis is always and unerringly towards strengthening, and supporting, the role of the family in our society and of directing and helping those people who have lost their families back to them. The family policy, a major initiative of the Queensland Govemment, will be ready for the consideration of Cabinet by the end of July. 5356 8 June 1989 Questions Upon Notice

QUESTIONS UPON NOTICE

1. Sale by Estate of D. G. Thompson of Land on West Bank of Coomera River Mr BURNS asked the Minister for Land Management— "With reference to the proposed sale by the estate of D. G. Thompson of 294 hectares of land on the west bank of the Coomera River and to his press release of 6 June in which he said that the Crown recreation reserve known as William Guise Foxwell Park was sold to the Thompson Estate in an arrangement that included the surrender of a special lease and the surrender of 15.4 hectares of freehold land and a monetary consideration of $ 116 200— Why is it that a check carried out on 7 June at both the Albert Shire Council and Freehold Land Titles Office, still shows the land in question as Crown reserve for parks and recreation, bearing in mind his claim that there was no secrecy in the deal and that full details are available to the public?" Mr GLASSON: This question by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition is consequent upon a press statement that I released in answer to a press release by the member for Cairns which, while sensational in content, is completely without foundation. If the member for Cairns listens to my answer, he may be able to understand the background to the amalgamation. The roads involved in the transaction were approved for closure and water, road and crossing reserve R.332 was approved to be cancelled and the lands comprised therein sold to Mr D. G. Thompson for inclusion in his adjoining freehold land. The purchase price of $20,000 was paid on 17 Febmary 1982. Mr De Lacy: I hope you're not just reading a press release. Mr GLASSON: If the honourable member listened, he might be better informed. Park and recreation reserve R.l843 was approved for cancellation and subsequent sale to Mr Thompson for inclusion in his adjoining freehold land, subject to surrender of special lease 40640 and surrender of other freehold land for park and recreation purposes, provided payment was made of $116,200, representing the difference at the relevant time in the values of the parcels of land involved. That offer was accepted and moneys were paid in full on 20 May 1988. Mr David Graeme Thompson died in November 1987, and finality in relation to the transaction awaits grant of probate and the entry of transmission in the Department of Freehold Land Titles in respect of the freehold land. There has to be someone to validly execute the necessary documentation. The offer is still curent and will be concluded when entry of transmission has been completed and the necessary documentation executed. The whole of the proposal was examined at length over a considerable period of time by the Department of Lands and all proper advertising, consultations and inquiries took place. The amalgamation of freehold titles, which was previously referred to, is a common occurrence by the registered proprietors of freehold land in consolidating their holdings, and details of those transactions are available from the Department of Freehold Land Titles.

2. Commonwealth/State Housing Agreement Mr BURNS asked the Deputy Premier and Minister for Public Works, Housing and Main Roads— "(1) Was the 1945 Commonwealth/State Housing Agreement amended in 1956 to permit sales to tenants? Questions Upon Notice 8 June 1989 5357

(2) How many tenants in each of the last 10 years bought homes under this arrangement? (3) Did amendments to State legislation in 1971 permit funds to be disbursed to co-operative terminating building societies? (4) What moneys were distributed to societies under that arrangement in each year since 1971? (5) When and for what reason did the State Government decide on a practice of not providing Government funds to co-operatives? (6) Does the Queensland Housing Commission still hold some securities of co-operative building societies that were given funds under this arrangement? (7) Were loans that were repaid early left in the hands of these societies and not re-allocated to low cost housing? (8) Is it tme that management fees continue to accme to society managers on funds which have ceased to require monthly maintenance and what manage­ ment fees are paid in each case? (9) Who are the managers of those societies? (10) Are surplus funds usually distributed among members after all the society's indebtedness is repaid? (11) What is the total number of homes in Queensland being purchased under loans from (a) banks, (b) building societies, (c) credit unions, (d) other financial institutions and (e) the Q.H.C.? (12) Is there a means test on housing commission first home loans? (13) Will he provide the House with a breakdown of the sizes of loans and the terms in interest and number of years, of outstanding Queensland Housing Commission home loans?" Mr GUNN: (1 to 13) In answer to the honourable member—I advise the 1945 Commonwealth/State Housing Agreement allowed sales of houses. An amendment in 1955 inter alia restricted sales to tenants. Sales to tenants over the past 10 years have been as follows— 1978-79 403 1979-80 271 1980-81 271 1981-82 142 1982-83 98 1983-84 109 1984-85 108 1985-86 71 1986-87 42 1987-88 54 Co-operative housing societies must be registered under the Co-operative Housing Societies Act, which is under the control of my colleague the Honourable Paul Clauson. Loans to societies from the 1956-57 financial year to 30 June 1971 were funded from Commonwealth loans through the Home Builders Account. From 1 July 1971, all loan advances from the Commonwealth were to go to the credit of the Approved Housing Institutions Advances Account. In the following years a portion of Commonwealth/State Housing Agreement funds was channelled through societies. Over the years they came to rely on this as their main source of funds and over 80 per cent of all funds distributed by societies came from welfare funds. As a result of reduced housing funds in the late 1970s, together with revision of Commonwealth and State philosophies regarding welfare housing operations, the flow of funds was reduced and finally withdrawn. In addition, society administration costs 5358 8 June 1989 Questions Upon Notice are higher than those of the Queensland Housing Commission. This means less funds would be available for housing and higher costs to borrowers. The Queensland Housing Commission currently administers 588 co-operative housing society loan accounts for 53 societies. The debt outstanding is $37.3m. Societies repay loans by quarterly instalments. In the case of an individual member paying out a loan, the society must pay the outstanding debt of the member's loan to the commission. When the societies' loan accounts with the commission are paid out, surplus funds are available for distribution to members. As to home loans advanced by the Queensland Housing Commission—there are currently in excess of 34 800 loans. Details of loans advanced from banks, building societies, credit unions and other financial institutions are not available. To be eligible for one of the commission's loan schemes, an applicant must not already own a home, must intend to live in the home, have 10 per cent deposit, and existing commitments must allow loan repayments and other housing costs to be met. For interest subsidy loans, an applicant's gross income must not exceed $497.80 per week. There is no income limit for flexible term loans. Details of the commission's outstanding housing loans could not be provided for the honourable member on such short notice. I will forward the information requested as soon as practicable.

3. Brisbane and Area Water Board Charges; Wolffdene Dam Mr LINGARD asked the Minister for Water Resources and Maritime Services— "(1) Will the sale of raw water by the Brisbane and Area Water Board to local authorities in its area of operation in any way increase rates during 1989-90? (2) Will any costs, as a result of board charges, be passed on to the ratepayers of the Brisbane region as a result of the planning for and constuction of the Wolffdene Dam?" Mr NEAL: (1 and 2) I thank the honourable member for his question. I am pleased to say that there wiU be no increases in the 1989-90 financial year of Brisbane and Area Water Board charges to local authorities for the sale of raw water. The board's delivery charges will remain the same as those set for last year. This means that councils then have no justification in blaming any rate increases on the cost of water, which has remained the same. This will be good news for those residents who live within the boundaries of the board's operations who are assured that the delivery cost of their water has been kept at last year's level. The board's operational area includes the cities of Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan and Redcliffe and the shires of Moreton, Pine Rivers, Esk, Albert and Beaudesert. The board's charges for 1989-90 total $25,265,000 for the supply of raw water to local authorities in the board area. These charges meet the debt repayment costs of all the regions major water storages as well as the cost of their operation. Local authorities have estimated that they will use 241 000 megalitres of water during the next financial year, and on that basis the board's charge per million litres will be approximately $105, the same as this year. This is a very attractive charge compared with the cost of raw water in other regions of Australia. Honourable members should be aware that the board's 1989-90 budget now confirms the accuracy of the board's long-term planning for the cost of land acquisitions and constmction of the Wolffdene dam. The board has consistently maintained that, through its policy of long-term financial planning, the cost of land acquisitions for the Wolffdene dam will not cause the board's water charges to rise. The allegations made by Mr Fred James and Mr David Milligan, who have orchestrated a campaign of lies regarding the cost and need for the Wolffdene dam, have Questions Upon Notice 8 June 1989 5359

again been shown to be totally baseless. Mr James and Mr Milligan have demonstrated that they are conmen who will stop at nothing to get publicity. They have been proved wrong on every claim they have made regarding the siting of the dam, the costs of the project, the land acquisition program and, now, the delivery cost of water to the rate­ payers of the Brisbane region. They have no altemative than to accept the cold hard reality that the Brisbane and Area Water Board is on target in regard to its planning program for the Wolffdene dam.

4. Scenic Rim Management Plan Mr LINGARD asked the Minister for Environment, Conservation and Forestry— "With reference to the management plan for the development of the area known as the Scenic Rim— What avenues will be available for local residents to have an input into the proposals?" Mr AUSTIN: On behalf of the Minister for Environment, Conservation and Forestry, the answer is as foUows— The scenic rim draft management plan was released for public comment on 10 March. The public and community groups were made aware of the plan's release by media releases throughout the area and the State. The initial period for public comment was three months. However, to date only a small number of submissions on the draft plan have been received and as a consequence it is now planned to extend the period of public contact for another two months to allow further public input and consultation. Prior to the preparation of the plan, public participation was sought by— • advertising for public submissions, • written requests to local authority and user groups, and • discussions with user groups. Many of the comments from those groups were included in the draft plan. Comments received from the public, both written and oral, will eventually be considered and, where appropriate, incorporated in the final plan. This is one of many such management plans aimed at protecting the outstanding natural resources and recreational values of the area for future generations.

5. Motor Vehicle Dealers' Plates Mr ELLIOTT asked the Minister for Finance and Minister Assisting the Premier and Treasurer— "(1) What is the number of third party claims and the total sum paid out against insurance by holders of dealers trade plates during the last five years? (2) What is the total number of dealer plates on issue and, therefore, the number of insurance policies in force in Queensland?" Mr AUSTIN: (1) Information on premium income and claims expenditure within specific categories of insurance is of a commercial nature and the Government has always maintained a policy of not breaching the confidentiality of commercial dealings which could result in disadvantaging a particular insurer. However, I can assure the honourable member that I have examined the figures available for the last three years and these indicate a claims to premiums ratio in the order of 3 to 1, which clearly justified the increase in premiums attaching to dealers' plates. (2) The honourable member will appreciate that this figure is not constant and fluctuates from day to day. However, based on the last return submitted from the insurers, I would estimate the total number of dealers' plates on issue to be of the order of 2 300. 5360 8 June 1989 Questions Upon Notice

6. Adoption of Overseas Children Mr SIMPSON asked the Minister for Family Services— "(1) What would the situation be in Queensland if an overseas baby was adopted by a couple who later found they were expecting their own child? (2) Would the events that occurred in Victoria take place here? (3) Are children being wrongly taken away from their families in Queensland by inexperienced social workers?" Mr SHERRIN: (1 and 2) No action would be necessary as, once an adoption order is made, my department does not have any further involvement. The exceptions to this would be if the family sought assistance voluntarily or there was a child protection notification or some other concem which required investigation. (3) To my knowledge, no. Departmental officers spend a great deal of time, effort and expertise in highly sensitive situations trying to keep children in their own families. Since I became Minister for Family Services, I have seen many instances of this, and removal of a child from the natural family is a last resort. Frequently, the department's officers are in a no-win position when they walk into highly emotional and volatile circumstances and, from my experience, I cannot speak too highly of their dedication and commitment to family life. At the same time, I wish to acquaint the House with the activities of a small group of extremists who have been active in South Australia and Victoria and are now focusing their attention on Queensland. Those extremists advocate that children are nothing more than chattels—the property of parents to deal with as they choose. They argue that Governments and the wider community have no interest or right to protect those children from the many and various forms of abuse. I urge all honourable members to be careful if they have dealings with those people.

7. Toohey Forest Management Plan Mr HENDERSON asked the Minister for Environment, Conservation and Forestry— "With reference to a planning committee attended by community members interested in the future of Toohey Forest, it seems that a representative of the Brisbane City Council stated that the planning was generally pointless since the State Government would probably override community views and impose its own plans on the Council— (1) Are these claims by the Brisbane City Council correct? (2) If not, what is the real position?" Mr AUSTIN: On behalf of the Minister for Environment, Conservation and Forestry, the answer is as follows— (1 and 2) The claims made by the Brisbane City Council are baseless and demonstrate the way in which the Lord Mayor is trying to politicise bushland management. This Government has had a long-standing interest in the protection of Toohey Forest. As far back as 1982 it called for the establishment of a Brisbane Forest Park style management concept for Toohey Forest. Part of that proposal called for the preparation of a management plan. Indeed, at that time the then Vice-Chancellor of Griffith University, Professor Willett, wrote to the then Minister, the Honourable Bill Glasson, stating— "The University will be very willing to play its part in developing and implementing a management plan for the area and, as you will know, the University has a number of members of staff with interests and expertise in the areas of the recreational use of land and water resources. We are at your service." Questions Upon Notice 8 June 1989 5361

In 1982 the Brisbane City Council under a Labor administration was a major impediment to the creation of a south-side Brisbane Forest Park, so the State Govera­ ment's plans were fmstrated and deferred. Now, in 1989, the Brisbane City Council under a Liberal administration is playing similar tricks. I have no intention of ignoring the planning efforts of the land-holders at Toohey Forest. I have stated before and I will state again that I believe Toohey Forest could be best protected under the provisions of the Recreation Areas Management Act as a declared recreation area. However, this does not mean that the management plan being produced would be ignored. On the contrary, declaration as a recreation area would offer the Toohey Forest managers much greater powers to protect the forest than currently exists. Unfortunately, the Brisbane City Council seems to be more interested in politicising the environment than actually getting out and doing something positive to protect it. The State Govemment has put its money where its mouth is. It has spent $3m this year on acquiring bushland adjoining Toohey Forest for the people of Brisbane. That land has been the subject of public debate for many years. The State Government stepped in and did something positive. I will continue to support the declaration of Toohey Forest as a recreation area and I hope that the good of Toohey Forest will be kept at the forefront of the debate rather than cheap politics.

8. Disposal of Liquid Effluent into Port Curtis Harbour Mr PREST asked the Minister for Environment, Conservation and Forestry— "With reference to an application that has been made to alter the preliminary design concepts of a pipeline to transport liquid effluents (that being trade waste) to the Port Curtis Harbour from a sodium cyanide/caustic chlorine complex which ICI Australia is constmcting at Yarwun Industrial Estate and as this concept change has the approval of the Department of Environment and Conservation and is a change from the proposal described in September 1988 in the IAS for the complex— Why has this request for the alteration been made and what monitoring will be made on these trade wastes to ensure that no effluents will be discharged directly into Port Curtis that may damage the adjacent wetlands and the environment?" Mr AUSTIN: On behalf of the Minister for Environment, Conservation and Forestry, the answer is as follows— ICI orginally proposed to dispose of its liquid effluent to a branch of the Calliope River estuary via a joint collection and outfall facility to be operated by Calliope Shire Council, as set out in its September 1988 impact assessment report. Subsequently it was found that, through a misunderstanding, the quality of the effluent would be significantly different from what was originally thought by my officers and that considerably more treatment would be required for discharge to the Calliope system that orginally allowed for by the company. Following discussions on the matter between the company and my officers, the company concluded that its orginal effluent disposal plan should be abandoned in favour of direct discharge of the treated effluent into Port Curtis. This alternative has since been investigated in some detail in consultation with all relevant authorities with a view to arriving at a mutually acceptable and environmentally sound solution. The department's requirements for discharging treated effluent to Port Curtis will be such that there will be no threat to the waters and adjacent wetlands of Port Curtis itself and this arrangement will prevent any further stress being placed on the Calliope River system from this source. The effluent will be regularly monitored by the company as a licence requirement, and, in addition, by departmental officers to ensure compliance with those requirements. 5362 8 June 1989 Questions Upon Notice

9. Removal of Hut from North West Island Mr PREST asked the Minister for Environment, Conservation and Forestry— "With reference to information I have received that the Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service is planning to remove an old fisherman's hut from North West Island, this hut having stood as part of the island's history since around 1936 when first used as a base by local professional fishermen who, by today's standards of well equipped vessels, could be considered a pioneering breed with primitive vessels and equipment and, in view of the historical nature of this hut and the cost to remove same— Will he allow the hut to remain in situ and be maintained for our future generations to appreciate the hardships our pioneering fishermen faced and, if not, what are the valid reasons for its removal?" Mr AUSTIN: On behalf of the Minister for Environment, Conservation and Forestry, the answer is as follows— I have been advised that the hut on North West Island, known to locals as the "Tamby Hilton", has been vandalised. At this juncture its future is being carefully considered, and I have instmcted my officers to provide me with advice on its condition and possible future. An inspection is presently under way and I expect to receive the report within a fortnight, at which time I will make a decision on the matter.

10. Police Strength at Coolangatta Mr GATELY asked the Minister for Police and Minister for Emergency Services and Administrative Services— "With reference to the rapid development and increase in the size of the electorate of Curmmbin, an increase approaching 25 per cent— (1) Will he arrange to urgently have an additional five police stationed at Coolangatta, because of the continuing incidence of break and enters, dmg offences, offensive behaviour and under age drinking? (2) As the Police Assessment Branch stated in 1987 that police strength at Coolangatta was satisfactory, is he aware that this is a statement which is disputed by local members of the police force and, more particularly, by members of the public who are demanding and deserve much better service from the Police Department of Queensland?" Mr COOPER: (1 and 2) The Government recognises the need for extra police in a number of areas and in the last Budget allocated funds for an additional 600 police over three years for the Queensland police force. As those additional personnel become available they will be allocated to districts on a priority basis. Tomorrow, approximately 45 police officers will be inducted into the Queensland police force. Additionally, approximately 84 police officers will be inducted on 7 July 1989. Those personnel will undertake training in a number of areas throughout the State including the Gold Coast district. Between now and the end of the year an extra 266 police will be inducted. After Friday, 9 June 1989, 34 instead of 31 first-year constables will be allocated to the Gold Coast police district. The Acting Commissioner of Police has informed me that two extra first-year constables are commencing duty at Coolangatta today. Recently, an inspector of police was assigned to the Gold Coast district to perform duty specifically at Coolangatta. His duties are to ensure the effective management of personnel and resources at that station. Moreover, policework practices will be examined further with a view to streamlining them upon the release of reports by Mr Fitzgerald, QC. Questions Upon Notice 8 June 1989 5363

11> Road-funding Mr GATELY asked the Deputy Premier and Minister for Public Works, Housing and Main Roads— "(1) Is he aware that Mr D. J. HamiU, MLA, Member for Ipswich, was asked the following question at Coolum transport meeting 'Will you give a public undertaking to demand a higher percentage of Goverament funds for road constmction and maintenance?'? (2) Is he aware Mr Hamill answered 'Yes, I think there is great merit for bringing road constmction and transport under one Minister. All State Govem­ ments are complaining most bitterly about their share—Queenslands large areas of roads are in disrepair all areas of Queensland require many extra funds for road funding. Yes, I will undertake in Opposition and Goverament to publicly seek extra road funding from the Federal Government ...'? (3) Is he aware if Mr Hamill has publicly asked for the extra funds?" Mr GUNN: (1 to 3) I was not aware of the statements which Mr Hamill is reported to have made recently in support of the need for additional road funds. I am pleased to learn that the member for Ipswich has come to the same conclusion as that reached by the Government years ago; that the need for additional road funds has been with us for a long time. Whereas no-one welcomes the damage that heavy rains, flooding and a protracted wet season cause to the road system, it seems that they have assisted Mr Hamill to realise the tme position. I am pleased that Mr Hamill has undertaken to make representations. I do not know whether he has made representations to his Federal colleagues on this issue. I have not seen any media statement attributed to Mr Hamill, but I am sure that he is very well aware that the Federal Government has been short-changing the States and all road-users in its meagre policies of road-funding. I am referring to the paltry figure of 5c which Canberra passes to the States out of the 28c that it collects for every litre of fuel used on the roads.

12. Acquisition of Assets of National Safety Council at Townsville Mr McELLIGOTT asked the Premier and Treasurer and Minister for State Development and the Arts— "With reference to the Government's decision to acquire the assets of the Townsville depot of the Victorian Branch of the National Safety Council— On what terms and conditions is that equipment to be passed to a consortium led by the Northern Zone Chairman of the National Party, Terry Bolger and, in particular (a) is the purchase price of $5m to be repaid and, if so, over what period and at what interest rate, (b) why were expressions of interest not called to ensure the best and most experienced operator was found, (c) will the Gov­ ernment underwrite any losses incurred by the consortium, (d) to what extent will the consortium operate as competition against existing air service operators and (e) what experience has Mr Bolger had in the operational management of an emergency service?" Mr AHERN: The detailed terms and conditions have not as yet been agreed upon. However, in response to the particular questions raised by the honourable member, I advise— (a) The equipment will be leased to the consortium at appropriate commercial rates. (b) The Government received several submissions. However, the consortium sub­ mitted what the Govemment considered to be the most advantageous offer. (c) No. 5364 8 June 1989 Questions Upon Notice

(d) The primary function of the consortium is to supply an emergency service for the benefit of the north Queensland community. I understand the consortium intends to explore other commercial opportunities. (e) The consortium has advised that it has access to a range of personnel who have experience in conducting emergency operations. I hope that the honourable member's efforts to denigrate this fine community- spirited action by a group of Townsville businesspeople will not go unnoticed by the people in his electorate.

13. Hospital Questionnaires Mrs NELSON asked the Minister for Community Services and Ethnic Affairs— "With reference to requests by staff from various hospitals in Queensland for multi-lingual questionnaires to be provided to staff for assistance in the treatment of patients with little or no use of the English language— What action is being taken by his department to help overcome this problem?" Mr KATTER: I must pay tribute to the honourable member who, along with a number of other people, brought this very serious problem to our attention. The fact of the matter is that hospitals throughout Queensland have experienced enormous difficulties in treating patients who cannot speak English. I am pleased that the honourable member has raised the question. I am indeed aware of the problems that exist in hospitals and other institutions which provide nursing and medical care. In response to a request from the honourable member and various other people, including the Health Department, the language services section of the Office of Ethnic Affairs is putting the finishing touches to a project titled "Language Guides for Health Care Professionals". Each language guide comprises three sets of key questions and phrases. One set is for out-patients, one is for casualty and one is for admissions. The guide covers subjects ranging from patient history and examination procedures to major accident situations. The finished product consists of 50 laminated cards, which are mounted on an acrylic desk stand, and bear the most commonly asked question in the language of the person concerned, and in phonetics. Initial feedback is very positive and indicates that the language guides are a help to both staff and patients and enable the provision of treatments that simply could not occur in the past. Ultimately, the guides will be translated into 14 different languages. A total of 23 hospitals and institutions, including the Royal Brisbane Hospital, which has requested a total of 33 sets in 11 languages, have placed orders for the language guides. At this stage the Mater is operating most successfully with the guides. In addition to this project, steps are being taken to develop a program whereby onsite interpreting facilities can be provided in the specialist area of health care, and training faciUties can be provided in the form of health interpreting seminars. Both the Health Department and ourselves have broken new ground and thanks can go to the honourable member for Aspley, amongst others.

14. Australian Centennial Roads Program Mr HINTON asked the Deputy Premier and Minister for Public Works, Housing and Main Roads— "As six months have elapsed of the Australian Centennial Roads Program which came into effect on 1 January, has the Federal Government yet advised the State as to what funds are available, what roads are declared National arterial roads and, if not, what problems is this failure to inform States causing Queensland?" Mr GUNN: The Federal Govemment has advised that the National Arterial Road projects could commence during the period January to June 1989. However, Queensland Questions Without Notice 8 June 1989 5365

has not yet been advised of firm allocations for 1989-90 under the Australian Centennial Roads Program. This late advice demonstrates that, despite assurances to the contrary, the Com­ monwealth has not simplified the administration of road-funding. With the crying need for rehabilitation of roads damaged by a very long wet season, and with much-needed improvements to cater for increasing traffic waiting to commence, the first priority has to be expenditure of the funds appropriated under the legislation.

15. Yeppoon Amateur Race Club Debt Mr HINTON asked the Minister for Local Government and Racing— "What is the current debt situation with regard to the Yeppoon Amateur Race Club and when will the Government be in a position to assist the club in paying off this debt in line with previous Goverament commitments?" Mr AUSTIN: On behalf of the Minister for Local Government and Racing, the answer is as follows— Last year the State Government undertook a major review of the activities of the Yeppoon Amateur Race Club and tmsteeship of the Yeppoon racecourse. Mr Burns: Worms and crabs. Mr AUSTIN: Not like Wolston. This review was conducted because of the Govemment's concern that both the club, which is responsible for the day-to-day racing activities, and the tmsteeship, which is responsible for the land and buildings, should be placed on a more businesslike financial footing. To my knowledge, the club is conducting its racing affairs in a satisfactory manner under its appropriate control body, the Rockhampton Jockey Club principal club. I am not aware of any current debt situation faced by the race club. However, I am aware that on 1 June the tmstees of the Yeppoon racecourse lodged a formal application for assistance from the Racing Development Fund. This application will now be carefully scmtinised and when I am satisfied that all details are correct, a • recommendation will be taken to the Cabinet as soon as possible. I understand the tmstees have claimed to have a current debt of approximately $260,000.

QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

World Expo Fun Park Mr GOSS: In directing a question to the Premier and Treasurer, I refer to the independent valuations in respect of the World Expo fun park, which Sir Llew Edwards has said were obtained before the purchase of the park, and I ask: if the valuations support the Government's decision to spend some $28m of public money on a fiin park that is open two and a-half days a week, will the Premier tell the House how many valuations were obtained, who prepared them and will he release them for public scrutiny? Mr AHERN: The whole issue was carefully considered by the Goverament. As I understand, the valuations were obtained by consultants acting for the authority and were checked by the Valuer-General's Department. However, cross-litigation was involved and a substantial action on behalf of the World Expo Authority was taken against WEP and vice versa. There was also a thought that the overall exercise of redevelopment of the site would be enhanced by the acquisition of this allotment. There was also a negotiation to remove an option on adjoining property, which all added up to a negotiation which just had to be made by the Government having regard to all of the circumstances. 5366 8 June 1989 Questions Without Notice

Sir Llewellyn Edwards negotiated the matter. It was checked carefully by Govemment officers and thought to be entirely appropriate. The market-place is saying that a reasonable negotiation was made. I remind honourable members that there is a Public Accounts Committee in this Parliament. If they have some concera about this matter, appropriate inquiries can be made.

World Expo Fun Park Mr GOSS: In directing a further question to the Premier, I refer to his answer given yesterday in which he tabled a copy of a news release that stated that the rent to the Government from World Expo fun park for the next four years is $1 per year for the four years. As this conflicts seriously with statements made by former Expo authority chairman. Sir Llew Edwards, who said in a recent radio interview that the $1 figure was—to use his term—"heresy" and that a rental component had been taken into account when the final purchase price had been set, I ask: will he now tell the House and the public the exact rental figure deducted from the original purchase price to cover the park's tenancy over the next four years? Mr AHERN: I realise that the honourable gentleman is a lawyer and not a figures man, but it would surely be clearly understandable that in an overall negotiation, a certain amount of the valuations would be allowed in lieu of rental during the period to 1993, which is not unreasonable having regard to all the circumstances. Mr Goss interjected. Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition! Mr AHERN: The honourable member is trying to drive a wedge between words of Sir Llew Edwards and myself It is simply not tme. There is no inconsistency in what we have said or done. Mr Goss interjected. Mr SPEAKER: Order! Mr AHERN: I indicated that if there is some public concern, the Public Accounts Committee can make inquiries about the matter. As I indicated yesterday, the market­ place is rather envious of the deal that the Goverament has made.

Privatisation of Airlines Mr FITZGERALD: I ask the Premier: what is the implication for Queensland of the privatisation of airlines that has been alluded to by the Federal Government? Mr AHERN: This is the third time in recent times that the privatisation debate has been run out. When the Federal Govemment gets itself into a corner in respect of one issue or another, privatisation is the routine red herring that is wheeled out to distract opinion. On this occasion it has been wheeled out to distract public attention from the public interest rate debate which was really biting into the Labor Party in this country. There is no doubt about that at all. Interest rates at 17 per cent are hurting the mortgage belts in Australia and home­ owners and small-businesspeople of Queensland. I am absolutely adamant that the Labor Party will not be allowed to forget interest rates, irrespective of the Aunt Sallys and red herrings it rolls out. That is all this issue is, and it has been used before. Another one is the Prime Minister's overseas trips. It is my bet that he will go shortly, gather up into the Boeing the press gallery in Canberra and take off around the world. Again, this is a tactic used to distract people from the misery that is being inflicted by policies of high interest rates upon the home-owners and small-businesspeople of Australia. The other carefully orchestrated tactic used by Labor at present is the campaign of blaming it all on the bankers. Let's blame it on the bankers! The plain facts are that Questions Without Notice 8 June 1989 5367

Labor is driving interest rates up in this country. That is hurting people and the National Party will not let the people of Australia—particularly Queensland—forget it.

Trade Union Membership Decreases Mr FITZGERALD: I ask the Premier: is he aware that trade union membership has dropped to an all-time low in Queensland? What impact is this having with regard to voluntary employment agreement legislation? Mr De Lacy interjected. Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member for Cairns! Mr AHERN: Trade union membership in this country is on the decline; therefore. Labor support is on the decline. Opposition members interjected. Mr SPEAKER: Order! Mr AHERN: In August 1988 the number of trade union members in Queensland was 369 900, which was 6.6 per cent less than the number in August 1986. Queensland's fall was triple the national fall of 2.2 per cent to 2 535 900. Figures for the other States were as follows: New South Wales, 1 per cent; Victoria, minus 1.9 per cent; South Australia recorded an increase somehow or other; Western Australia was 2.6 per cent; and Tasmania's figure was down by 0.4 per cent. In August 1988, the proportion of employees in Queensland who were trade union members was 39 per cent which was less than the national figure of 42 per cent. The proportions for other States were as follows: New South Wales, 42 per cent; Victoria, 42 per cent; South Australia, 46 per cent; Western Australia, 37 per cent; and Tasmania, 52 per cent. Mr Vaughan interjected. Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member for Nudgee! Mr AHERN: Queensland has the second lowest proportion of trade union members of any State. Mr Speaker, members of the Opposition do not like to listen to this. Mr Vaughan interjected. Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member for Nudgee! Mr AHERN: During the last decade, Queensland has dropped from 53 per cent to 39 per cent, which represents a massive decline of 14 per cent. Those figures show the good sense of the Queensland work-force that knows that it has to co-operate with its employers on an enterprise basis. That is what is happening and that is the policy of this Goverament. That is what this Goverament is doing in respect of voluntary employment agreements. Mr Burns interjected. Mr SPEAKER: Order! Mr Burns interjected. Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member for Lytton will have his opportunity to ask that question at a later stage. I suggest that for the present he keeps quiet. Mr AHERN: The Labor Party has to accept these cold hard facts. The influence of the Trades and Labor Council in this State is declining. If the National Party has anything to do with it, it will decline further. 5368 8 June 1989 Questions Without Notice

AIDS Education Programs in Schools; Premier's Action as Health Minister Mr BURNS: I ask the Premier: without consulting the then Education Minister, Mr Powell, did he as Health Minister encourage the homosexual lobby to make a public issue of an AIDS education program in schools, or did he ever instruct his staff to initiate such actions? Mr AHERN: The answer to the honourable member's question is, "No".

Queensland Commercial Fisherman's Organisation Membership Mr BURNS: In directing a further question to the Premier, I refer to his attitude to unions. This morning he told the House that he is anti-union and that there is good sense in people co-operating with their bosses and not joining a union. I ask: why has legislation been initiated by his Goverament and by Ministers for Primary Industries that compels commercial fishermen to join the Queensland Commercial Fisherman's Organisation or be unable to obtain a licence? Can he tell me why commercial fishermen have to compulsorily be forced to join that organisation? Mr AHERN: I understand that the honourable member for Lytton Mr Burns: And the Queensland Cane Growers Council, too. Mr AHERN: Does the honourable member want to hear the answer to his question? The honourable member for Lytton has a pecuniary interest in this matter. He is now a registered commercial fisherman of some note and influence in Queensland. I understand that shortly he will mn for office in the QCFO. The honourable member should have declared that fact before he asked the question. The honourable member for Lytton should know that the statutory marketing legislation in this State contains clauses precluding political activity by statutory organ­ isations, and that is a very important difference. The simple fact is that the union people—the workers of this State—know what is good for them and realise they must work more closely with their employers in order to increase productivity. In the future productivity will increase with the help of this Govemment and to the detriment of the Trades and Labor Council and its mates in the Labor Party.

Subdivision of Belmont Rifle Range Land for Housing Mr STEPHAN: In directing a question to the Premier, I refer to the recent public statements concerning moves by the Federal Govemment to turn the Belmont rifle range site over to housing, and I ask: does this fit in with his understanding of the Prime Minister's policy on this matter? Mr AHERN: This issue was raised at the housing summit and, when asked a question about the matter, the Prime Minister of Australia stated that it was his view that the matter should not proceed. One of the Federal Goverament's Ministers, Mr West, is now saying that he will proceed with the development of the Belmont'rifle range. Is there some new power stmggle within the Federal Labor Party that we have not heard about? On that occasion I asked the Prime Minister directly, "Do you want to take on the gun lobby in Queensland? Go and ask Barrie Unsworth for advice on how to do it." The Labor Party in New South Wales did exactly that. Why is it that the Labor Party hates anyone who owns a rifle or a gun? That is the plain fact of the matter. In Brisbane recreational shooters have an amenity that is of international standard which is to be subdivided for housing by the Labor Party. What a nonsense! As a result, in the future Brisbane will be unable to utilise that facility to hold an international sporting event, such as the Olympic or Commonwealth Games. I want to know whether the State Labor Party backs this proposal and who is or is not in favour of this subdivision of that piece of real estate. This Government's Questions Without Notice 8 June 1989 5369 position is quite clear: the land should not be subdivided for that purpose. It should remain open for this and other public uses in this growing capital city. The Labor Party in this State should tell the gun lobby, rifle-owners and recreational shooters what its attitude is, or is the Labor Party adopting an anti-gun approach in the lead-up to this State election just as Barrie Unsworth did recently in New South Wales?

Effect of Federal Government Funding Cut-backs Mr STEPHAN: In directing my second question to the Minister for Finance, I refer to reports in today's press that Mr Cain has foreshadowed a tough Budget for Victoria as a result of the Federal Goverament's cuts and is expecting a 75 per cent Budget blow-out in that State, and I ask: is Queensland facing a similar situation as a result of the Federal Govemment's policy of making the other States carry the can on the financial front? Mr AUSTIN: It is tme that today's media has recorded the Premier of Victoria, Mr Cain, as warning of a 75 per cent Budget blow-out in that State. It is intriguing to note that it was only a short time ago that members of the Opposition and the Liberal Party in this State asked the State Government why it was not spending all the extra revenue from stamp duty. The honourable member for Windsor and the honourable member for Ashgrove asked the Government to spend the money on providing more nurses. The honourable member for Redcliffe said that the Government was shoving the money away in hollow logs and doing all sorts of things. Mr Innes: Advertising. Mr AUSTIN: Now the Leader of the Liberal Party suggests that there is something sinister being done with the revenues received by the State Govemment from stamp duty. That is a perfect example of what could be expected if the Labor Party sat on the Treasury benches; every cent that comes in today will be spent today, and the Labor Party will not worry about tomorrow. The Labor Party would end up in the same position as Mr Cain; with a 75 per cent blow-out. Because he happened to have extraordinary income in the early part of the year, his Labor caucus forced him to spend the money. Now there has been an increase in interest rates at the Federal level, and a down-turn in securities and real estate, and the revenues expected to be received from those sources will not be there. However, the money has been spent, so what will the Victorian Govemment do? It is in real trouble. In case honourable members opposite do not know, Victoria is one of those proud States that spends none of its revenue on capital works. All of its capital works are totally financed out of debts. Queensland's capital works programs are supplemented with revenue. If the Labor Party took over the Treasury benches in this State, it would immediately spend all of its revenue on recurrent costs and all of its capital works would be financed out of debts. At the last Premiers Conference the Victorian Goverament's colleagues in Canberra cut back on the State's global borrowings and its share of the tax-sharing arrangements. No wonder Mr Cain is pubUcly tipping a 75 per cent Budget blow-out. Further on in the article he refers to cut-backs in capital works and services in that State, because Victoria has been totally defunded for all of its capital works program. I want to say here today that this Government will never ever put the people of Queensland in that position through bad financial management. This year Queensland will have a sound Budget, a balanced Budget, that will allow for a continuation of our program of capital works. Mr Hamill: No new taxes and charges, the Premier said. Mr AUSTIN: Here is another member who wants the Government to spend money.

83909—180 5370 8 June 1989 Questions Without Notice

I can recall that the member for Rockhampton made a statement in the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin asking why the Goverament would not spend this money on more teachers. What would have happened between the Liberal and Labor Parties is that the day those moneys were received they would have been blown out the back door and this State would have been faced with a deficit on its estimates on stamp duty receipts. I can say that that is not going to happen and will not happen under this administration, because it is financially irresponsible to mn any State Budget, or even a household budget, in that way. I presume those honourable members mn their own household budgets in the same way—get a dollar today and spend it; do not worry about tomorrow. That will not happen with this Goverament.

Queensland Treasury Corporation Involvement with Third-airline Proposal Mr INNES: This is a question not to the Duke of Plaza Toll Road but to the Premier. I refer to my question yesterday regarding Government members interjected. Mr INNES: It takes a bit of time. It is a delayed action fuse. Mr Austin: What a pompous, arrogant fool! Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the House! Mr INNES: He is still just the member for Nicklin. I refer to my question yesterday regarding a proposal for a third airline Mr SPEAKER: Order! I cannot hear the member ask his question. Mr INNES: The question I asked yesterday was about the third-airUne proposal and the potential involvement of the Queensland Treasury Corporation. I now ask the Premier: has any financial involvement of the Queensland Treasury Corporation been asked for or been indicated by the corporation or the Government as available to a successful Brisbane-based proposal? Would those funds be from superannuation funds held by the QTC or from other funds? Is there any upper limit, or indeed any sum indicated at the moment, as to what the financial involvement might be? Mr AHERN: An application has been made for Goverament funding. No under­ takings have been given. If there are at any future time, an appropriate announcement will be made. Mr INNES: So much for accountability! I will try again. Mr AHERN: I rise to a point of order. I think that the reflections of the honourable member are quite inappropriate. They are offensive to me and I ask that they be withdrawn. Mr SPEAKER: Order! I ask the Leader of the Liberal Party to withdraw those remarks offensive to the Premier. Mr INNES: We are getting very sensitive. I withdraw those remarks. A Government member: It is question-time. Ask your question. Mr Beard: It is question-time. We want some answers, too. Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member for Mount Isa! Mr INNES: Jelly brains rather than jelly knees, hey? Mr SPEAKER: Order! Questions Without Notice 8 June 1989 5371

Investments of Queensland Treasury Corporation Mr INNES: In asking a question of the Premier, I refer to reports over the last few months that the Queensland Treasury Corporation was actively looking at an involvement in a property deal in Canberra to a value of more than $100m and, more latterly, an involvement with the Bond Corporation in the $1.2 biUion Chifley Square project in Sydney. I now ask: has the QTC bought any property interstate and, if so, what? Has the QTC bought any significant property within the State of Queensland and, if so, what? Mr AHERN: I note with some amusement the honourable member's sensitivity in respect of the jelly knees metaphor that I used yesterday. I recognise the fact that he is supersensitive on that question, as he needs to be. In respect of the Queensland Treasury Corporation's investment program, all honourable members would be aware that the Goverament has appointed an investment advisory board of directors of impeccable credentials. Those people are advising us on the portfolio of investments that ought be made in respect of this very substantial portfolio. No investment has been made with respect to the property mentioned by the honourable member and it is my understanding that at this stage no very significant property investments have been made. However, it must be understood that, as we are managing this large portfolio in the interests of the various funds, there needs to be, as there is for AMP, MLC and the other large investment funds, a sensible mix of equities, gilt-edged securities and property investments. All of that will be done very pmdently with the good advice of those directors of the board of the Queensland Treasury Corporation. Investments will be made in an entirely proper manner with the credentials of these people to back up the various decisions that are made.

Gold Coast Rescue Helicopter Mr VEIVERS: I ask the Minister for Police and Minister for Emergency Services and Administrative Services: is he aware that the rescue helicopter that is based in Brisbane is presently being serviced and that the Westpac surf life-saving rescue helicopter from the Gold Coast has now been called to Brisbane at the expense of the service to the population of the Gold Coast? Does this not lend credence to my continuing applications for a second rescue machine on the Gold Coast? Mr R. J. Gibbs: Here he goes, "Mr Marijuana". The harder he sucks, the higher he gets. Mr COOPER: He is in pretty good form this moraing. Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member for Wolston will withdraw those remarks. Mr R. J. Gibbs: Is he offended? Mr SPEAKER: Order! I am offended. Mr R. J. GIBBS: I withdraw. Mr COOPER: It is interesting that he is a member of the pro-marijuana party. Mr SPEAKER: Order! Would the Minister please answer the question? Mr COOPER: The answer to the first part of the honourable member's question is that, yes, the helicopter is being serviced in Brisbane. That will take about two weeks. We are certainly very mindful of the issue of rescue work in the south-east corner, as I said yesterday when I spoke about the Federal Government disbanding the squadron of Chinooks and walking away from about one and a-half mUlion people in south-east Queensland. 5372 8 June 1989 Questions Without Notice

Recently, I met on the Gold Coast with the member for Southport and the member for South Coast, who have a particular interest in the Gold Coast helicopter rescue service, which is a fine service. That rescue service has requested another type of aircraft for the area, which the Government will look at in the most positive way. The Gold Coast helicopter rescue service was mentioned in the Stables report, which the Goverament has accepted in principle. The decision on the matter is a budgetary one, which the Goverament wiU consider. In the mean time, additional helicopters are available in the Sunshine Coast region in an emergency situation until the issues of provision of more aircraft and maintenance on the other machine can be addressed. I am aware that the area of Carrara which the honourable member represents has a particular interest in the provision of a rescue service. The member for Nerang also has an interest; however, he was unable to attend the recent meeting. The National Party is showing great concern because, as I said yesterday, it is a serious issue. It is concerned about the disbandment of the Chinook squadron. I ask the Leader of the Opposition and opposition parties to adopt a responsible attitude on the matter. Once the machines are gone, the whole south-eastera corner of Queensland will be denuded of rescue service equipment. I commend the honourable members for the interest that they are taking in the matter. I assure them that it will receive the Government's greatest and closest attention.

Road Closure at Shaw Street, Southport Mr VEIVERS: I ask the Minister for Land Management: is he aware of an application for a road closure at Shaw Street, Southport, by the Southport Golf Club and by a company named Isles Pty Ltd? Is he also aware that, although the time for the closure of objections is 6 July 1989, a fence is already blocking the road, the gate in the fence is padlocked and trees and scmb that were growing on the road have already been bulldozed? I repeat that the time for the closure of objections is 6 July 1989. What can he do about this appalling situation? Mr GLASSON: This action was brought to my attention yesterday morning by way of a letter handed to me by the honourable member in the party room. Obviously, it should be of concern to all honourable members that people in the community believe that they can take the law into their own hands and proceed with complete disregard for the formalities which must be followed. In relation to the Shaw Street application, an advertisement has been published. Yesterday, an officer of the Lands Department attempted to contact Mr Dan Robertson, who is the principal of Isles Holding Pty Ltd. A fence has been constmcted across the road. A check will be made today as to whether that has been removed. Contact was made with the person who was responsible for the action, Mr Wright, to inform him that appropriate legal action would be taken against him for the removal of trees without authority. Although the trees are not millable, which was revealed in a report received by the officer of the Lands Department, they are of value. However, before trees are removed, certain requirements must be met. Appropriate action is being taken and will be followed up in relation to the illegal action taken by Isles Holding Ptv Ltd.

Investigation into Special Treatment by Police of Peter Andrews Mr MACKENROTH: In directing a question to the Premier and Treasurer, I refer to matters raised by me in debate during last night's sitting, in particular to the deletion from the original heads of inquiry of the Parliamentary Judges Commission of Inquiry of one relating to police investigations. I ask: will he hold an immediate investigation into what appears to be special treatment given to Peter Andrews, son of former Chief Justice Sir Dormer Andrews, in relation to an assault case in 1976, a hit-and-mn accident Questions Without Notice 8 June 1989 5373 causing death in 1976 and the holding of three and possibly four drivers' licences by the same Peter Andrews under different names? In particular, I refer to a computer print-out of drivers' licences which shows that Peter Dormer Andrews, born on 20 December 1944, Peter Gormer Andrews, bora on 20 December 1944, and Peter Rormer Andrews, born on 20 December 1944, all held licences issued in Queensland. Mr AHERN: The question should be directed to the Police Minister. Mr MACKENROTH: I direct that question to the Police Minister. Mr SPEAKER: Order! With notice or without notice? Mr MACKENROTH: Without notice. Mr COOPER: I took particular notice of the honourable member's speech last night. At this moment the Police Department is checking its records for all available information. If the member for Chatsworth has further information on names, dates and places and other people involved, it would be very useful in the police inquiries. Mr MACKENROTH: I will make all the information that I have avaUable to the Minister.

Unroadworthy and Unsafe Police Vehicles Mr MACKENROTH: I ask the Minister for Police: is he aware that unroadworthy and unsafe police vehicles are being forced to stay on the road in Queensland owing to the lack of resources in the Police Department? If he is aware of that practice, how can he justify police charging motorists with traffic offences for driving unroadworthy vehicles? Alternatively, if he is not aware of that practice, what immediate action will he take to stop that practice? Mr COOPER: Of course I am not aware of any police vehicles that are unroadworthy. If I were aware of that, I simply would not allow it; neither would the Acting Commissioner of Police or other responsible members of the police force. If the member for Chatsworth has information that police are driving unroadworthy vehicles, perhaps he could let me have details of that. Members of the Government have heard allegations of this sort before, and they like to see them substantiated. I tura now to resources. Recently more funds were made available from Treasury to address many of the police equipment issues. Many of these matters have certainly been taken into account in the Police Department's submission for next year's Budget. However, I will not wear continual allegations about unroadworthy vehicles and this, that and the other thing. The Goverament ought to receive substantiated information rather than what I regard as less than responsible allegations.

Government Assistance for Farmers in South Burnett District Mr PERRETT: I ask the Premier: could he advise what action is being taken to assist farmers in the south Buraett, particularly the Kingaroy district, whose crops have suffered severely as a result of prolonged rain and wet weather? Mr AHERN: I thank the honourable member for his question. Consequent upon his representations and those of the member for Buraett, approval has been given to have these areas included in the natural disaster relief arrangements, as previously announced in relation to other areas. Assistance is available to farmers in all areas affected by the flood rains of March, April and May 1989. Primary producers who are suffering hardship should apply to the Queensland Industry Development Corporation for concessional loan assistance towards carry-on needs. It is important that farmers who are facing difficulties as a result of recent floods and storms submit an application in order that their needs might be assessed. Primary producers in the Buraett district should direct their inquiries to the corporation's office at Kingaroy. 5374 8 June 1989 Supply

Landslide on Road in Bayview Heights between Cairns City and Mulgrave Shire Mr MENZEL: I ask the Minister for Northern Development: is he aware of a landslide on part of the road in Bayview Heights between Cairns City and Mulgrave Shire? Is the Minister aware that the Cairas City Council is refusing to reopen the road, which is causing serious traffic problems for Toogood Road, with an extra 2 000 vehicles being forced on that road every day? Will the Minister investigate the problem to see whether the Cairas City Council should honour its obligations? Mr TENNI: I am aware of the problem. I know that the honourable member himself actually sent out a questionnaire in that area. It is disgusting that the Mayor of Cairns wants to close that road. If anyone wants a permanent road closure in Caims City or anywhere else in Queensland, for that matter, there is generally very strong objection by the local council, and rightly so. Toogood Road takes traffic off the main highway and results in safety for the people whom the honourable member represents. If the Mayor of Caims would only stop fighting cases in court which he has previously been informed he could not win and instead spent that amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars of rate-payers' money in the development and maintenance of roads, that would be better for the people of Cairas and Mulgrave. All I can say is that, if the Mayor of Cairns thinks that he is going to close that road, I can assure honourable members that he will be battling with me and with the member for Mulgrave. We will not agree to it. Mr SPEAKER: Order! The time allotted for questions has now expired.

APPROPRIATION BILL (No. 1)

All Stages Hon. B. D. AUSTIN (Nicklin—Leader of the House) (11.19 a.m.), by leave, without notice: I move— "That so much of the Standing Orders be suspended as would otherwise prevent the receiving of Resolutions from the Committees of Supply and Ways and Means on the same day as they shall have passed in those Committees, and the passing of an Appropriation Bill through all its stages in one day." Motion agreed to.

SUPPLY

Vote of Credit—$5,360,000,000 Mr SPEAKER read a message from His Excellency the Governor recommending that the following provision be made on account of the services for the year ending 30 June 1990— (a) From the Consolidated Revenue Fund of Queensland, the further sum of $1,750,000,000; (b) From the Trust and Special Funds, the further sum of $3,580,000,000; and (c) From the Loan Fund, the further sum of $30,000,000. Message referred to Committee of Supply. Committee Hon. M. J. AHERN (Landsborough—Premier and Treasurer and Minister for State Development and the Arts) (11.21 a.m.): I move— "That there be granted to Her Majesty, on account, for the service of the year 1989-90, a further sum not exceeding $5,360,000,000 towards defraying the expenses of the various departments and services of the State." Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5375

Motion agreed to.

Resolution reported, received and agreed to.

WAYS AND MEANS

Committee

Vote of Credit—$5,360,000,000 Hon. M. J. AHERN (Landsborough—Premier and Treasurer and Minister for State Development and the Arts) (11.22 a.m.): I move— "(a) That, towards making good the Supply granted to Her Majesty, on account, for the service of the year 1989-90, a further sum not exceeding $1,750,000,000 be granted out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund of Queensland exclusive of the moneys standing to the credit of the Loan Fund Account. (b) That, towards making good the Supply granted to Her Majesty, on account, for the service of the year 1989-90, a further sum not exceeding $3,580,000,000 be granted from the Tmst and Special Funds. (c) That, towards making good the Supply granted to Her Majesty, on account, for the service of the year 1989-90, a further sum not exceeding $30,000,000 be granted from the moneys standing to the credit of the Loan Fund Account." Motion agreed to.

Resolutions reported, received and agreed to.

APPROPRIATION BILL (No. 1)

First Reading A Bill, founded on the Resolutions reported from the Committee of Ways and Means, was presented and read a first time. Second Reading Hon. M. J. AHERN (Landsborough—Premier and Treasurer and Minister for State Development and the Arts) (11.28 a.m.): I move— "That the Bill be now read a second time." This Bill appropriates an amount of $5,360m for expenditure for the normal services of the Government until the passage of the 1989-90 Budget legislation itself An amount of $ 1,750m is provided for the Consolidated Revenue Fund, $3,580m for the Tmst and Special Funds and $30m for the Loan Fund. This amount is in addition to an amount of $3,370m which was appropriated by Appropriation Act (No. 2) of 1988. In all, and in line with normal practice, these two amounts are expected to be sufficient to cover normal Government expenditure requirements through until the completion of the Budget processes and the passage of Appropriation Bill (No. 2) later in the year. This is a short and purely technical piece of legislation of an essential kind. It had been proposed to introduce it prior to the House's normal rising in April. Unfortunately, pressures of other legislation prevented that, and the opportunity of this brief sitting is being taken to finalise the matter. I wish to briefly lake the opportunity to draw the attention of honourable members to the issue of the review of the pharmaceutical benefits scheme, which the Federal Government announced in its May economic statement. That piece of legislative review is causing very substantial concera amongst small-businesspeople in Queensland, that is, the Pharmacy Guild and associated pharmacy organisations. It must be understood 5376 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1) that a substantial number of country pharmacies will be closed, thereby reducing the health generally of people in the remote areas of Queensland. I want to draw particular attention to that now because there are many pressures on the services available to people in mral communities. This is the death-knell for a very important service. The closure of pharmacies is hotly resisted and resented by the people in remote communities. Oftentimes the pharmacy is the only access to routine medical advice in those types of places. Doctors are able to visit only from time to time. A limited number of facilities are available from community health nurses and so on. The country pharmacist is a very important person in remote communities. Because of the review of the pharma­ ceutical benefits scheme, hundreds of country pharmacies throughout Australia will close. Mr Vaughan: Give us their names. Mr AHERN: I refer the honourable member, who is fortunate to live in an urban area where there are many pharmacies Mr Vaughan: Give us the name of one. Mr AHERN: The honourable member is in a comfortable situation. The Pharmacy Guild is absolutely adamant. It knows the story, which is catalogued and in the hands of the Federal Government. It is time that the Labor Party showed some sympathy for the people who live in remote areas. Mr Vaughan: Give us the name of one pharmacy. Mr AHERN: The honourable member for Nudgee continues to interject. He knows that what I am saying is right, because the pharmacy organisations say that that is the position. It must be understood that it is impossible to live below the basic wage in this country. Queensland has been consistent in its employment and labour-force growth. During the past year Queensland's employment growth was 6.9 per cent, which was the highest employment grovrth figure of any State. Employment growth was 82 000 jobs, or 22.1 per cent of the national figure, which is a very creditable performance. For the month of May there was 1.8 per cent employment grovrth, which was again the highest figure of any State. Employment growth in May was 22 400 jobs, or 48.9 per cent of national job creation. Those figures, which were released at 11.30 a.m. today, are hot off the presses and represent great news for Queensland. They mean that in the month of May, Queensland created more than half of the jobs that were generated in Australia. During the past 12 months, labour-force grovrth was very strong at 5.5 per cent, which was the highest labour-force growth figure of any State. I turn now to unemployment. The decrease in original unemployment figures was 10.7 per cent, or 11 400 over the year, which was very reasonable. For the month of May unemployment decreased by 5 000, or 5 per cent, which, apart from that of Tasmania, was the highest percentage decrease of the States. Seasonally adjusted, Queensland's unemployment was 6.8 per cent. That is a very creditable performance of which I am very proud. It demonstrates that this Government's economic policies are working despite what the Federal Government is trying to do through its massive high interest rate policies in this country. Queensland has been able to quarantine itself very satisfactorily from the national economic scene. The figures that I have quoted indicate very clearly that Queensland's economy is working and growing under a private-enterprise Goverament. There is no doubt that people will want that to continue in the future. I commend the Bill to the House. Mr GOSS (Logan—Leader of the Opposition) (11.34 a.m.): I wish to make some comments on a number of issues primarily in relation to the economy of this State and, in particular, to the failure of the Queensland Goverament to attract business investment Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5377 to Queensland, especially in comparison with other States. One of the best indicators of a State's economy is business investment, which I will mention later in more detail. I wish to comment also on public sector finance in Queensland and the surplus of State taxes and charges which is galloping well ahead. By way of introduction, in Queensland at present there is a continuation of the situation that has existed since this Premier came to office, namely, a lack of policy, a lack of leadership and a lack of direction. As a consequence, Queensland is hurting. This Premier came to office after approximately eight years as a senior Minister. For almost three of those years he held the senior and significant economic portfolio of Primary Industries. The backbone of the Queensland economy is its primary industries and its resources sector. Mr Newton: Come on! Look at your Federal mates. Mr GOSS: The honourable member for Glass House is hopelessly incompetent if he cannot realise and understand that. This Premier came to the job with that background. For another three years or so he was Minister for Industry, Small Business and Technology, when he acquired an obsession for computers, high tech and all of that fanciful stuff that he has been trotting out around the place much to the dismay and disappointment of the real business community in Queensland. After all of those years in significant economic portfolios, what did the Premier have to offer the people of Queensland in relation to an economic policy? Nothing at all! He had to go to those Californian consultants at a cost of approximately half a million dollars and get them to write one for him. On top of that, he had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars more on an advertising campaign to promote that economic policy. As honourable members are aware, that campaign did not promote the economic poUcy, because the economic policy had by then been rejected by serious commentators and the business community. Instead, it was an expensive advertising campaign that was designed to prop up the failing leadership of the Premier. Mr Hamill: They pulped the report. Mr GOSS: They pulped the report. The Premier had to make the embarrassing admission that the $500,000 report that he commissioned from SRI and Strategies was pulped. He would not lay it on the table of this Parliament. This Premier who talks about accountability and openness in relation to public funds would not let the public see that document. What is so secret about Queensland's economic situation that the Premier does not want the people of this State to know about it? As I said, the report was pulped. To use the Premier's own words, it was pulped for security reasons. Then the Government embarked on a massive advertising campaign which was designed to attract business investments to Queensland. As 1 will demonstrate from the latest figures, when it comes to attracting business investment to Queensland, this Premier has been a magnificent and spectacular failure, even though he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to do so. The dishonesty and hypocrisy and the theft from the public purse were exposed by the fact that the bulk of this advertising campaign— in particular the television advertising—to try to entice people from outside Queensland to invest in Queensland was shown in Queensland. What paltry excuse did the Premier offer for that? He said, "Well, people on holidays or passing through Queensland might see it on the television set in their hotel room and invest in Queensland." What a joke! It was another example of the National Party with its hands in the till, as it has done in the past and will do in the future while it remains in Government for the rest of this year. The problem that the National Party has, and which, unfortunately, Queensland now suffers from as well, is this lack of a direction, this lack of leadership, this lack of any knowledge as to where the State is going. That is caused partly by the fact that this Premier and his Government are distracted by the embarrassing revelations for him and 5378 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1) his party coming out of the Fitzgerald inquiry, the Vasta inquiry and the Pratt inqiiiry. Perhaps they are distracted. At the moment the highest priority seems to be this obsession, this desperate need, to appear to be tough, hence the ceremonial and public execution of Mr Justice Vasta over recent weeks in the hope that that will do something to prop up the Premier's image. To this day the public of Queensland is still paying out about $1,000 a week for the Premier to have two two-hour sessions, I think it is, with Mr Baudino to motivate the Premier, to give him get-tough lessons, to give him these Rambo lessons. Again this morning honourable members saw the Premier doing the Baudino two-step, with his hands going one way and the words going the other. It was the Baudino two-step. Mr AHERN: I rise to a point of order. I had thought the honourable Leader of the Opposition was joking with all of this. He must be. It is just a total fabrication and a nonsense. But it is becoming offensive because I think he is starting to believe it, and therefore I ask that it be withdrawn. It is just not tme. I ask that it be withdrawn. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Row): Order! The Premier asks that the references made by the Leader of the Opposition, to which he objects, be withdrawn. Mr GOSS: I withdraw the reference to the Baudino two-step. But if the retainer that is being paid has been stopped, the Premier should tell us. Mr Ahern: He is a consultant, just as Labor has consultants. Mr GOSS: I am sorry. He is not a motivator. I withdraw that. He is not a motivator, he is a public relations consultant whom the public pay $1,000 a week to give the Premier two two-hour sessions of public relations advice—not motivation. Is it not remarkable how everybody in the House can see when the Premier has had one of those sessions? He comes into the House and, as I said, his hands go in one direction and his tongue goes in the other. I understand it is being described around the press gallery as Baudino overdrive. The problem for the National Party and the Premier is that although the Premier has these twice-weekly Rambo lessons, after having them he comes into this House and it comes out as Sylvester Stallone and not Rambo. Mr AHERN: I rise to a point of order. This whole issue is offensive to me. This "twice-weekly lessons" is just a total fabrication and it indicates the paucity of the honourable member's knowledge of economic matters. Will he get down to real business? Mr GOSS: I will leave that. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I insist that the honourable member's remarks have some relevance to the debate. I ask him to return to the subject-matter of the Bill. Mr GOSS: If the Premier wants to correct the record and set out exactly what the arrangements are, I would welcome that. However, the last public statement made by the Premier was that this public relations consultant—which I understand is the Premier's terminology—is paid about $ 1,000 a week. At the time the Premier was last asked about how many sessions were involved, he indicated that it was two sessions a week. If that has changed, I am happy to accept the correction. Mr Ahern: Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week on call. Mr GOSS: Gee, things have deteriorated, haven't they! Once the Premier needed only two sessions a week, now it is seven days a week. I do not think I need to dwell on this point any further except to say Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! As far as the Chair is concerned, the honourable member will not dwell on it any longer; it is irrelevant to the Bill. Mr GOSS: I am not going to do so. You just look after yourself; I will look after myself Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5379

1 tura to the question of leadership. The fundamental concera of the Queensland public is the management of the economy, the management of the Budget. Although other matters in relation to cormption and so on are important, the most fundamental area of welfare is the economic welfare of any community, the economic welfare of any family. This Goverament is failing badly. The Quality Queensland document has been submerged. While the Premier was overseas, the author of that document was dismissed on the orders of Sir Robert Sparkes. Now the Goverament is trying to pretend that it is still on foot. However, the fact is that there is no economic strategy and Queensland is suffering. Mr AHERN: There is an important fact here that needs to be recorded. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Is the Premier rising to a point of order? Mr AHERN: Yes. I rise to a point of order. The authors of the economic strategy for Queensland are the Budget committee of Queensland. If the honourable member carries on with such tripe, I will not stay and listen to it for much longer. Mr Prest interjected. Mr Comben interjected. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! While I am on my feet, other members will not interject. I suggest that the Leader of the Opposition speak with relevance to the Bill, and I inform the Premier that he will have an opportunity to sum up at the appropriate time. I ask that persistent interjections across the Chamber not continue as they add nothing to the debate. I ask both honourable members to consider the situation. Mr GOSS: As I was given the call, I will continue to speak with relevance to this debate. Let me look at the first of the three categories to which I wanted to refer. If the Premier wants to leave, I can assure him that this House can manage very well without him. I see the nods of agreement coming from the National Party back bench. Let me turn now to one of the matters that I mentioned in my introduction, that is, the area of business investment. I take it, Mr Deputy Speaker, there is no problem with that? In relation to business investment, I believe it is quite obvious—and it is becoming increasingly obvious—that a major weakness is emerging in the Queensland economy as a result of this Government's failure to attract business investment to Queensland. The latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that new business investment in Queensland has declined in recent months. These figures should be compared with an increase in all other States. In Queensland, private new capital expenditure declined by 12.5 per cent in the December quarter of 1988 and should be compared with a 15 per cent increase for Australia as a whole. Compare that 12.5 per cent decrease for Queensland on ABS figures with a 15 per cent increase for Australia! Even in the constmction industry—a field in which Queensland has supposedly been experiencing boom conditions—new capital investment in buildings and stmctures declined by a massive 24.7 per cent in the December quarter. Mr Katter interjected. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Mr GOSS: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The decrease in Queensland should be compared with the 15.3 per cent increase in this sector nationwide. However, even more disturbing is the fact that new investment in equipment, plant and machinery declined by 7.2 per cent in the December quarter in Queensland when investment in this sector Australiawide increased by 21.2 per cent. Compare that 7.2 per cent decrease in Queensland with the 21 per cent increase across Australia! It is in this area that AustraUa, particulariy Queensland, needs investment the 5380 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1) most. It is in this sector that the future of this State and this country is to be found. It is with equipment, plant and machinery that productive capacity, export capacity and value-adding capacity are increased. The problem with the type of economy that is being mn by the Goverament in this State is that it is a 1950s approach. All that the National Party wants to do is dig it up, cut it down, put it in a ship and send it off in the hope that somebody will send back a cheque. That is how this Goverament mns the economy. Mr Newton interjected. Mr GOSS: The Govemment should be looking to present requirements and to the future. These indicators are very relevant. I would submit, over the babble from the member for Glass House, that they are the most significant indicators in terms of Queensland's economy. Today the Premier informed the House of figures in relation to employment in this State. Because those figures were released only this moraing I have not yet seen them, but I understand that on the employment front they contain some welcome news. I certainly welcome the news, as do all members of the Labor Party in this House. However, what the Premier by his use of the figures does not tell the people of this State is the quality of that employment. Sure, an increase in employment opportunities has occurred, but it is also the case that in Queensland much of that employment is in the low-paid and low-skills areas, and casual and part-time employment. Queensland is not creating jobs that offer high wages and require high levels of skill. Queensland is behind the rest of this country when it comes to a skills base and when it comes to the skilled nature of this State's work-force as a component of the overall work-force. As a consequence of those factors, Queensland is behind the other States of Australia when it comes to the level of average weekly earnings both for males and for females. Queensland is significantly below the national average when it comes to average weekly earnings, which is why average Queensland families are suffering. It is aU very well for the Premier to say that Queensland is a low-tax State, but, as I will demonstrate later in my speech, that position is rapidly changing because of massive increases across a range of State taxes and charges. What this Govemment does not tell people is that the gap between taxes and charges in this State compared with those in other States is worth much less than the gap between average weekly earnings in this State and those in the other States. The net result is that when wages are compared and when State taxes and charges are taken into account, Queenslanders are worse off financially because of the policies of this Goverament. When a comparison between States is made, the people of Queensland can blame nobody except members of this National Party Goverament because, although there is an overall Federal economy, there are separate State economies. In a comparison of separate State economies, Queenslanders are worse off. The one difference between this State and the other States in Australia is the 32 years of conservative mle by a National Party Government and, before that, a National-Liberal Party Government that do not have an economic policy. All they have done is put their feet up and manage the State. Irrespective of whether it was good or bad, they just put their feet up. If things are good, they take the credit; if things are bad, they blame the Federal Government, the US dollar, atomic testing, fluoridation or anything except themselves. Mr Hamill: And daylight saving. Don't forget daylight saving. Mr GOSS: And daylight saving. 1 must not forget daylight saving. It is clear that the whole Quality Queensland document has failed. It has been buried by Sir Robert Sparkes and by the business community. Its author, Mr Rowell, has been buried along with it. Clearly, Queensland is not holding its own when it comes to the increase in new plant and equipment that has been shown by the figures I have presented. Although Queensland accounts for nearly 17 per cent of this nation's popu­ lation, this State suppUed only 12.3 per cent of national spending on new constmction Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5381 in the December quarter and only 10.1 per cent of spending on equipment, plant and machinery. In comparison with other States in proportion to its population, Queensland falls behind in these very significant areas of investment as shown by these very important economic indicators. Whereas the rest of the country has been tooling up to increase productive capacity during the boom conditions during the 1987-88 financial year, it appears that the Queensland economy has actually been reducing its productive capacity, particularly when it comes to domestic production and production for export. These figures reveal a fundamental weakness in Queensland's economy, given that new fixed capital invest­ ment is, I believe, the most reliable indicator of the continued health and confidence of any economy. It reflects the decisions that are being made by people who employ others and decisions that are made by people who invest capital. According to the latest ABS figures, those people are registering their confidence in other States by investing in those other States and not in Queensland. Of even greater concern for Queensland business is that these low levels of investment activity during the latter part of last year preceded the recent tightening of monetary policy by the Federal Government. Whereas there has been a readjustment of monetary policy settings resulting in a slowing of the rate of economic growth in other States when it comes to investment in new plant and equipment, it would appear that Queensland had already bottomed out prior to the tightening of monetary policy. That is a worrying or warning sign to the Queensland community that Queensland is indeed facing the prospect of a very hard landing in relation to the State economy. These statistics demonstrate the failure of Quality Queensland, which is the only semblance of an economic policy that this Premier and Government have been able to dredge up. If one looks at these figures, clearly Australian business is investing in other States and moving away from Queensland. Queensland is getting some investment, but, compared with the other States, it is falling behind whilst they go ahead. The ABS figures are indisputable. Another part of the problem faced by the business community in this State is not merely the absence of an economic policy, but the tendency to back-flip or back-down when it comes to difficult decisions and public pressure. That was evidenced dramatically last year by the reversal of the major tender for the redevelopment of the Expo site. People in the business community can again see grounds for concem in relation to the management of this State's finances through the recent investment in the World Expo fun park. What is this so-caUed free-enterprise Goverament doing with a State-owned fun park? The National Party has bought itself a socialist fun park across the river. It is such a successful enterprise that it is open on Friday nights, Saturdays and Sundays. This wonderful enterprise is open for only two and a-half days a week. Mr Newton: You've got it all wrong. Mr GOSS: Any member of the National Party—even the honourable member for Glass House—who visited Expo during its height when the crowds were there and walked through the fun park, would have seen that the place was almost deserted. Everyone walked through it to reach the main Expo attractions. It was a failure then and it is a failure now. There is $28m of public money invested in the fun park, but no-one can get an answer out of the Premier as to what the tme financial arrangements are. We cannot get any details of the so-called independent valuations or have them published. If everything is accountable and above board, I ask: why will the Premier not put his cards on the table? In a State that needs investment in plant, machinery and equipment, investment in areas that generate employment and investment to improve its productive capacity, the Government puts $28m in a failing fun park. Will that $28m investment create one new job? No! This so-called free-enterprise Government has spent $28m of scarce public money, its return is only $1 per year and not one extra job has been created. This Government is a joke as a free-enterprise Government. The members of the Government are agrarian socialists who have not moved past the 1950s, and the 5382 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1) result is that Queensland's economy is suffering. However, the Queensland business community has woken up to the Goverament. Mr Katter: I thought you would be pleased about socialist tendencies. Mr GOSS: I reject them as totally unsuitable for a modern Australia or a modem Australian State economy. That sort of agrarian socialism is rooted in the past and in the obsessive power-brokers in the National Party. The power-brokers are the National Party knights up the hill: Sparkes, Holm, and who is the other knight? Mr Comben: Lyons. Mr GOSS: No, Lyons has gone. They moved him out and got a replacement. In addition to the third knight, there is Freddy Maybury. The gang of four up the hill run this place and that is why they like this arrangement. Mr Ardill: Maybury gets his on Monday. Mr GOSS: I hope for Freddy's sake that he gets his knighthood on Monday because there will no knighthoods next year. He had better get it while he can. Mr Newton interjected. Mr GOSS: I will move on from the area of fixed capital investment that so exercises the mind of the honourable member for Glass House and make some comments about public-sector finance in this State. The first point to note is that this year's Queensland figures are more than usually distorted; and that is saying something. Apparently the total portfolio of the Queensland Treasury Corporation has been inserted into both the receipts and expenditure side of the Tmst and Special Funds accounts, which produces the ludicrous result of a $3.3 biUion blow-out which does not exist. As well, the inclusion of interest, which belongs to the public service members of the superannuation scheme, has been included on the receipts side of the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Furthermore, the so-called Consolidated Revenue Fund receipts show gross anomalies, all of which appear to have one goal; the reduction of the level of receipts recorded and shown to the public, thereby disguising the tme picture. As a result the extraordinary blow-out in taxation receipts can be offset by various reductions in other revenues to produce a total revenue increase picture that will not severely embarrass the Government. I tura now to some background in relation to these points. Because the figures provided by the Queensland Treasury are so distorted, the only reliable guide for Queensland are the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures. These comments recap points that were made previously, particularly in March after the release of the 1988-89 Goverament financial estimates by the ABS. The Ahern Government is vulnerable on two grounds: firstly, there is what could be described as a potential surplus, which is the result of massive increases in the last two years in revenue from taxes, fees, fines and profits of public-trading enterprises, mainly the railways; secondly, the budget sector is apparently mnning on the basis of a major deficit. The ABS publication uses two measures: firsUy, there is the net financing requirement; and, secondly, the deficit. The net financing requirement is a more specific measure, and the deficit is simply the NFR plus the net advance from other parts of the public sector, that is, the non-financial public sector. The net financial requirement figure provides a measure of this Govemment's demand for finance from the rest of the economy and overseas. As I said before, the deficit is the broader measure. It is a real problem for anybody trying to analyse the financial picture in Queensland that the figures provided in the Budget papers are so distorted and do not give the real picture. It is a real exercise in obfuscation. Mr Newton: Paul Keating knows about that. Mr GOSS: This problem does not occur in other States, and that is generally recognised by economic commentators. Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5383

Today let me talk about 1988-89 revenue. If one looks at the bigger picture, the consolidated State Government figures show a really big increase, which has been in taxes, fees and fines—but mostly taxes. The Budget-time estimate for this year was an increase of 7.1 per cent, from $ 1,922m to $2,058m; but, revenue from this sector at 31 March, according to the Queensland Government Gazette was mnning 31.7 per cent ahead of that in 1987-88. The Government projected 7.1 per cent and it is mnning 31.7 per cent ahead. What sort of management and what sort of an assessment or grip on the Queensland economy is that? The figures for both the quarter ended 31 March and the nine months ended 31 March show that under the various headings of taxes, particularly stamp duty—we are all aware there has been a big overran—there is a quite dramatic increase of something like $367m, or a figure of 31.7 per cent. I want to make two points arising out of this. Firstly, there is no indication in these figures of a slow-down in tax receipts in the March quarter. There are some anomalous figures, especially with land, liquor and pay-roll taxes. Because pay-roll tax now includes receipts from Commonwealth enterprises, a large increase was expected. The second point is that total Consolidated Revenue Fund receipts are up only $423.13m to $5,147.7m, or 8.95 per cent. That is in stark comparison with the 31.7 per cent figure that I have already outlined; that is, revenue from all other sources rose by only $55.4m in the nine months, or by 1.55 per cent. Of that $55.4m increase. Commonwealth payments accounted for $46.42m. Point one is important because what it suggests in relation to the Queensland economy is that revenue in the final quarter is likely to sustain the momentum that we have seen for the first nine months of this financial year. The final quarter usually shows quite a significant increase in revenue, so that merely projecting that nine-month figure to arrive at a 12-month figure would in fact I believe give a lesser estimate than the actual result. In other words, if that nine-month figure is multiplied by four-thirds to get an even projection for the first nine months, the full year based on that would understate substantially the probable result but, on the basis of a proportionate increase recorded in each of the last two financial years for the fourth quarter, total taxes, fees, fines and revenue for 1988-89 will be just under $2.5 biUion. If the rate of increase of tax revenue holds at 31.7 per cent, it wiU mean an extra $595m in this Government's coffers—$216 per capita. Even if the Goverament took $100m off that, for example, for stamp duty concessions to promote activity in the building industry, particularly for new homes, there would still be a tax revenue increase in the last year of $480m, or 24.8 per cent. In the last two years since Mr Ahern became Premier, the increase would be 57 per cent—$317 for every man, woman and child in Queensland. As I said before, on the basis of the March quarter results, this can be described as a conservative estimate. The second point that I raised relates to the total of Consolidated Revenue Fund receipts being up about 8.95 per cent compared with 31.7 per cent for the other sector. That is suggestive of even more substantial anomalies. In an economy that has been booming so hard that interest rates have had to be jacked up to record levels, Queensland Government receipts from revenue areas worth $1,422 biUion in the first nine months are supposed to have increased by only $8.9m, or 0.6 per cent. These areas include the railways, which were up from $758.8m to $809.7m, according to the Government Gazette, and freehold land sales up from $ 17.7m to $29.5m. The big faUs were in mining royalties, down from $142m to $ 126.5m; other mining receipts, down from $ 13.2m to $8.4m; and conservancy dues and pUotage of $15.5m, which has disappeared. Government Printing Office receipts are down; the sale of Government property is down from $ 18.1m to $8.6m; and the Suncorp payments—this is an interesting one that I do not fully understand—are down from $ 19.3m to $ 14.8m. The question that springs to mind there is that, with banks and financial institutions having a record year, why is Suncorp's payment to the Government down 23 per cent? Let me look at expenditure based on those figures and on that situation. Where has the money gone? On ABS estimates, final consumption expenditure on the basis of the 5384 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1)

Budget was due to blow out by $633m—16.3 per cent—from $3,892m to $4,525m. That was the estimate. The Government is not saying where the money has gone, but the big increase in the expenditure shown in the Government Gazette is in what is called "Special Allocations". What is the Government up to here with these special allocations? We should note that in the first nine months of the financial year the Premier's Department special allocation expenditure is already up from $8.8m to $35.5m and that the Treasury Department special allocation expenditure is up from $554.Im to $611.3m, an increase of $83.9 in special allocations overseen by the Treasurer, Mr Ahern. In addition to that, the special allocation to the Department of Health has increased by $93.Im, the special allocation to the Department of Industry Development has increased by $ 19.5m and the special aUocation to the Department of Justice has increased by $4.7m. The way that the Government is making all those special allocations, it has been a pretty special nine months. In the first nine months of the 1988-89 financial year, special allocations accounted for 33.6 per cent of Consolidated Revenue Fund outlays— just over a third—leaving, presumably, less than two-thirds for all the normal business responsibilities of the Government. What sort of accountability is that? The Government is tucking away all this money in special allocations and calls it accountability. The Premier says that, when it comes to public funds, this is a new era. What a joke! In that regard, because he has raised taxes by 57 per cent in only two years and because his approach seems to be to sell off bits of the farm that he is not letting mn down, it can be said that the Treasurer, Mr Ahera, has a surplus to boast about. Is that the approach? It appears to be the approach that is evidenced by the figures in the latest Queensland Government Gazette, which are the Government's own figures as to the rate of increase in State taxes and charges. That is the final area on which I wish to make general comments. The promise by the Premier and Treasurer to Queensland tax-payers at the recent Premiers Conference in Canberra not to increase taxes and charges was worthless. The massive increases in receipts prove that. My colleague the member for Ipswich said at the time that a closer examination of the situation in Queensland showed that that promise was just a joke and was worthless. As evidence of that, he highlighted that the State Government was preparing to approve a new increase in motor vehicle registration fees, the second in nine months. That hike, of course, exposes just how false those promises and assurances from the Treasurer were. On national television, the Premier and Treasurer made an unequivocal commitment that he would not increase taxes and charges. However, out the back, the Government is flat out doing just that. The figures reveal it and the people show it, because they can feel it in their pocket. They are paying hard. As a result of Mr Ahern's stewardship of the position of Treasurer, in the current financial year in Queensland, tax collections wUl increase by at least $400m. As I said earlier, that is based on an even projection and is a modest assessment of what the increase in State taxes and charges under this Premier and this National Party Govemment will really be. Despite the protestations and the abuse of the Finance Minister, every member of the House knows that in these significant areas of State Government responsibility health, education and police—the public, the people who work in those areas and the people who depend on those services are crying out for a better deal. They are crying out for an end to a second-rate education system. They are crying out for an end to a second-rate police force, not only in terms of morale but also in terms of resources and equipment. They are crying out for an end to a second-rate health system and for the Government to stop complaining, blaming other people, mnning off to consultants and inquiries to obtain advice on how to perform its job—right from the top in terms of an economic policy down to the bottom as to how Ministers wave their hands about in Parliament—and to start doing the job that it was elected to do. That primarily comes back to the economy of this State, which is failing in terms of the business investment figures that I outlined earlier and in terms of what every member of the Queensland Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5385 public can see, that is, the paucity, the poor quality and the poor level of State Government services in those areas in which it is the main player. In the areas in which the State Government is the main player, it is failing the people and the economy of this State. As a consequence, ordinary Queensland families are suffering. Mr INNES (Sherwood—Leader of the Liberal Party) (12.14 p.m.): The accounts of the State are of fundamental importance. That assistance to the quality of life that is delivered by Government—the essential services of life—depends upon the taking of taxation money and other Goverament receipts and the pmdent management of the tax-payers' dollar—it is easy to say "Government dollars", but it is tax-payers' dollars— to make sure that they get the best value for money. In Queensland, an unusual situation exists in which fair analysis would reveal that in business terms the State has been travelling fairly well. However, we have the extraordinary paradox that the background situation that would normally give every benefit to a Goverament has backdropped a horror ride for a Government. The flair, the initiative, the enterprise, the brains and the good management that have characterised our private sector and made this State buzz, unfortunately, are not mirrored by the quality of Government. The reality is that, despite booming taxation generated by the activity and the prosperity of the private sector, we find very significant declines in the services that are given by Government. For completeness, I will summarise the major taxation areas. I may repeat some figures to which other honourable members have referred. The Queensland Government Gazette appears quarterly to indicate the trends in expenditures and receipts. It is an important part of the documentation of accountability in this State. Looking at these figures, one finds that when the first nine months of this financial year is contrasted with the first nine months of the last financial year, land tax is up by an unbelievable 250 per cent. More can be said about that in analysis of the land tax component. Stamp duty is up by a massive 48 per cent. I say "massive" because land tax has gone up from a mere $20m to $63m, but stamp duty is bigger bikkies. It has gone from $435m to $648m. Therefore, it has seen an increase of more than $200m. That is big money in State Government terms. The increase in pay-roll tax has been more modest. It has gone from $447m to $494m, which is a 10 per cent increase. Freehold land title sales have gone up from a modest base of $29m to $42m, which is a 45 per cent increase. So in the State-based taxation take, the biggest components of stamp duty and pay­ roll tax have grown very strongly, and other significant taxes have also grown at an astonishing rate, particularly those that relate to land. Obviously, freehold land title sales, land tax itself which is based upon valuations of land, and stamp duty, which is predominantly contributed to by stamp duty on land sales, are the massive components. Yet despite the sort of situation that should make every Treasurer and Finance Minister ecstatic, one finds that in the expenditure area, this State is going backwards in the delivery of essential services. In tough times one would have thought that the Government would come back to priorities. Some functions of Government are essential. We in the Liberal Party believe that in tough times—and even in good times—one has to take stock from time to time of what we are really about, what the essential things are that every tax-payer expects for his or her dollar. When one discharges that responsibility for essential things, one can start to look to the second order things. One can even get round to the frills. At a time when the taxes that are generated by prosperity in this State are booming, when the Government is receiving windfalls of a massive order, one finds on the expenditure side when one compares the first nine months of this financial year with 5386 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1) the first nine months of the previous financial year—which is precisely the same measure that I have used in looking at the important taxes—that there have been drop-offs. I find it extraordinary that in the first nine months of this financial year, the expenditure on police has gone down from $191m to $186m. At a time of burgeoning taxation, there has been a drop-off in expenditure on essential services, and the police are essential. The Goverament will not overcome the problems uncovered by the Fitzgerald inquiry by having overwrought, overworked, embattled police. The police of this State are already paid poorly compared with their interstate counterparts. I spoke recently to a first-class sergeant in a provincial station who has 20 years' police experience who receives less remuneration than a New South Wales constable. If the Government wants police to resist the overtures of people involved in organised crime and wants to keep them on the straight and narrow, it has to look at that simple comparison. But, more importantly, the Government has to consider police numbers. As members of the Liberal Party have said ad nauseam in this Chamber, and will continue to say ad nauseam, there are not enough police in this State to do the job that they have to do. This State has the lowest police numbers of any State in Australia when, being a vastly decentralised State, it should have among the highest police to population ratio in Australia. The area that has the highest ratio of police to population is the Northera Territory. That is quite appropriate because it has a widely scattered population. Its sheer geography means that police have to be stationed in various remote areas. Somebody has to patrol the lonely roads and somebody has to be accessible to people who require licences, firearms and all the other services that have to be provided in a large, decentralised State. This State should start out by having more police because it is a very large State that has large, decentralised areas. However, Queensland has the lowest police numbers in Australia bar none. In some of the centres of biggest population, such as Brisbane and the Gold Coast, the police force is totally outgoing. There is a desperate need for police stations and for police officers to man those stations. I understand that recently the new Police Minister has been trying to assure people that things have changed, that there is a tendency to go back to community-based policing. The member for Merthyr will make his maiden speech in due course, but I campaigned closely with him in the Merthyr by-election campaign, and I can tell honourable members that he impressed upon me Mr Katter: Santo still did all right. He mustn't be too bad. Mr INNES: Santo did well; the Liberal Party did well. The reason why the Liberal Party did well is that it stuck to the basic issues, and there was irrefutable statistical backing for those basic issues. The basic issues had irrefutable local backing. The people of New Farm are sick of having their houses broken into or their cars stolen. The people of New Farm are sick of having a place like the Valley, which from time to time is a mnning sore, on their doorstep. They are sick of not being able to shop in the Valley because of the problems that parts of the Valley experience. I think that the member for Merthyr would corroborate me when I say that the people who live in Hamilton and Clayfield are sick of the frequency of break-ins. The sin^e women of the area, which is an air hostess belt, are sick of their units being broken into and of reading of assaults on people in simUar situations to themselves in precisely the area in which they live. I have spoken to the member for Merthyr about that. The guarantees provided by Ministers and by the candidates during the Merthyr by-election were apparently spurious and insincere, particularly as they related to that dominant issue of law and order. All candidates highlighted the urgent need for more resources to be allocated to local police stations. The member for Merthyr was particularly instrumental in helping to focus that attention on that issue. I recall being with him at press conferences outside police stations Appropriadon Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5387 in the electorate and his calling for a guarantee from the Goverament that the Hamilton and Newstead Police Stations would not be closed, as it seemed to be suggested in the Arthur Andersen report. That cloud has still not been removed. 1 understand that things were so bad that some major organisations in this city wrote to the Minister for Police asking for assurances and that the Minister is trying to give assurances. Because the police officers are totally outgunned, surveys were carried out recently by a unit of the police force so that it could draw up a hit list of police stations to be closed so that there can be further rationalisation and further removal of police officers from the communities in which they live into centralised policing and mobile policing— crisis policing. If we want to keep police away from temptation and if we want to keep them within the standards of the community, let them work within the community so that they know the members of the community and have constant reinforcement and support of ordinary people with ordinary standards. Let us not get the police into the ghetto situation of mixing only with other police and believing that everybody else in the world is against them. Let them see ordinary people in ordinary circumstances. Let them have a chat along the local suburban street, because friendship is offered to police officers and other persons in local areas. They should do that rather than drive from a break-in here to the brawl there, from the domestic dispute at some place to the traffic accident somewhere else. Crisis, crisis, crisis, which is a constant feature of their life, takes its toll on the health and morale of police officers. During the Merthyr by-election a call was made for the upgrading of the Clayfield, New Farm and Fortitude Valley Police Stations to 24 hours a day, seven days a week stations. Criminals do not go to sleep. They do not knock off at night; they gee up at night. That is the time when half of them work. They work under the cover of darkness. It is the time when the police should be out protecting people by preventive police patrolling. A call was made for the number of uniformed and clerical staff generally to be increased dramatically. Police were shuffled around the Merthyr electorate. There was a show of force in the Valley to try to help the embattled small-businesspeople there. A sustained police effort could clean up the Valley and make that place a focus of significant redevelopment, which is planned by private enterprise. If the area can be made secure, a spectacular increase in private development is planned by private enterprise. It is like proposing major initiatives in a war zone. The small-businesspeople in the Valley want the war zone removed. They want the police in that area suppressing—quelling—the criminality and making the area a place where respectable, honest people as close as New Farm can go to do their shopping and seek their entertainment. Since the Merthyr by-election the silence on the predicament of Merthyr has been deafening. However, all honourable members have read about the horrifying attacks on women—older women and younger women—and the horrifying sexual assaults that have occurred. One woman was left in a critical condition in hospital. I was told by the member for Merthyr that at 7.30 one morning an aged woman was so badly beaten around the face that for about two weeks she was not able to see, to think or to communicate to identify her attackers. Mrs Chapman: An absolute disgrace. Mr INNES: It is an absolute disgrace. One really feels for women in the community, who must read this with some horror and some self-identification. The Liberal Party demands the fulfilment of promises to electors. One does not make promises one day and forget them the next. Promises were made to the people of Merthyr. In my electorate a very active lady, Mrs Liz Fabian, from the Centenary Estates, drew up a petition. She is horrified that the petition does not command the attention that she thought the thousands of signatures would bring. FoUowing my representations, a site for a police station at the Centenary Estates was acquired in 1981. However, no indication has been given of when the building program will commence. Centenary 5388 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1)

Estates contains a community of 30 000 people. The houses in the several suburbs in the estates are broken into and plundered on a regular basis. Mrs Chapman: Don't you think it would be far better to get more police out on the beat and in cars than to build police stations and have them sitting on their behinds? Mr INNES: I point out to Mrs Chapman that there are two issues: in terms of priorities, I would not have allocated $60m to build a police headquarters when suburban stations are being closed, or if they are not being totally closed, closed for more hours of the week. Police officers should be out in the suburbs, not in their headquarters. A balance must be stmck. When there is a community of 30 000 people whose homes are being plundered rotationally by gangs of thieves, they are entitled to police protection. They feel more secure if they have a local police station from which they know the police will come and go with regularity. At the moment, the people at the Centenary Estates depend on police officers from the Oxley Police Station. They are lucky to receive a couple of visits in a shift. About 30 000 in one area do not have a local police station. Twenty years ago, a single policeman was allocated to the area. However, he left within nine months because of a fear that his marriage would break down. When the community was 15 000 strong, so many demands were made upon him that he could not cope with them. In some places additional police stations are needed, particularly in growing com­ munities. The point is that far more police are needed. Notwithstanding the Fitzgerald inquiry, plenty of young men and women are prepared to join the police force. With the type of improvements that can be expected following the Fitzgerald inquiry, which has the real and total support of this House, the Queensland police force can be rebuilt. With more police officers, the job can be done on the ground. We can stop a situation in which there are on the electoral rolls of many electorates in this State more people identified as private security officers than there are those identified as policemen. The situation in which only the wealthy can be protected and it is no man's land for the average tax-payer cannot be allowed to exist. That is a primary obligation of Government. I turn now to the other essentials. The Works Department performs many important functions. During the first nine months of this financial year. Works Department expenditure from the Consolidated Revenue Fund dropped by only $lm compared with the first nine months of the previous financial year. As to the Education Department—its expenditure from the Consolidated Revenue Fund dropped from $ 1,016m to $950m. This Goverament spends its money on technicolour advertisements in newspaper supplements such as the one that I am holding. Those advertisements are supposed to attract business from interstate and overseas. The graphs that are included in this advertisement show population increases. Population is booming. A desperate need exists for additional education resources. Queensland has the lowest funded secondary education of any State in Australia and the lowest allocation of tertiary places, yet education expenditure from the Consolidated Revenue Fund has dropped by over $50m. Where are this Government's priorities? Do they lie in colour advertisements that cost the equivalent of a policeman's or a teacher's salary for six months? This colour supplement is full of pictures of Ministers who give themselves top priority but give their functions the lowest priority. The cost of the entire supplement would pay the salaries of half a dozen policemen or teachers. 1 turn now to the expenditure on the Public Relations and Media Office within the Premier's Department. During the first nine months of this financial year. Consolidated Revenue Fund expenditure within that department rose by 113 per cent compared with the first nine months of the previous year. That represents $3,956,000 compared with $1,856,000. Those are this Government's real priorities. It comes down to politics and self-promotion, but there is a credibility gap in performance that is becoming evident. The presentation and sales hype must be backed by a product. If the Government is downgrading the service that it is supposed to give the tax-payer for his dollar, its PR will fall upon blind eyes and deaf ears. Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5389

I turn now to another matter of current concera. The expenditure for the Department of Environment, Conservation and Tourism and the Forestry Department for the first nine months of this financial year has decreased from almost $70m—$68,938,000—to $56,141,000 compared with the first nine months of the previous financial year. When ones skates across the services that one would have thought were essential to Government, namely, police, law and order, education, works and something which is perhaps not mainstream but is certainly a matter of great concern to Queenslanders in terms of their life-style and total environment, namely, the tourist industry, one finds a drop in actual expenditure. I contrast that with the massive increase of tens and hundreds per cent in the taxation base. Something has gone wrong. When we talk of hollow logs, this is the evidence. What I do not know but would like to know is why the Department of Industry Development experienced a massive increase in Consolidated Revenue Fund expenditure from $29m during the first nine months of last financial year to over $60m in the first nine months of this year. I would appreciate it if the Treasurer could address that extraordinary increase, which might be accountable by some special one-off consideration. An increase of over 100 per cent in a department's expenditure is worthy of some comment. I ask the Treasurer to clear up that issue. As to the total economic horizon, climate and environment in Australia—there are disturbing things. Honourable members can take comfort from the fact that, during the past year, Queensland's economy has grown very strongly. However, there are clouds on the horizon, and those clouds are created by the Federal Government's economic policies. Last year, our national spending rose 11 per cent, or three times the OECD average. In other words, we got rid of three years' spending in one year. Three years' competition with overseas countries is affected by our expenditure in a single year. The net external debt for Australia has risen from $7 billion in the early eighties to $103 billion at the end of March 1989. As a proportion of our gross domestic product, net external debt has risen in the eighties from 6 per cent to over 13 per cent. Mr Burreket: Labor fiscal policies. Mr INNES: That is right—Labor fiscal policies. In terms of interest payments as a proportion of our exports, debt-servicing has risen from 2.5 per cent to 20 per cent. Every Australian could soon be losing 25c in every dollar that he earns abroad in paying interest on overseas borrowings. Queensland has a special interest in that. With 16 per cent of the national population, Queensland earns 25 per cent of each Australian export dollar. It is possible that 35c of each dollar that is earned in this State will go to pay the interest on overseas borrowings for the rest of Australia. The retiring Governor of the Reserve Bank has said that we have to face faUing living standards. Australia has already slipped from first place at the turn of the century to 23rd place. Why should it slip any further? Does it have to cop it? I say that it does not. There are answers, but they are tough answers that involve restraint on Government expenditure. That is one alternative. Mr De Lacy: You've been asking for an increase today. Don't you see the incon­ sistency of that kind of argument? Mr INNES: Mr De Lacy usually demonstrates that he has a few more brains than most of the people on his side of the House. At times, if he is not blinkered, he uses those brains to gain a grasp of things. At times he shows some appreciation of figures in a broader picture. I would have thought that it is clear from what I am saying what the broader picture is. The State Government is taking a massive amount of money, which must be going somewhere such as expenditure on advertising. That money is not being spent on 5390 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1) mainstream items. The Government should restrain itself in terms of the frills and concentrate on increasing expenditure on the main delivery systems that will give services to all tax-payers. The dominant answer, the one that the Labor Party does not like, is to increase productivity. If productivity is increased, Australia can trade its way, fight its way and compete its way out of trouble. If that does not happen, this country is faced with the spectre of recession and a highly unstable dollar. If commodity prices drop, the country will be in a heap of strife. In the last few years commodity prices have been good, yet the country is still slipping backwards at a rate of more than $ 1 billion a month. Mr Menzel: We are already in trouble. Mr INNES: Even though everything is going well for the country, it is still in trouble. Productivity, competition and restraint on Government spending offer some solution. I heard Mr Goss talk about back flips. I have seen him do some spectacular back flips. Was he not the person who last year supported the great socialist initiative of building gas pipelines. Last year when amendments to the Stamp Act were before the House, Mr De Lacy said that the Liberal Party did not know what it was doing. The Liberal Party knew what it was doing; it was the only party that opposed the Stamp Act Amendment Bill. It said that the Bill contained some horrendous injustices. But the Opposition joined with the Government in supporting the amendments. At least the Opposition had the good grace to say that I did not understand what the Liberal Party was doing. The Opposition knew exactly what it was doing when it supported the amendments to the Petroleum Act, because that was the subject of the debate. The Liberal Party raised fairly and squarely that private-enterprise Governments must not be in the business of building and owning pipelines. By the end of the year the great private-enterprise poseur in the board rooms, the parliamentary socialist, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Goss, was saying, "Sell it. Sell the pipeline. Privatise it." It was necessary socialist expenditure. Even Mr Ahern, who knew exactly what he was doing, was saying that the Government was giving consideration to getting rid of it. The Opposition was wrong in principle; it was wrong when it did that. It knew exactly what it was doing. The big back flip was not done by the Liberal Party. The back flips came from the Leader of the Opposition and from the Government. The same can be said about the attitude to productivity. The one thing that the centralised union system will not appreciate and does not want to accept is that working conditions in this country have to be adjusted. That is the one thing that the worker has and which he can trade off. I accept that he or she cannot trade off money. I do not know how half of the workers are surviving now. Inflation has cut the hell out of them. Interest rates have torpedoed them. They are drawing on credit to, stay alive, to feed their families. I feel for them. However, what they have is time. What can be traded off are conditions—conditions won in times of plenty. Mr De Lacy: You are trading them off all the time. In every wage case there is a trade-off. Mr INNES: 1 hear that. In this State private enterprise has not introduced voluntary employment agreements to produce sweated labour or to cmcify the worker. They have been introduced in a desperate attempt to allow industries to stay competitive, to increase their competitive edge and to have flexibility in industrial relations. Mr De Lacy interjected. Mr INNES: Not at all. If the honourable member finds an instance of sweated labour, my party and I will condemn it. If VEAs are used to sweat people, then we in the Liberal Party oppose them. Time expired. Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5391

Mr HENDERSON (Mount Gravatt) (12.43 p.m.): It gives me a great deal of pleasure to support the Premier and Treasurer in this debate. I listened with considerable interest indeed to the usual negative comments from the Leader of the Opposition. At the outset, I indicate that I for one applaud what is happening in Queensland today. As the Leader of the Liberal Party has just pointed out, this State is the backbone of Australia. A total of 25 per cent of all the export wealth eamed by this nation is eamed in Queensland. Of every $100 that is eamed by AustraUa, $25 is earaed by Queensland. When it is considered that Queensland has about 16 per cent of Australia's population, it will be seen that each Queenslander is contributing not $1 towards alleviating the national debt and creating national wealth, but $1.50, which is much more than the contribution of people in other States. Very few people in this House recognise that Australia rides on the back of Queensland and Westem Australia, the two wealth- producing States. It is interesting to listen to the Leader of the Opposition talk about all the great and wonderful miracles that have been wrought down south by Labor Goveraments. About the only thing they have wrought is havoc. An article in the Australian of Thursday, 8 June 1989, leads one to the realisation of what a dreadful mess the State of Victoria is in. Victoria cannot manage its own finances. It is in the midst of major scandals in relation to its financial mismanagement. As the Premier and Treasurer said earlier, the Victorian Government has to increase its deficit spending and find ways of imposing extra taxation and so on. In short, it is once again bleeding Victoria dry. On top of all of this, it also has to be considered that throughout the whole of Australia, State industries enjoy a certain amount of protection by way of tariffs and subsidies. Although it is tme that our national Government is attempting to reduce many of these tariffs and subsidies, very little of that tariff and subsidy protection applies to Queensland. Indeed, the entire Victorian and New South Wales manufacturing base, which is highly inefficient, is propped up by a system of national subsidies and tariffs. When they are added into the cost of subsidising the average worker in Victoria, compared with what happens in Queensland, one finds that the Queensland worker is contributing enormous amounts to the national wealth by way of export earnings and costing less in terms of tariffs and subsidies. Very few people give Queensland full credit for its achievements. The honourable Leader of the Liberal Party said only a minute ago that productivity has to be increased. This morning in this House the Premier pointed out that union membership, for example, had decUned in this State from a level of 53 per cent to 39 per cent. It is interesting to note that that decline has been accompanied by an increase in productivity. In other words, the less control that unions have in the mnning of this State the more productive the State becomes, because unions are centralised and insist upon uniform wage-fixing policies. The rewards that accme to individuals should be a derivative of the productivity of the individual. As the Leader of the Liberal Party said, it is important to appreciate that factor because the only way that this country can get away from the national debt, which has escalated during the period of office of the Hawke Labor Government, is to increase productivity and not to regulate wages or reduce tariffs. One of the frequently repeated themes occurring in this Parliament is accountability. 1 place on record my appreciation of the courage of the Ahern Government in taking by the horns the whole issue of accountabUity and instituting a number of measures that operate now and that will be introduced in the future. Those measures will increase to a very high level the accountability of this Govemment to the people of Queensland. It took considerable courage on the part of this Government to set up the Fitzgerald inquiry. In New South Wales and Victoria, corruption is mnning rampant but not one of those Governments has taken any initiative whatsoever to institute the equivalent of a Fitzgerald inquiry in those States. The people of Queensland could well ask: why not? The fact of the matter is that other States are not game to institute inquiries into corruption. The Queensland Government has had the courage to say, "We are going to look at the problems that exist in this State. We are going to look at them closely. 5392 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1) carefully and thoroughly. When we receive the Fitzgerald report, we are prepared to do something about it." Very few other States in Australia have had the courage to do that. The fact of the matter is that it takes considerable courage to walk in public, warts and all, to let people know the tme position. I applaud the Queensland Goverament for its courage. The Goverament has established the Public Accounts Committee and the Public Works Committee and has enumerated very high standards of ministerial conduct. In addition, ministerial expenses will be reported to the Parliament on the same basis upon which they are reported elsewhere in Australia and a pecuniary interest register for members has been established. Every one of those measures took courage on the part of this Government to implement. I applaud the Ahern Goverament for having the guts to do the right thing by Queenslanders. I am certain that Queenslanders appreciate those measures and applaud them. Those who do not would not be satisfied by anything. The Goverament must look to the future. The Premier has put in place a series of accountability procedures that will ensure that future generations live in a better State than Queensland children live in at present. The role of criminal elements in this State will be considerably reduced. I repeat what I said earlier: no other State Goverament in Australia has had the courage to implement those measures. Well may the constituency ask: why not? The only Government that has had the courage to do that is the Queensland Government, which certainly deserves to be applauded. As I listened to honourable members speak during this debate, I cast my mind back to 1984 which was my first full year as a member of this Parliament. At that time the Medicare agreements were being debated and that matter was the subject of considerable discussion. The records of this Parliament show that the Queensland Government consistently said that it had been underfunded in terms of Medicare grants. Mr Katter: $80m a year. Mr HENDERSON: The Minister tells me it was $80m a year. I am one who stood up in this Parliament at that time and challenged the Opposition. The record of my speeches will show that each time the issue was raised, it was pooh-poohed by the Opposition who said, "You don't know what you are talking about. The money has been spent elsewhere in State funding." Year after year the Goverament raised the issue. Suddenly this year for the first time the whole spectrum of Medicare funding was put under the microscope. Suddenly the Federal Government said, "Hey, we have been underfunding you. You should get an extra $99m in Medicare grants." That is precisely what the Queensland Government received. Queensland has 16 per cent of the population and it now receives 16 per cent of Medicare grants made by the Commonwealth Government to the States. The message that Queensland was being underfunded in terms of Medicare grants took years to get across. At a recent function held at QEII hospital, the Minister for Health, Ivan Gibbs, correctly pointed out that for the first time acknowledgement has been made of the fact that Queensland has been underfunded. Has the Commonwealth Government made any move whatsoever to refund to this State the amount of money by which it has been shortchanged in recent years? The answer is, "No". To the great credit of the Queensland Government, despite massive underfunding, it has nonetheless succeeded in balancing its Budget very well. From time to time, comments are made by Opposition members about tax levels in this State. Not very long ago 1 came across an article headed, "Qld pays less tax, says poll." I seek leave to table the article and have it incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. Whereupon the honourable member laid on the table the following document— Qld pays less tax, says poll People in Queensland pay less tax than those in other states, a national survey has found. Research by the Melbourne Institute of Public Affairs shows Queenslanders pay $180 less state tax a year than the average Australian. Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5393

According to the Institute's state tax severity index, taxes in Queensland rated low (on 77), whereas Victoria rated as the highest taxed state on 111 (see table below). Using Commonwealth Grants Commission methods as a base, the institute found Queen­ slanders should pay $718 a year in taxes, but were paying only $556. The Queensland Finance Minister, Mr Austin, said the study helped explain why 26,000 southerners came to Queensland to live last year. — Pat Gillespie State Comparisons State tax Severity Index VIC WA NSW TAS SA QLD 111 107 104 96 94 77 What we 'should' pay ($) VIC WA NSW TAS SA QLD 738 710 751 514 584 718 What we do pay ($) VIC WA NSW TAS SA QLD 821 766 783 497 552 556 Source: Melbourne Institute of Public Affairs State Charges Stamp duty on home sales ($) Price QLD NSW VIC WA SA $80,000 800 1290 1720 2130 1400 $120,000 1200 2690 3400 3630 2550 Driver's licence ($) QLD NSW VIC WA SA 7.40 23 9.70 15 20 Petrol tax per litre (c) QLD NSW VIC WA SA nil 3.53 $50 4.5 4.17 + 7.8 (zone 1) Tobacco tax (% of wholesale price) QLD NSW VIC WA SA 30 30 30 35 28 + $50 fee Car rego ($) QLD NSW VIC SA WA 4 cyl. Camry 296 401 288 25S» 630 1st year 200 thereafter 6 cyl. Commodore 359 430 314 303; 830 1st year 230 thereafter Mr HENDERSON: The table shows some very interesting facts. In terms of the severity of State taxes, it is interesting to note that on an index of 100, Victoria rates 111. In other words, in terms of this index, the people of Victoria are already paying much more tax than the average of other States of Australia. Yet in this article the Victorian Premier has said, "Tough luck, we will add even more burdens in terms of taxation." On this State tax severity index Queensland rates at 77; in other words, the level of taxation in this State is way below the national average. Queenslanders pay $556 per person per year in taxes; Victorians pay $821 per year. For example, the stamp duty paid on the purchase of a $ 120,000 home in Queensland is approximately $1,200; in New South Wales it is $2,690; in Victoria it is $3,400; in Westem Australia it is $3,630 and in South Australia it is $2,550. The Leader of the Liberal Party referred to the massive increases in stamp duty in this State but, instead 5394 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1) of charging $1,200 stamp duty on the purchase of a $120,000 home, imagine what would happen if the Queensland Govemment charged the same amount as Victoria, that is $3,400! The increase would be absolutely massive. Many people forget the importance of petrol tax in terms of the costs of goods and services in this State. In Queensland the petrol tax per litre is nil. Therefore, the Queensland tax-payer pays the Government nothing in terms of extra funds to buy petrol. In New South Wales the petrol tax is 3.53c per litre and recently the New South Wales Government proposed to increase petrol tax even further. Victoria has a rather interesting petrol tax scheme. It charges a flat fee of $50 per month per retail site, that is $600 per year, plus 7.8c per litre. In Westera Australia the petrol tax is 4.5c per litre and in South Australia it is 4.17c. Recently people complained that the Queensland Govemment had increased car registration fees. This table spells out State charges and it is interesting to note how car registration fees are calculated. For example, in New South Wales it costs $401 per year to register a four-cylinder Camry and on top of that the New South Wales motorist pays petrol tax. Not only is he paying car registration, but also he is paying petrol tax. In Queensland the car registration fee for a four-cylinder Camry is approximately $300 per year and motorists do not have to pay extra tax in the form of petrol tax. Therefore, the cost of mnning a car in this State is infinitely cheaper. If one wants to look at how well-managed a State is, one not only has to look at the general budget, but also at the major State funds. The three funds I wish to refer to today are the State superannuation, third-party and workers' compensation funds. When one looks at these funds on a State-by-State basis, one finds that each of these funds in Queensland is actuarially sound and this State can be financed out of the funds that exist within the superannuation, third-party and workers' compensation funds. The moneys belong to the contributors to those particular funds and the Government does not have to dip into the Consolidated Revenue Fund or back these funds up with general tax funds. The Goverament does not need to take superannuation funds away from Queensland workers, use the funds for general Govemment expenditure and then, when someone retires, pay for that person's retirement out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund. I wonder what will happen if by some grave misfortune, there is a change of Goverament tomorrow and the Labor Party in this State is given the opportunity to plunder the State superannuation, third-party or workers' compensation funds? The Labor Party would have a field-day with literally billions of dollars. This is precisely the point made by the Minister for Finance this morning, that is, that the moment the members of the Labor Party get a dollar in their hands, their aim is to spend it quickly. They cannot spend it fast enough. It is as though they have a pathological obsession to grab a dollar and spend it. That is not intelligent or responsible financial planning. I applaud the current Premier and Treasurer of this State for the fact that these funds have been examined and, even though they were actuarially sound previously, today they are even more actuarially sound. As the Leader of the Liberal Party pointed out a moment ago, by the careful stewardship of Queensland's State superannuation funds, more funds can be generated for the benefit and welfare of Queenslanders. I congratulate the Premier and Treasurer for those initiatives; they are responsible and sound. In other States these funds have massive deficits. How will the people of Victoria ever pay back the billions of dollars that are owed to their third-party fund? How will the people of New South Wales do the same? Last year honourable members will recaU that this very issue was raised in this Parliament when the New South Wales Government was considering raising the third-party costs in that State by the order of $500 per year. That is absolutely outrageous and shows just how badly that fund is managed. One of the important indices in assessing the financial responsibility and management of Queensland is how these funds are managed. The Queensland Government can hold its head high because each of those funds is solvent and actuarially sound. More importantly, through careful husbanding and stewardship of the funds, extra money will be generated that can be used for the benefit and welfare of the people of Queensland. Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5395

Sitting suspended from 1 to 2.30 p.m. Mr HENDERSON: As we look at the financial management of this State, I think there are two events that have occurred under the Ahern Government of which the people of Queensland are not perhaps aware. I want to allude to both of them today and I particularly want to place on record my belief that the sound financial management of this State really depended upon the occurrence of both of these events. The first was the appointment of a Minister for Finance. I noted with considerable interest the appointment of the Honourable Brian Austin to that Ministry. If ever I was to choose a Minister for Finance, he would be one of those I would choose. It takes a particular type of person to be Minister for Finance. It takes a very, very organised individual, but I think it takes a particular type of personality. I believe the Minister has a vision of Queensland based upon financial management that is sound. I admire him for sticking to that vision. I find it interesting that, in the many representations made to him as Minister, one of the things about him as an individual is that he really has a ground plan against which he evaluates the particular projects that he is looking at. I think the Minister for Finance is doing a very excellent job. He is to be congratulated. His appointment is one of the major reasons why the finances of this State are on a very, very sound footing indeed. I am not famous for being condescending in any way whatsoever; in fact, I am probably noted for being the opposite. However, I would say that, of all the Ministers in the Ahern Goverament, we are very fortunate indeed in the sense that the Finance Minister is probably the most capable of them all. The other innovation was the establishment of a Budget committee—this is, the Cabinet Budget Committee, of which members would be aware. It enables the vision and the blueprint to be put into the total State perspective not just in terms of financial and monetary considerations but also in terms of political considerations. We have to recognise that we are dealing with a Government of Queensland and, therefore, there are political aspects to funding. For example, a decision to increase State taxes not only has a monetary aspect to it, it also has a political aspect. The decision to build a road is not just simply something that concerns transport; it also has a political aspect. The Cabinet Budget Committee is a major innovative step towards ensuring that the finances of this State continue on a sound footing. As we stride towards the end of the 1980s and into the 1990s, I am very confident that, as we look back upon the financial mismanagement of Australia that has occurred under the Hawke Goverament, we will note that one of the ways that we can cushion ourselves against those impacts is by having our own house in order. I am pleased to be able to stand here as a Government member and say that the finances of Queensland are not only on a very sound footing but also are in accordance with a very sound principle of planning. That planning looks not only at today but also to the future. So I stand here with quite a deal of confidence in saying that this State will be one of the better States in terms of riding out the storm. If ever there is a vote of confidence in any product whatsoever, it is shown ultimately by the number of people who chose to use the product. I note with considerable interest that something like 600 people a week are moving to live in Queensland. Amidst all of the criticism, the knocking, the negativeness, the whinging and the whining that we hear from other political parties in this House, I suppose the ultimate vote of confidence is when one can look at one's own State and say, "Well, other people think it looks pretty good. They are coming here to live. They are staying here." We are a vast, growing State and the people of southera States are showing with their feet that they want to vote for something that they believe in and that they believe in a vision of excellence. I now want to allude to a number of small projects that are of interest to me as member for Mount Gravatt. I would like to account to my electorate in a small way in terms of some of the ways in which the Goverament's money has been spent in Mount Gravatt. One of the most important innovations for which the Ahera Goverament has been responsible in my electorate is the preservation of Toohey forest. This issue was 5396 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1) carried on for year after year after year. Well can I recall in previous election campaigns former members for Mount Gravatt standing on the top of Mount Gravatt or somewhere like that and saying, "I am going to do something about Toohey forest." The next election campaign would come around and we would hear again, "I am going to do something about Toohey forest." I notice that the honourable member for Salisbury is smiling at me over here because he would certainly be aware that that seemed to be a perennial question every election. The fact of the matter is that previous members for the electorate did nothing about Toohey forest. They were not able to save the Bond land in Toohey forest at all. It is to the great credit of the Ahera Government that, when this issue became a major one towards the end of 1987, I went to the Premier with a submission that perhaps we need to look at saving this land. The Premier agreed and within six months—I want to stress that, within six months—the land was saved and gazetted as a park. That is to the benefit not only of the people of the Mount Gravatt electorate but also of the entire population of southern Brisbane. There is no doubt that Toohey forest is a major recreational and bushland area. We really needed to preserve it. Thanks to the Premier, that was done. A major problem has existed with the Mount Gravatt showgrounds. This is another dispute that continued on and on and on. It is not in my electorate at all; it is in the electorate of my good friend and colleague the member for Mansfield. Nonetheless, I was intimately involved with this project and certainly the records of this House show that quite clearly. So today I am pleased to be able to say that under this Government the Mount Gravatt showgrounds are finally set up under a community trust. They are set aside under an Act of this Parliament. They are saved; they are preserved and they are there for the benefit of Mount Gravatt. I am very, very delighted indeed to have been associated with that. We often hear reference to housing. It seems to me that there are considerable problems relating to housing. The Queensland Housing Commission, through the Minister for Housing, has quite a good record in terms of providing housing for disadvantaged citizens and so on in this State. One of the things I am pleased about in my electorate is the concentration and effort being put into providing pensioner housing. I have been acutely aware of the need for pensioner housing accommodation in Mount Gravatt for some time. In 1983, there were only 30 completed pensioner units in the Mount Gravatt electorate. Another 43 units are being constmcted in Tenby Street, Mount Gravatt. My electorate wUl have 181 Queensland Housing Commission pensioner units, providing excellent accommodation for pensioners. All are excellently constmcted and provide sound accommodation for hard-pressed senior citizens. It is hoped that other units will be added in the near future. I am pleased to have been actively involved in the program since 1983, when I was first elected to Parliament. An innovative Housing Commission program was the constmction in Mount Gravatt of pensioner units for sale. The first set of units in Queensland were constmcted at Chester Place, which is at the corner of High Street and Logan Road, Mount Gravatt in my electorate. I was pleased that that project was undertaken. It was very successful. In future, we can look forward to the program being more successful. Another recently announced innovation of the Queensland Goverament will be the provision of red-light cameras. My electorate contains three very dangerous intersections: the coraer of Mains and Kessels Roads, the corner of Mains Road and McCuUough Street and the corner of Logan Road, Kessels Road and Mount Gravatt-Capalaba Road. I was pleased when the Minister for Transport announced recently that studies into the Victorian trials with red-light cameras showed that they have a very positive impact on reducing accidents involving red-light mnning. I was even more pleased to learn that the three intersections that I mentioned are being targeted as intersections worthy of being trialled for red-light cameras. In the near future, I look forward to those trials Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5397 taking place. Because of the number of accidents that occur at those three intersections, 1 am certain that they are worthy of attention. Another innovation that I applaud which showed the soundness of the financial management of this State was the introduction of optional retirement at age 55. If honourable members peruse the records of this Parliament, particularly the second- reading speech by Mr Bill Gunn when the Bill was introduced, they will find an acknowledgement by the Minister that the original proposal that was put to the Govemment was rejected. However, it was reconsidered and finally accepted. Three Goverament members were intimately involved in the project: the honourable member for Greenslopes, the honourable member for Mansfield and myself I am pleased that the Government accepted submissions on early retirement. I was pleased to be associated with the project. Many citizens in the Mount Gravatt electorate have benefited enormously from optional early retirement either by taking early retirement or through the fact that the people who have taken early retirement have created job opportunities for young teachers and so on. One of the more memorable battles with which I have been associated in recent times concerned the ICI chlorine plant at Hemmant. In the not-too-distant past, that plant received significant headlines. Most honourable members would know that I was opposed to the project and that I made my opposition fairly well known at the time. I am pleased to say that I was one of many people who were prepared to speak out on what I saw as a major issue of public health in the southera suburbs of Brisbane. The River Mouth Action Committee, through its chairman Geoff Seymour, has been kind enough to acknowledge my contribution towards helping overcome the problems that would have been caused by the siting of that plant at Hemmant. Although the battle was long, together we finally won, which is to the benefit of the people of Brisbane. Another project with which I have been associated is the creation of a Sunnybank Neighbourhood Centre at Gager Street, Sunnybank. I acknowledge the contribution of the Honourable Peter McKechnie, who at that time was Minister for Family Services. That particularly good centre services an area that contains many families and many young mothers who stay at home. The Sunnybank Neighbourhood Centre is providing an excellent community facility. Another project with which I am closely associated at present—it is not in my electorate, and I acknowledge the work being carried out by the member for Mansfield on the project—is the provision of a new district police headquarters at Upper Mount Gravatt. From time to time, many comments are made about the absence of poUce protection in the Mount Gravatt area. We have been aware of the problem for some time and we supported strongly the constmction of a district police headquarters on the site of the present Upper Mount Gravatt Police Station. Although the site is not in my electorate, I have been delighted to assist my colleague Craig Sherrin, the member for Mansfield, in that battle. Constmction is well under way and should be completed early next year at a cost of $5.5m. It will provide a variety of excellent police services, including uniformed police, traffic police, CIB, juvenUe aid, RBT units and so on. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to support the Appropriation Bill. The finances of this State are on a very sound footing. As I said previously, much of it is due to the very capable financial administration of the State, particularly by the Minister for Finance. I am pleased to support him. Time expired. Mr De LACY (Cairns) (2.44 p.m.): I was going to use the opportunity provided by this appropriation debate to talk about the electorate of Mulgrave. However, as the member for Mulgrave will be directly following me, I have decided to throw away that speech and talk on another topic altogether. I will refer to the sale of land on the west bank of the Coomera River in the Gold Coast region, a subject that I raised last week. The sale of land and the transfer of land in Queensland is fundamental to our economy. 5398 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1)

The way that those scarce land resources are used will impact on the life-styles and living conditions of all people in Queensland. In many cases throughout Queensland, because of the way in which the Goverament oversees its responsibilities to the citizens of Queensland, the public interest in respect of land is being violated in the worst way. Land is probably more central to our life­ style than most of us realise. It is the area in which most of the cormption and cronyism about which members of the Labor Party have been speaking for decades has been taking place. Housing is an important subject in this day and age. The housing debate is being focused essentially on interest rates. Although I do not deny the impact that high interest rates have on housing, the fact is that the high cost of land impacts on the price of housing. The cost of land is very much higher than it ought to be because every time land is bought and sold there is a profit component that is much larger than it ought to be. For instance, an ordinary housing block probably costs somewhere between $15,000 and $20,000 to develop, yet housing blocks are not available in any of the fast-growing areas of Queensland such as the Gold Coast and Cairas for less than $40,000, and many blocks of land are $100,000. A large slice of the cost of land represents profit. In many cases, it is really a paper profit, or unearned profit. That is certainly contributing to the housing crisis in Queensland. The proposed sale of this land on the west bank of the Coomera River reflects very badly on both the State Goverament, which is not acting in the best interests of the tax-payers, and the Albert Shire Council, which is not acting in the best interests of its rate-payers. I believe that both Governments are betraying the tmst of the people, and they are creating horrendous problems not only for the people of today but also for the citizens of tomorrow, who are our children of today. I said last week that there is a proposed sale of 294 hectares of land known as Waterway Downs on the west bank of the Coomera River. It is being offered for sale by the estate of D. G. Thompson. However, that land includes a prime piece of Crown land which was reserved for park and recreation purposes, which is known as the William Guise Foxwell Park and contains approximately 2.5 kilometres of river frontage. This moraing the Minister endeavoured to say that I did not know what I was talking about when I said that 2.5 kilometres of river frontage was involved and that I ought to establish my facts. I suggest that the Minister ought to go down there with a measuring-tape and see just how much river frontage is involved on that piece of land. It is at the junction of Oaky Creek and the Coomera River, and it is almost surrounded by river frontage. It really is a prime piece of land. I notice that the member for Salisbury is nodding in agreement because he knows that part of the world. The land is ideal for canal development and, incidentally, that is what is being proposed, but I might say that at this stage it is being proposed privately, not publicly. This Crown land is absolutely central to the whole 294-hectare sale. In addition to the fact that a piece of Crown land is involved in what is theoretically a private sale, there have been a large number of title amalgamations, and a large number of road reserves have been abolished. Five days after I issued that statement, the Minister for Land Management, Mr Glasson, issued a statement of his own. However, I regret to say that his statement begged more questions than it answered. It was the ultimate snow job. I suppose, to put the best possible constmction on it, the Minister does not know what he is talking about; the department is giving him half-tmths and snowing him with information, just as his press release endeavoured to try to snow the public. The questions were half-answered but the fundamental points that I raised, which I will raise once again today, were never addressed. 1 think it was designed to confuse. It did not confuse me, but it obviously confused the Minister. I do not know how many of the rate-payers of the Albert Shire or the tax-payers of Queensland were confused. However, it is my objective to "unconfuse" them. Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5399

Firstly, I said that it was a clandestine sale. The Minister rejected that. However, I repeat once again that it is a clandestine sale. I say that because it is not being offered in the normal places in which land is offered or advertised. It has appeared in no trade journals or newspapers. The Minister ought to have a look at the Saturday edition of the Gold Coast Bulletin. That newspaper includes 300 or 400 pages of advertising, most of which is taken up in advertising real estate. It has never been mentioned in any of those journals or newspapers. The land is being offered for private sale to those people in the know or, I presume, those people who are thought to be capable of buying it, because it is a very large proposed sale. It has been estimated that the sale would involve an amount between $40m and $50m. The Minister also said that there have been no secret dealings; that everything is above board. What I want to do is to examine that more closely. I alleged three things. 1 said that a number of road reserves had been extinguished, that titles had been mysteriously amalgamated and that Crown land had been converted to private freehold without the public knowing about it. I cite the example of Crown reserve No. 332, which consists of 3.45 hectares of land right where Oaky Creek mns into the Coomera River, which has been set aside as a water road and crossing reserve. In his press release of 6 June, the Minister said that this Crown land had been purchased by Mr Thompson, the registered proprietor of adjacent land, for a purchase price of $20,000. I will come to that later, because that is a joke. The Minister also said that this $20,000 was paid on 17 March 1982. In other words, that transaction was finalised on St Patrick's Day—and I do not know whether that is significant—in 1982. That is more than seven years ago. What I am asking the Minister to explain is this: if there is nothing secretive about this, why, as at today's date, more than seven years later, has the Titles Office not registered this transfer of title? Theoretically, nor does the Albert Shire Council have the title registered. Mr Menzel: They might be inefficient. Mr De LACY: If it takes seven years to register a title, they must be inefficient. If it was as a result of inefficiency, that is bad enough, but it is not the result of inefficiency. Before I am finished, I will allege that it is a lot more than that. Yesterday, on 7 June 1989, we went to the Albert Shire Council and carried out a search. We found that that Crown reserve is still Crown reserve and that the titles are as they were before; that none of the amalgamations are shown; and that all of the Crown land is still shown as Crown land. I would like the Minister to respond to that. I know that this morning the Minister said something about the fact that, because it is now an estate and subject to probate, there is no-one in whom to invest the land and that that is the reason it has not happened. Mr Glasson interjected. Mr De LACY: The Minister has just entered the Chamber. I am talking about a separate matter. Seven years ago, the Crown theoretically sold to Mr Thompson land that still has not been registered in the Minister's office. In his statements, the Minister has said that the information is freely available to members of the public and that they need only go to the office of the Department of Freehold Land Titles to obtain it. I did that. I found that the land is not registered, and the records do not show that it is. That land was sold seven years ago. Mr Thompson did not die until six years after that. The Minister does not know what is going on. Mr Glasson: You have shown by your press statements that you do not know what is going on. 5400 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1)

Mr De LACY: The Minister's department is just feeding him a snow job. I honestly think that the Minister believes that, but he does not know what is going on. He really should not be a willing instrument to what is going on in that part of the world. He is not doing himself a service by doing so. I refer also to the road reserves that were extinguished. The Minister said that they were advertised in 1979. Although 10 years have passed, the fact that they have gone is not shown on the titles. Later, I would like the Minister to explain that. Mr Glasson: Yes. Mr De LACY: If there is not something shonky going on, the Minister has some explaining to do. Mr Glasson: No problem. Mr De LACY: I am pleased that the Minister has entered the Chamber. Let us have a look at the greatest scandal of all, which relates to what has happened to William Guise Foxwell Park, which is Crown land reserved for park and recreation. On the maps that are available to the humble people, it is shown as reserve No. 1843. It contains 43 hectares of the finest land left in the Gold Coast region. In his press release on Wednesday, the Minister said that this Crown recreation reserve was sold to the Thomson estate in an arrangement that included the surrender of a special lease, the surrender of 15.4 hectares of freehold land and a monetary consideration of $116,200. I will come to that amount in a minute. The Minister further stated that this information is freely available in the office of the Department of Freehold Land Titles. If there is nothing mysterious about it, why is the information not in that office? I repeat that this land is still being advertised for private sale by a private person, yet if one goes into any of the offices one will find that it is registered and titled as public land. I want to know: how does the ordinary person in the street get a go? If anybody goes into the office of the Albert Shire Council, he will be able to see a map that shows all the old titles, road reserves. Crown reserves and that type of thing. But the people who are trying to sell the land have a second map. That map shows that all the titles are amalgamated and that the Crown land has disappeared. It appears somewhere else. In fact—and this is what alerted me to the whole issue—three maps are in circulation: one for the poor old gullible members of the public who think that nothing has happened; the one that is being circulated by the real estate agents who are trying to flog the land with all the amalgamated titles; and the third map that is a concept plan showing a canal estate. It also shows a town centre and it has all sorts of things, such as an Albert Shire regional sports centre, a proposed railway route, a reserve for a secondary school, public open space, lo\\^-density housing, medium-density housing and bridges across the Coomera River. I ask: do any of the residents down there know about that? Mr Glasson: That is a completely different issue. Mr De LACY: It is not a different issue; it is fundamental to this issue. I seek leave to table those three maps so that people can look at them. I do not ask that they be incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. Whereupon the honourable member laid the documents on the table. Mr De LACY: Let me go a bit further into the Minister's response that was made recently. When he was talking about William Guise Foxwell Park he seemed to be making the curious point that, because the park reserve was previously ceded by Mr Thompson to the Crown, Thompson is somehow a public benefactor and that somehow Thompson has a proprietary right to the land; that in a sense it was only being retumed to its original owner. What a misleading and fallacious notion. The fact is that the land was ceded to the Crown in return for a rezoning. It was a commercial agreement. In return for the land in question, Thompson received the benefit of the mral subdivision. Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5401

Smaller lots he could sell off and has sold off at great profit. To suggest or to even imply that it was a magnanimous gesture in the first place is quite erroneous. Let us not be under any illusions on this issue. We are talking about Crown land—public land— reserved for public benefit, not for private benefit. It does not matter how the Crown got hold of that land in the first place. The Minister also said that Mr Thompson has swapped 40 hectares—let us stick to round figures—of his own land for 40 hectares of prime Crown land. For the moment, let us leave out of the argument or the equation that the land that was swapped is vastly inferior to the Crown land. It does not have river frontage; it does not have access. The country is not as good as the Crown land that was swapped. Most of the land is in a swamp. It is not close to areas that can be used and developed as a park or in a variety of other ways. Let us forget that. Mr Glasson: Have you inspected the land? Mr De LACY: Yes. I have been down there and had a look at it. I am an old farmer and I know what I am looking at. Mr Glasson: You are a poor judge of river frontage. Mr De LACY: The Minister was not in the Chamber a moment ago. I said that it has a 2.5 kilometre frontage to Oaky Creek and to the Coomera River. I will stand by that and challenge the Minister to give me other figures. When we have a close look at this land that was swapped by Thompson for this choice Crown land, we find that two thirds of it—24 hectares—belonged to the Crown in the first place. It is special lease 40640. This person has swapped Crown land for Crown land. It is no wonder that I and others are starting to realise that something is going wrong. It is stated that, because of the difference in value between the two pieces of land, there has been a consideration of $ 116,200. It must be borae in mind that there was no swap for the 25 hectares. What a joke that $116,000 is! The entire 294 hectares has been advertised for sale at $ 130,000 per hectare. Because of the difference in value, for 40 hectares of the primest piece of that land, because of the difference in value, the Goverament has accepted $ 116,000 as some sort of a consideration. I realise that that occurred two years ago, but the fact is that the title has not yet changed hands. That is the best piece of the 290 hectares. It is centrally located and includes all of the riverfront land. Across the river the Shinko development is selling for $200,000 per hectare. I ask honourable members to do a quick calculation on that, because $200,000 multiplied by 40 hectares equals $8m. This Goverament received $116,000. What a joke! Who is looking after the tax-payers in this State? As a developed canal estate that land would have a resale value somewhere between $80m and $ 120m. The Government got $116,000. It really is a joke. I am sure that everybody would like to get in on such a deal. If they did, they would be rich. At Sanctuary Cove building blocks with 33-foot frontages are selling for $300,000 each or $3m per hectare. I am not sure what the Goverament sold that land for. The sum of $100,000 for 40 hectares is almost nothing. The Goverament might just as weU not have bothered. On page 291 of last Saturday's Gold Coast Bulletin, which contains 275 pages of real estate advertisements, two similar main riverfront blocks of 2 017 square metres are advertised for sale at $695,000, which is $344 per square metre. This Goverament is selling 400 000 square metres at 30c per square metre. That is a disgrace. Nobody seems to care about the tax-payer. If a private bloke can put forward a good story, the Goverament supports him and thinks that it is doing a good thing for Queensland. It is not. Not only is this a secret, dissimulating, mischievous deal—what I would call a corrupt deal—but also it is bad economics. The tax-payer is being sold down the drain.

83909—181 5402 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1)

Not only is the State Government involved, but I regret to say that the Albert Shire Council is involved, also. Reluctantly, I have come to the conclusion that the Albert Shire Council is not acting in the best interests of rate-payers. It is involved in practices that can be described only—if I put the best constmction possible on them—as secretive, incompetent and misguided. They are misguided in the sense that if the shire council believes that it can create some kind of development and make some individual rich, it is good for that shire. If I put the worst constmction possible on it, there is a lot of cormption going on down there. The more that I expose land scams on the Gold Coast, the more that people tell me that they believe that the Albert Shire Council is corrupt. Honourable members would be surprised at the number of people who telephone me to tell me that. The weight of evidence leads me to start to believe that the Albert Shire Council is cormpt. Mr Prest: The Local Govemment Association says there is cormption in local government, too. Mr De LACY: I believe that. Over the years the Gold Coast City Council has come in for a lot of flak. The Albert Shire Council seems to have got away with a lot of it. I do not believe that it deserves to have got away with it. In an attempt to justify this whole shonky deal, Mr Glasson said that he got the approval of the Albert Shire Council. In relation to the park and recreation reserve to which I have referred, Mr Glasson said that the Albert Shire Council in correspondence with the Lands Department on 27 Febmary 1987 approved the exchange. The council's letter stated— "Council is in favour of the proposed exchange as the new areas of parkland are more usable to Council and better positioned to serve the community in the Coomera region." Mr Glasson went on to say— "It is interesting to note that the Albert Shire Council, in a letter dated October 30, 1987, certified that Park and Recreation Reserve R.l843 was no longer required for its gazetted purposes, and Council agreed that the Reservation could be partially cancelled to enable the sale to proceed." If that is the way in which the Albert Shire Council looks after its rate-payers, it should get out. To say that the proposed exchange would benefit the shire's rate-payers is one of the greatest misstatements that I have ever heard. The Albert Shire Council obviously is not looking after its rate-payers. One has only to look at those different blocks of lands to realise that the council is not looking after the rate-payers in that shire. I have already tabled three maps. The first map is available to the ordinary person in the street. The second map is the one used by real estate agents to flog off the land. The third one is the concept development. From where does one get that map? The ordinary person cannot get it, but it is available from the Albert Shire Council to a select few. Mr Menzel: You must be one of them. Mr De LACY: Yes. I have some contacts. I know what is going on. 1 regret to say that I know more than the Minister does about what is going on. That is a pity, because I do not believe that the Minister is an evil person. But what is happening in land dealings in this State will come back to haunt him for the rest of his life. When the Labor Party is in Government in this State it will expose those land dealings even more than it has done in the past. As I was saying, the third map is available from the Albert Shire Council but through the back door only to those people who know about it. I challenge anybody to Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5403 go to the counter at that shire council and say, "Give me a map of what is going on there." I am sure that he would not get one. 1 want to raise a couple of other points, particularly in relation to the Gold Coast. As 1 said, many of the things to which I have been referring focus on the Gold Coast. There is a bit of a culture down there in buying and selling, and in wheeling and dealing, and the only right is to make money, no matter how it is made, and the only wrong is not to make money. I noticed in last Saturday's Courier-Mail an article—and this was not prompted by me, I might say—which referred to a number of real estate agents in the Sunshine Coast area. They were buying Govemment land. I know that the Minister has said that that is free enterprise. It is free enterprise, all right. The Goverament has certainly put the "free" back into free enterprise. If people know the Government, they are given free land all over the State. As I was saying, the real estate agents have been buying Government land, putting down a deposit of 15 per cent and reselling it at twice the price. The only investment they made was the 15 per cent and they are now receiving a hundreds or thousands per cent retum on their investment. That twigged with me a little, so I read a little bit further to ascertain the names of the people who were mentioned. One was a Mr G.W. Eichhorn. I draw honourable members' attention to the fact that about 12 months ago in this Chamber I raised some issues in relation to industrial estates and the way in which people were rorting the system. Mr McEUigott: It was a scandal. Mr De LACY: As the member for Thuringowa said, it was a terrible scam. In the matter to which I referred. Gold Coast Maritime Manufacturing had signed a contract of sale over an 8 000 square metre block on the Molendinar estate. That company jput down $15,000, signed a contract for $315,000 and put the block on the market for $700,000. If I had not exposed that matter in this House, that company would have made $385,000 for an outlay of only $15,000. The person involved was Greg Eichhora, who was then trading as Offshore Marinas. He also had three or four other companies. He is the person who is involved in this scam that is occurring on the Sunshine Coast. The thing to be learned from the Gold Coast experience is that such people should not merely be slapped on the wrist but knocked right down, because they will keep coming back again. Maybe a Labor Government will have to be in power before they can be knocked right down. Last year, also in this House, I raised another land problem. It dealt with land at Kangaroo Point and the proposed redevelopment of the wool stores. I am speaking now of the Peters slip side of Kangaroo Point. That is an area in which a lot of wheeling and dealing is occurring. It is very quickly becoming the focus of a great deal of community concern. A person by the name of Mr Booker made an application for a road closure so that he could redevelop that area, which comprises three streets. The department refused that application. Mr Booker appealed against the decision, and again the application was refused on the basis that the roads were required for present and future development. He appealed to the Minister and the Minister said that Booker was not the owner and, as he only had an option over the area, he could not redevelop it, anyway. Since then a variety of applications have been made. The same names keep cropping up. The $2 shelf companies start coming out of the drawer. 1 refer to Conrose Pty Ltd, Norwood and Furzer Pty Ltd and, most recently, Carringbush, which it now seems will be the owner and the applicant for redevelopment. An application is being made under section 368 of the Land Act for a ministerial rezoning. My appeal to the Minister is: do not approve it. I understand that the Minister has said that he will not approve it and that he agrees that the proposed density of development in that area cannot be afforded. If the streets that are Ukely to be affected were closed, the public would lose access to the river, which is the only public amenity. I understand that a great deal of 5404 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1) pressure is being applied. I hope that the Minister can resist that pressure, because many people have their eyes on him. They have some faith in him, I must say. Mr Glasson: You are misleading the House. Mr De LACY: All I am saying is that those people have some respect for the Minister and they are hoping that he can honour his promise to them and not rezone that land and not close off those streets. At this stage that is all I intend to say. However, I wanted on record that I am aware of it. We in the Opposition will be looking at what the Minister does in relation to that matter and we hope that in this case he makes a decision in the interests of the people, which is something that he has not done for the people in the Gold Coast region. I have my eyes on another half dozen things that are occurring on the Gold Coast, and there are probably hundreds more. I will be paying attention to what happens and I will be referring to it in this House. The Minister ought to consider carefully what I am saying rather than just accepting all that nebulous advice and trying to snow everybody. The Minister will not snow me. He is not snowing the Labor Party. Most of the people on the Gold Coast are starting to realise what is happening and they will react against it, as well they ought, because their legitimate concerns are not being cared for. Mr MENZEL (Mulgrave) (3.14 p.m.): I support this Bill. I want to refer to a number of matters in my electorate, probably one of the most important of which—it is not necessarily the most important—relates to good roads. Some of the roads in my electorate are of the utmost importance. They affect not only the people in the Mulgrave electorate but also those who are passing through. A four-lane highway is being built south of Cairas. I know that, because of the great deal of wet weather that has occurred, many delays have resulted. Recently the Mulgrave Shire Council severely criticised the Main Roads Department on the delay and also on the fact that when it rained the road broke up. I support the Mulgrave Shire Council in that criticism. Although the road is not a council matter or a local authority matter, the council has a right to make comments about it. On a number of previous occasions I have made comments to the Minister and to the Main Roads Department about how slowly the work has been proceeding. That is still the case, and it is very, very disappointing. Every year, traffic south of Cairns increases. An urgent need exists for a four-lane highway to be constmcted from Gordonvale to Cairns within the next year or two. I know that the Federal Government refused to provide adequate funding but, by the same token, it is important that the State Govemment continues to urge the Canberra Goverament to provide additional funds. The proposed new road past Babinda has created a good deal of controversy. The Main Roads Department favoured a particular route but, under pressure, the Federal Goverament decided that it would prefer what is known as the central route. The Federal Government's choice was the existing highway and, instead of crossing the railway line, the road was proposed to extend between the mill and the raUway line. At a later stage the railway line could have been shifted so that the road could continue. The State Goverament accepted that proposed route and I think that the project proceeded so far as the calling of tenders for supply of fill. After Peter Morris was reappointed Federal Minister for Transport, the work was immediately stopped. The latest proposal is that south of Babinda the road will proceed off the Mirriwinni Straights and through properties owned by Jimmy Lloyd, the Catalanos and Henry Stewart. The original route preferred by the Main Roads Department was rejected because of the amount of caneland that would have been lost as a result of constmction of the road. If the Federal Government's proposal goes ahead, it is probable that twice the area of caneland will be lost and that dismption will be caused. I believe that the locals had accepted the proposal involving the use of the existing road and upgrading that would straighten a few bad curves. Although the Department Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5405

of Main Roads was not happy with that proposal at first, it was eventually accepted and departmental officers believed that something could be done to improve the road. I cannot help believing that the Federal member for the area, John Gayler, is carrying out a vendetta against the people of Babinda. It is no secret that a couple of land-owners fought the Federal Govemment's proposal vehemently. I think that they are being slammed into the dirt and that, to prove a point, John Gayler is mbbing their noses in it. I call upon him not to be vindictive towards these people and to go back to the proposal that was agreed to by the community which involved the existing highway. Upgrading the existing road is a logical step and would result in a minimum of dislocation and discomfort to land-owners and others. I might add that upgrading the existing route was the proposal put forward by the Federal Labor Government and accepted by the State Minister for Main Roads. Unfortunately, the altemative route will result in the waste of a great deal of valuable caneland and problems with flooding. I call upon the Federal Government authorities to take a reasonable approach to this matter and put an end to the arguments that have been going on. The Federal Government should stop all the unhappiness that is being caused by its vindictiveness and get together with the people of Babinda to work out a proposal for the existing roadway that can be accepted by everyone. I mention in passing that at one stage John Gayler promised the golf club a new clubhouse. He suggested to the Main Roads Department that the route should go through the site of the clubhouse. Because that would have created a huge curve, the department refused. 1 will not hold that against him, because he probably thought that that was not a bad idea. Babinda and areas known as Bayview Heights and Woree are rapidly developing areas. Many young couples who are building houses in those areas are being severely disadvantaged by the Federal Goverament's policies of high interest rates. Although I recognise that the Federal Goverament has problems associated with the balance of payments and overseas debt, the Federal Labor Goverament brings many of those problems on itself I believe that there is too much talk about deregulation of trade, free markets and the abolition of tariffs. Japan, the United States and the European Community are very successful traders. Japan and the European Community have imposed the most stringent trade restrictions imaginable on other countries. Mr White: That is right. They locked us out. Mr MENZEL: That is right. The Federal Labor Government has to take a logical approach to these problems. Hawke and Keating have hung their hat on deregulation of trade, but I think they have gone too far. They have to wake up to the fact that high interest rates are killing the people who are being taxed off the face of the earth. Those Federal Labor Government policies are hurting the battler more than anyone else. The millionaires and billionaires seem to be raking in more and more money, yet the Federal Government calls itself a Labor Goverament. The rich are getting richer while the poor get poorer and poorer. I call upon the Federal Govemment to take a look at the problem of interest rates that is killing off small business and home-ownership. As recently as this morning I watched a television report of a woman who was selling all personal belongings in her home in an endeavour to meet interest payments. Recently I was approached by officers of the Malanda Police Station, which is situated in my electorate. Extensions to the office are desperately needed but that does not mean that extensions to the building are the only solution. Apparently the veranda of the police station could be enclosed, which would provide more office space. Recently, an additional staff member was assigned to the police station and accommodation at the station has become inadequate. 1 have mentioned to the Premier the need for extensions to the pre-schools at Malanda and Gordonvale. Although it is not compulsory, in my view pre-school education is very important for children. As far as I am concerned, it is as important as going to 5406 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1) school because it prepares children for the formal schooling they will undertake later on. I ask that that matter be given urgent consideration. A long time ago the Atherton Hospitals Board submitted plans to the Health Department for a new hospital clinic to be constmcted at Millaa Millaa. I ask that this matter be attended to as well as the redevelopment of the Gordonvale Hospital. I have received correspondence from the Minister for Health concerning the Gordonvale Hospital. He has stated that matters are progressing. I remind the House and this Goverament that this matter is very important because Gordonvale is fast becoming a suburb of Cairas. Development is occurring right along the highway and the Gordonvale Hospital will play a very important role in meeting the health-care needs of people in both Gordonvale and Cairns. These matters are extremely important. The next matter I wish to raise concerns the suggestion—and I do not know what foundation there is for it—that one of these days the Queerah Meatworks might close down. I am not advocating that it does close down. I hope that it remains open for ever and a day. If it does close down for one reason or another—and these things happen—I hope that the State Govemment will give consideration to buying the land before the Japanese or someone else gets hold of it. Sooner or later developers will get hold of that land. I have been approached by many people in Cairns and north Queensland who are conceraed about the matter. I have written to the Premier and suggested that the Government purchase this land because there is a shortage of recreational and public- use land around Cairns. Most of the land is owned by private enterprise or is zoned for residential development. It is extremely important that the Government look at that matter when the time comes. On the one hand it may not happen for 10, 20, 30, 40 or 100 years, but on the other hand it could happen in two or three months. Hopefully it will not occur, but the Goverament must be prepared to snap up the real estate if it comes on the market. This is a free-enterprise Government, although it will not step in and take over the meatworks itself Another very important matter is affecting thousands of people in the urban part of my electorate in the Woree and Bayview area. In the last few months the area has experienced the heaviest wet season for eight or nine years. This has occurred not only in north Queensland, but also throughout Australia. As a result of the heavy rains there was a major land slippage onto a section of road situated just over the boundary of the Mulgrave Shire with the Cairns City Council. This road comes off Comet Street on the Mulgrave Shire side into a driveway in the Cairas City Council area. There were two major land slippages and the road is now blocked. People have taken surveys of the area and this slippage has forced an additional 2 000 vehicles per day to use Toogood Road, Bayview. This has made the drive into the Cairns city centre much longer and more hazardous. I understand that accidents are occurring almost every day because the road is not designed to take the extra traffic. Every moraing and afternoon thousands of children who attend school and other people in the area have to cross that road and the extra traffic on the road has made it quite hazardous. I asked the Minister for Northern Development a question about this matter and he assured me in his answer that he would help. I am sure that he will get together with his good friend Keith Goodwin, the Mayor of Cairas, and work something out. The Cairns City Council is not interested in fixing the road. The road is situated just over the boundary in that council's area; perhaps the distance is equivalent to the distance between where 1 am standing now and where you are sitting, Mr Deputy Speaker. Mr McEUigott: Is that a main road? Mr MENZEL: No, it is not a gazetted main road at all. If it was the matter would be simpler. I have spoken to some of the Mulgrave Shire councillors who have advised that the council might be interested in making a contribution towards fixing the road, even though it is not in that council's area. The road certainly services that area, but for some reason the Cairns City Council has not been too interested and the road is closed. Appropriadon Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5407

The city council is not requesting a formal road closure; under its by-laws and mles it has simply closed the road to traffic because it is hazardous. However, that council is not making an attempt to fix the road. I believe that it should be forced to fix the road, and I have written to the Premier suggesting that the State Govemment might make a contribution towards the repair of that road. It is the responsibility of local authorities to get together and do something about the matter. I have received many representations from residents complaining about the road closure. As a result, in the last few days I distributed a survey paper or questionnaire, because I felt it was my duty to do something, even though it is a local authority matter. Local authorities make comments about the state of main roads, which is a Goverament responsibility; but, as a member of Parliament, I have a responsibility to represent the people in that area. I have inspected the road, spoken to people and decided to conduct a survey. A considerable number of questionnaires, although not all, have been returned, and so far only five people have said that they would like the road to remain shut. Overwhelmingly the rest of the people want it reopened, which is a fairly good indication. I am sure that in the next few days more people will fill in their questionnaires and hand them in. I took that course to gauge the wishes and the opinions of people. It is always very, very important for a member of Parliament to do that before jumping in and fighting for something on which he is completely wrong and would therefore be doing the wrong thing. I believe that, overwhelmingly, the people want something done. 1 ask that the Goverament, including the Minister for Northern Development and particularly the Premier, have discussions with the Cairas City Council and the Mulgrave Shire Council, which I believe have a certain responsibility. The Cairns City Council can say that the road just leads into its area and that it affects another local authority. However, the fact is that people who live in Caims use roads in other local authority areas. Other local authorities do not bar them from using their roads. Really, those two councils have a clear responsibility, and that has to be drawn to their attention. I understand that the Cairns City Council has mng my office and asked for a copy of the questionnaire. Because there is nothing to hide—I.am just simply trying to do something to help the people and, for that matter, help the councils to get their act together—I have instmcted my secretary to send one immediately. People have written various comments on the questionnaires they have retumed. It is worth noting that one lady said that the bus services to Bayview Heights are not all that frequent and to get a taxi from her residence to the Earlville shopping centre and return costs $14. That is so because the taxis have to go the long way round. If they could take the short-cut that they have taken for years and years, the cost would be only $3 or $4. That is an example of the way in which it is affecting the residents. 1 thought that was worth noting and putting into Hansard so that people understand the gravity of the situation. 1 have been approached by the Eacham Shire Council about the Malanda industrial estate, which was declared before I entered this place. Roy Armstrong was instmmental in having a block of land set aside for the Malanda industrial estate but, although there have been a number of proposals, so far no-one has taken up the land. I should say that a couple of months ago two blocks were handed out to a company but, up till that time, nobody had taken up the offer of land to build on that industrial estate. The Eacham Shire Council has asked that it be allowed to take over the industrial estate and lease or sell the land as it sees fit. That is a good idea. In areas that are, to say the least, isolated from the capital city, local authorities should be allowed to encourage industry into towns. Who is better equipped to do that than a local authority? I place on record that 1 support that appUcation. The shire has asked the Govemment for assistance in purchasing the land through a loan. I add my support to that. The member for Mount Gravatt, Mr Henderson, spoke about the waste by the Federal Government. It talks about accountability and tells others to tighten their belts, but a couple of things ought to be said. The Federal Government gives massive grants of tax-payers' money to trade-union groups in Australia. Since 1983, it has given 5408 8 June 1989 Address to Governor; Mr Justice Vasta

$16,978,000 to trade-union groups. I believe that a lot of that money is wasted. I am not saying that because I believe that people in trade unions are not entitled to an equal share of the money, but I have doubts about the usefulness of the expenditure of some of this money. On previous occasions I have said that the Federal Goverament gives money to gay rights, gay publications and things like that. Mr Milliner: How much do they give to the mral sector? Mr MENZEL: The Federal Goverament does not give anything; it simply takes away. That amount of nearly $17m could be better used to subsidise interest rates for low-income families who are purchasing a house. I am not being political. That probably would not cost very much. I do not say that the Ifederal Goverament should pay all of the interest, but it should subsidise the interest for first home owners who are in the low-income bracket. Many people who could affdrd their housing repayments decided to have a family and now find that, with increasing interest rates, they can no longer afford the repayments. What a terrible position to put a couple in! They have a young family, so the wife cannot go to work. The Federal Goverament seems to have a policy of forcing women into the work-force to try to help pay off the house. I am sure that members of the Labor Party in this place support what I am saying. Mr Milliner: You are quick to criticise the Federal Government, but what is your answer? Mr MENZEL: I gave the answer, but the honourable member was not in the House. I said that the country has a bad balance of payments problem. What the Federal Government should do is go back to what happened in the old days and what the United States, the European Community and Japan do now, that is, restrict the importation of luxury items by placing tariffs on them. This country does not need many of those things. I have advocated this time and time again. The honourable member for Everton was not in the Chamber. I do not know where he was; I hope he was not in the bar. I am sure that he is a lot wiser after listening to what I have said. That would be a simple solution to the nation's problem. The country is living beyond its means. We are importing a lot of luxury items that we can do without. People should only have luxuries if they can afford them. At present, Australians cannot afford them. A possible solution to the problem would be to subsidise interest on housing loans. I support the Government on its monetary approach and I also support the Bill. Debate intermpted.

ADDRESS TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR; REMOVAL OF MR JUSTICE VASTA FROM OFFICE Message from His Excellency the Governor Mr SPEAKER: Order! Before calling on the member for Sandgate, I wish to inform the Legislative Assembly that I have received the following message from His Excellency— "TO THE HONOURABLE THE SPEAKER OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY: I, Walter Benjamin Campbell, Governor of the State of Queensland in the Commonwealth of Australia, have received an Address of the Legislature in Parliament assembled. The said Address was presented to me by you Mr Speaker on the eighth day of June, 1989, and reads as follows— 'We, the Members of the Legislature in Parliament assembled, humbly pray that Your Excellency will be pleased to remove from the office of Judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland the Honourable Mr Justice Angelo Vasta, whose behaviour in the opinion of a Parliamentary Judges Commission of Inquiry warrants his removal from that office for Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5409

(a) Giving false evidence regarding the AAT incident at the defamation hearing; (b) Making and maintaining allegations that the then Chief Justice, the Attoraey-General and Mr Fitzgerald QC had conspired to injure him; (c) Falsely stating to the accountant who was preparing the income tax returns of Cosco that the cost of the company's plant was $14m and, knowing that the company had been deceiving the income tax authorities with regard to the cost of the plant, taking no steps to end the deception; (d) Arranging the following sham transactions to gain income tax advantages; (i) the loan from Cosco to Salroand; (ii) the consultancy fee; (iii) the lease of the Gold Coast Unit; and (iv) the exchange of cheques relating to overseas travel expenses. (e) Making false claims for taxation deductions in respect of the lease of the library, and with which opinion the Legislative Assembly concurs.' The said Address was made pursuant to a Resolution of the Legislative Assembly passed at the sitting of the said Assembly of the seventh day of June, 1989. Acting upon the said Address, I hereby remove the Honourable Mr Justice Angelo Vasta from the office of Judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland. W. B. CAMPBELL Governor"

APPROPRIATION BILL (No. 1)

Second Reading Debate resumed. Mr WARBURTON (Sandgate) (3.41 p.m.): I enter the debate on the Appropriation Bill to talk mainly about misappropriation. Last Tuesday saw the beginning of the final episode in the rather notorious defamation actions which honourable members have heard me talk about in this place from time to time. Most people wish to forget the period during 1986. However, today I wish to place on record and outline the history of what occurred, in the very sincere hope that the part that we in the Opposition who were on the receiving end of the defamation actions played in the matter will ensure that no Government and no Minister, particularly of the National Party Government, will ever embark upon such a course again. Initially, I announce to the House that today one of the National Party Ministers, Mr Lester, has carried out what amounts to an amazing feat of turning our TAFE college administration and system completely upside down. Honourable members who have TAFE coUeges in their electorates will be very interested and perhaps even conceraed. 1 am advised that 12 of our TAFE college directors who have held their positions for quite some time have been replaced. The worst feature of it all is that those people do not know where they are going. They have been told that as from today they are finished, someone else is taking their job and that they will be told next week where their future lies. In other words, they could be thrown on the proverbial scrap-heap by Mr Lester and his highly politicised department, which is a great shame. Mr Littleproud: That is not correct. Mr WARBURTON: That it is not politicised? Mr Littleproud: The directors of the colleges have been given security of their positions. 5410 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1)

Mr WARBURTON: That is not right. I have spoken to one gentleman who has been a director of a major college for 10 years. All he has been told is that as of today he is no longer the director, there will be a new director and the Minister's officers will talk to him next week about his future. I spoke to him less than half an hour ago, and he has no idea what the future holds for him. He does not know whether he will be made redundant or offered a job in another place. That is the tmth in respect of that particular person. Whether it is the same for other people, I do not know. Today the Opposition is being asked to approve an appropriation of moneys some of which 1 know will be misappropriated by Premier Ahern and at least 10 other Ministers in the Ahern Cabinet. I refer to the decision of the Ahern Cabinet earlier this year to use public money to pay certain personal legal bills of those who were Ministers in 1986. At this stage, I refer honourable members to notice of motion No. 33 appearing in my name on today's business paper. On 9 March 1989 I gave notice of the following motion— "(1) That Parliament is of the view that the March, 1986 Cabinet decision to pay costs of initiating and pursuing Court actions against Members and others for alleged defamation of Ministers, was in extreme misuse of power; (2) Parliament advises the Government that defamation actions are for the defence of personal reputations and are not available for the defence of Government reputations; (3) Parliament is therefore of the view that the Premier in publicly stating that writs taken out by the Premier and others who were Ministers in 1986, were taken out on behalf of the Crown, shows that he and his Goverament have been involved in an abuse of the process of the Court; (4) Parliament instructs the Government to immediately rescind the March, 1986 Policy concerning the use of public monies to fund defamation actions initiated by Ministers; (5) Parliament further instmcts the Government to take all steps necessary to ensure that the Premier, Mr Ahern, Don Lane and others who were Ministers in 1986, pay their own legal fees and costs awarded against them in accordance with the Rules of the Supreme Court; (6) Parliament is of the view that any public funding of costs awarded against the Premier, Don Lane and other Ministers and ex-Ministers involved in the discontinued defamation actions constitues misappropriation of public monies." That notice of motion, which the National Party Government will refuse, and has refused, to debate, would have the support, I believe, of the great majority of Queenslanders, who are just sick and tired of the blatant misuse of their hard-earned money by these so-called custodians of the public purse. When honourable members are talking about appropriation of a considerable sum of money, as they are in the debate on this BiU, it is pertinent that they should also consider that some of that money will be used for purposes other than those that we, as honourable members, would expect it to be used for. The Premier is now telling Queenslanders that accountability will be a major issue at the forthcoming State election. Presumably, by that, he means that as far as his Government is concerned, the issue is accountability in respect of the spending of public moneys. After the Premier's admission yesterday in this House that he intends to put his hands in the public till to pay costs ordered against him by the Supreme Court taxing master in the Tom Burns defamation action, I am certainly one who welcomes the opportunity to show Queensland electors, during the forthcoming election campaign, just how hypocritical the Premier of this State really is when it comes to accountability. Perhaps it would be more realistic to name this Bill the "Ahern Misappropriation BiU". Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5411

If the Premier proceeds, as he has said he will, to put his hands in the public till to pay his legal fees and costs ordered against him as a result of a defamation action battle—and he has lost the battle, by the way—then that constitutes an indisputable misappropriation of public moneys. It is strange, is it not, that 11 of those Ministers— which constitutes a majority of the present Cabinet—sat around the Cabinet table only a couple of weeks ago and considered the ex-Mr Justice Vasta matter and said, "No fees for that man. We won't meet any of his legal fees at all", but in the same breath they said, "When it comes to we Ministers, we custodians of the public purse, there is no way we are going to pay our legal fees and costs out of our pay-packets. It is coming out of the public purse."? It will show Queenslanders that this is a very clear case of complete lack of accountability on the part of the Premier and on the part of his Goverament. As I said two days ago when I took into my personal possession court documents that ordered the payment of $68,232.95 by those 18 persons who were National Party Ministers in 1986, this is yet another case of hands in the public tiU. It is time Queenslanders slammed the till drawer shut on National Party ministerial fingers. I am personally appalled to learn that the Ahera Cabinet has made a very deliberate decision to pay the costs ordered against Don Lane in particular. I want to make that point very, very clearly. I find it abhorrent that after what Don Lane has said, after the admissions that he has made before the Fitzgerald inquiry, and the fact that he is now a self-confessed misuser of public funds, this Ahern Cabinet has made a decision to pay his legal costs. I find that incredible, unscmpulous and, as I say, abhorrent. I believe that, had members of the National Party known that that was the tme position—and I will outline it further very shortly—they would also have been appalled. As I have indicated, I am also appalled to learn that that decision has been made not only in respect of Don Lane but also in respect of other people who have a cloud over their heads in regard to the Fitzgerald inquiry evidence and investigations that are currently taking place as a result of that inquiry. Yesterday, when I asked Premier Ahern what was his reasoning for allowing and supporting Don Lane, of all people, to once again put his hands in the public till, Mr Ahern said— "At that time"— and obviously he was talking about 1986 when the writs were taken out— "action was taken on behalf of the Ministers of the Government." Honourable members knew that. The Premier continued— "There is no doubt that an obligation which eventually had to be met was raised." I can only conclude from those remarks that when the Ahern Cabinet met earlier this year and was advised that those Ministers who had issued writs in 1986 had better throw in the towel quickly for their own sake, the matter of who would meet the inevitable costs, as distinct from the legal fees, which were also picked up, was discussed and decided upon. This is where the deceit crept into this issue yesterday, and I will elaborate on it. In 1986, when the National Party Government was under fire over allegations of corruption, some members of the Opposition who dared to be accusers became the subjects of defamation actions in a game of political thuggery and intimidation. In 1986 each and every Minister participated in what is now seen as one of the most sordid periods in Queensland's political history. Unfortunately for those who instituted defamation actions against Opposition members, the National Party Government was forced to estabUsh the Fitzgerald inquiry, as honourable members well know, and during the same period the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal investigated the $400,000 pay-off by Bond to Bjelke-Petersen, an act that the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal has found, in its decisions on fact, to be improper and to involve commercial blackmail. 5412 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1)

The writs were designed to prevent Opposition members, in an election year, from justifiably criticising the involvement of Ministers in ministerial scandals. That is what it was all about. A couple of those scandals quickly come to mind. Honourable members are well aware of them. I refer to the Arts Department scandal. At that time the Arts Department was presided over by Mr McKechnie. The end result of that investigation was that Allen Callaghan and Helen Sweeney went to gaol for a period. Then, of course, there was the Queensland Day Committee scandal. The end result of an investigation that was carried out saw Judith Callaghan also gaoled. They were scandals of major proportions in the Queensland Government. Allen Callaghan was one of the most senior public servants in the State of Queensland. For a long time he was an aide of Bjelke-Petersen. As I said, Allen Callaghan was gaoled. I have always indicated that I believe that a deal was done finally between the Queensland Goverament and Allen Callaghan. That remains to be seen. Only the future will tell us if that was so. When Tom Burns said in 1986 that National Party Ministers had their hands in the public till, the 18 Ministers proceeded with defamation actions against him. Collectively, they had decided to use the same methods that the Fitzgerald inquiry evidence has shown were adopted by Queensland's police hierarchy. In other words, if the accusation and criticism make life too hot in the kitchen, then slap publicly funded writs on the accusers and on the critics. That is what the Fitzgerald inquiry evidence showed had been happening amongst the police hierarchy. As Government members well know, in 1986 that practice was adopted by Bjelke-Petersen and by the 17 other Ministers. The 1986 Cabinet decided that the writs would be funded out of the public till—this is very important—to the extent of the processing and the pursuit of those writs. That decision was made by Cabinet and indicated to the House by Mr Clauson in early 1987. It goes without saying that at that time the 1986 Cabinet gave no consideration whatsoever, and certainly the guide-lines made no mention of it, of who would pay the costs that may be awarded against those Ministers-that would be unheard of—if the actions were lost or subsequently withdrawn. That is understandable. The Ministers surely were not going to issue writs and then make an admission that they might lose them, so the guide-lines on the use of public moneys to defend those writs did not contain any mention of who would pay the costs ordered against the Ministers. As Don Lane admitted in evidence before the Fitzgerald inquiry, the writs were meant to be stopper writs. It was intended that Opposition members would be pursued relentlessly until they withered on the vine and that Government solicitors, with access to what seemed to be a bottomless barrel of public money, would force those members on this side of the House who were the recipients of the writs to give in. Mr Deputy Speaker, as you well know, that was not going to be the case. We never did and never would ask for public funds to defend our rights. We were not about to throw our principles out the window. Earlier this year, after more than two years of suffering from this form of political thuggery, the defendants on this side of the House—the Tom Burnses, the Nev Warburtons and other colleagues of mine—were able to go on the legal attack. For between two and two and a half years we were basically bludgeoned by the solicitors and by the Ministers pursuing these writs—present and former National Party Ministers. Five of those Ministers, whose writs against Tom Burns have been discontinued, are no longer members of this House. I refer to Bjelke-Petersen, Hinze, Lane, Wharton and Turner. As a result of a decision made earlier this year, those five former Ministers will have their legal costs paid out of the public purse. As I indicated, it was at long last the position earlier this year that we were able to go on the legal attack. The 11 Ministers, including Premier Ahern, panicked when they were advised in early 1989 that Tom Burns was pressing hard for discovery of documents. Had the actions continued, the Ministers would have been forced to reveal documentation relating to such things as ministerial expenses and those scandals in which it had been alleged that certain Ministers had been involved. In Febmary this year there was a rapid withdrawal of the writs by the 1986 Ministers. Don Lane had admitted to having his hands in the public till and had made accusations Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5413 against other Ministers. There was not a Minister who relished the thought of facing a jury with the Fitzgerald inquiry evidence hanging over National Party heads. Returning to Premier Ahern's answer to my question yesterday—the fact is that the Premier is involved in a deliberate exercise of deceit. The decision to meet out of the public till the costs ordered against Ministers as distinct from the decision made in 1986 to pay Ministers' legal fees for the processing and pursuit of the writs was made earlier this year by the Ahem Cabinet. It was not made in 1986, as Premier Ahera would have us believe. He and the 10 present Ministers who were Ministers in 1986 have the majority in the present Cabinet. Earlier this year they ensured that the contents of the public till would once again be used to pay their own personal bills in this matter. It was Premier Ahern who led the push to have the Queensland public pay the costs ordered against Bjelke-Petersen, Russ Hinze, and Don Lane of all people, and he has the gall to talk about accountability in respect of the expenditure of public funds. He as Premier of our State is up to his armpits in indisputable misappropriation of public funds. He is up to his armpits in deceit when he implies, as he did yesterday, that somehow he is tied to a 1986 obligation as far as the payment Mr LITTLEPROUD: I rise to a point of order. As a member of the Government I find offensive the allegation that the Premier is up to his armpits in deceit and other such matters. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Row): Order! As the Government of which the Minister is a member is involved, the honourable member for Sandgate will withdraw the remarks. Mr WARBURTON: With respect, I have not mentioned the Goverament. I do not see how anybody could take offence at what I said. Yesterday, in answer to my questions, Mr Ahern admitted that he is using public funds—public moneys that are being appropriated—for his own legal bills, so what is wrong with that? Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! In respect to the point of order taken by the Minister, I suggest that the honourable member withdraw the term that the Premier is up to his armpits in deceit. Mr WARBURTON: All right; he is up to his ear lobes. As I was saying—the Premier is somehow tied to a 1986 obligation as far as the payment of his share of the $68,232.95 is conceraed. Mr Littleproud is probably unaware of the real situation. I hope that he is not going to challenge me on this point. I collected the documents and I know what is in store. I know the tme position. The 18 Ministers of the National Party Goverament in 1986, including Mr Ahern, have been ordered to pay that sum of $68,232.95 within four days from last Tuesday. This is not a case of damages. My colleague Tom Burns, the honourable member for Lytton, is not going to receive damages in that amount. He has pursued his legal right to try and retrieve at least some of the costs that he incurred in defending himself against that political thuggery that started in 1986. Neither he nor I will retrieve all of our costs, but we have a legal right and an entitlement to retrieve as much of them as we can. However, because the Premier has decided that that money will come out of the public purse, he has the audacity to suggest that we should not attempt to retrieve our costs. If Mr Ahern wants to misappropriate public funds, that cannot be helped. However, the electors will answer him during the course of the next State election when the debate on accountability, which Mr Ahern evidently is pursuing, takes place. That the decision that was made by Mr Ahern and his Cabinet Ministers in 1989 has flowed on to persons such as Don Lane is abhorrent and exasperates me. Many tens of thousands of dollars that will come from the $1.75 biUion in Consolidated Revenue Funds are destined for misappropriation of the type to which I have referred. As to the Tom Burns matter—those writs were withdrawn. Honourable members have heard my coverage of that issue. They should know that costs in seven other 5414 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1) actions are being pursued because Ministers have withdrawn those actions. It is not a quick process. However, because the Supreme Court Rules provide that we have a legal right to retrieve a certain amount of costs, that money will come from the appropriation of moneys that will be made today. It is yet to be seen whether the Government, and particularly Mr Ahera, is prepared to stop this nonsense of using public moneys to pay personal bills of Ministers; whether the Premier is going to be decent enough to stop throwing his unopened pay packets in the top drawer of his chest of drawers or wherever else he puts them. On a string around his neck, Mr Ahern still has the first zack that he eamed, but he is using public moneys to pay his own legal bills. There can be no valid description for what is happening when someone such as Don Lane puts his hand in the public till for his own personal gain. When public funds are being used by the so-called custodians of the till to pay their own personal bills, that is misappropriation of moneys that certainly do not belong to the Government. Mr McPhie: Let's talk about New South Wales. Mr WARBURTON: I understand that this hurts some Government members. When the Premier says that accountability is going to be the issue in the forthcoming election, I can understand Government members' concern and their absolute dilemma. When the Premier of this State goes before the people and says, "I am here proclaiming accountability to people and I am going to be one of those making sure", they will say to him, "How can you talk about accountability when you are not accountable for your own financial transactions? How can you talk about accountability when you are prepared to use our money to pay your bills?" By the time that his election campaign finishes, the Premier will be the greatest political joke in Queensland. Mr McPhie: And you will be done like a dinner. Mr WARBURTON: 1 understand the concern and dilemma of those National Party back-benchers who are not going to be members of this House after the next State election. Honourable members interjected. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Conversations across the Chamber will not be tolerated. Mr WARBURTON: I conclude by saying that, in view of the Premier's personal involvement in the use of public moneys to meet his own personal legal fees and costs, frankly his credibility is in absolute tatters. I repeat that I know he will be rejected by Queensland electors for his lack of accountability, for what he has done in relation to this particular matter, just as he and his party were completely rejected in the recent Merthyr by-election. Mrs NELSON (Aspley) (4.09 p.m.): It gives me pleasure to join in this debate and to place on record some of my feelings about the present and future management of the Queensland economy. A number of stresses are being placed on our economy. This State is very fortunate to have a strong and stable base and very good financial management. I reinforce the comments made earlier this afternoon by the member for Mount Gravatt. One of the two things that concern me is the interstate migration and the international migration of people to Queensland. It is starting to develop a feeling and a theme similar to that which occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which placed enormous strains on service delivery in this State. That occurred at a time when interest rates were much lower, when inflation was much lower and when a conservative and more stable Federal Government was in power. I am concerned about the sorts of pressures that interstate migration and international migration will have on Queensland, because interest rates are extremely high, inflation is exploding rapidly and the Treasurer of the nation is admitting that the economy is out of control. The economic environment is totally different in terms of being able to Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5415

plan and provide services for a rapidly expanding population. I am pleased that at the Premiers Conference this State's officers of the public service, its Ministers and the Premier were able to articulate the State's case based on past explosion of population. However, I am conceraed that the amount that will be provided by the Federal Government will be less than is required. I am very sure that in the next two years that movement of population will explode as it did previously. There are signs that that will happen. I believe that similar sorts of pressures will apply in our schools and our hospitals and that similar demands will be made for extra police and all of the other services that have to be delivered when the population grows quickly. I do not urge caution in terms of asking people to come to Queensland, because it is the sort of problem that any society wants. When more people come to a State, there is more grovrth and a better, stronger and wealthier community results. We in this State are very fortunate that Vince Lester's department has introduced Project Pay Packet, which has made a massive impact by reducing youth unemployment by more than 14 per cent. It has been one of the success stories of the nation. Shortly after the introduction of that initiative, the Federal Goverament introduced a similar scheme, which I think was called Jobstart. It has also introduced a new package for single parents, which I think is called Jetstart. They are very good ideas. The Federal Government is trying to get people off pensions, and I support that. I hope the programs succeed. I think the only problem is that Paul Keating needs a kick start on how to manage the economy; there is no doubt about that. I want to refer to an issue raised by the member who has just resumed his seat. It is really about time that the records of this House contained some real facts about what happens when officers of the Crown, Ministers, senior Government officers. Mayors or any other public officials are accused of things that they have not done in the capacity in which they are working. They are entitled to protection under the law. Mr Ardill: Where? Mrs NELSON: Townsville City Council—a Labor city council. Would the hon­ ourable member like me to tell him about that? The former Mayor—not even the present Mayor—who has a defamation action against him, is receiving the benefits of the rate­ payers' revenue of Townsville to pay his costs, because the action occurred while he was Mayor. In fact, if it is good enough for him, then the honourable member for Sandgate, Mr Warburton, has to stop playing games in this House. He knows a deal was done to withdraw the writs to which reference has been made. He knows that his own party chose to play politics by pursuing the issue of costs. It is the most appallingly low level of politicking to talk about snouts in troughs. That is the sort of talk that occurred in the nineteenth century in this country before it became a nation—before it allegedly grew up. It is time that that sort of talk stopped. I can give the honourable member chapter and verse on the Labor Party in New South Wales, the Labor Party at the Canberra level and the Labor Party in Townsville. If the Opposition wants to play those sorts of games, then every political party in Australia can make similar claims. The facts of the matter are that, if Ministers of the Crown, the Premier, Mayors or Lord Mayors are accused in the pursuit of their duties, in order that they can carry out their job, they are entitled to the protection that they must enjoy, otherwise every five minutes they would be in the courts with every psychotic person in this State taking out frivolous charges and claims against them. That is why it is important that they be protected. Mr Ardill: They were not on the receiving end. They initiated it. There's quite a difference. Mrs NELSON: In fact, that is quite wrong. The Labor Party applied for costs. The honourable member knows that that was not to happen. Mr Ardill: You are misleading the House. 5416 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1)

Mrs NELSON: No, I am not. The honourable member is trying to. The Labor Party applied for costs. It took out an action for costs. It wanted its money out of the tax-payers' purse. That is what the Labor Party is trying to achieve. If the honourable member wants to start throwing mud all over the place, that is the sort of reaction he will get. I ask him: what about the Mayor of Townsville? Is that different? He is not even in the job. Does the honourable member mean that it is different for him? It appears that because he is a Labor man it is all right for him; it is okay for him. WeU, it is not okay for him; it is not okay for anybody else. If it is right for him, it is right in principle for any other public office holder. I strongly support the principle of a person in public office or a senior public servant having the right to that protection. I wish to address the issue of pressures that are being exerted in the economy. I have observed a type of schizophrenia developing in the community. On the one hand, people are crying out for smaller government and lower taxes, which I support. On the other hand, the demand for services has increased. It seems to me that everybody wants the Government to solve the problems and provide initiatives. The ambit claims made by some groups would be impossible to meet. It would be impossible for any Goverament in Australia to foot the bill. An understanding must be developed in the community that if people want lower taxes, smaller government and less interference from the bureaucracy and politicians—which I also support 100 per cent—the stmctures that have made this country strong will have to be continued by voluntarism. I wish to provide the Parliament with examples of what voluntarism can achieve in the area of education. The Wavell High School is situated adjacent to the boundary of my electorate. Although the school is in the Stafford electorate, a very substantial number of children who attend that school reside with their families in the Aspley electorate. The high school is well administered and has excellent standards. It is a school of which all honourable members can be proud, but what we can really be proud of is the work performed by the ladies auxiliary. The ladies run a catering service and will cater for weddings, garden parties and similar types of activity in the community engaged in by all types of people. Each year they raise approximately $60,000 in profit. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been put into the school. They will shortly open a new hospitality and catering centre that has been built in the schoolgrounds without any financial support from the Govemment. Obviously, the centre has been built as an activity of the Works Department. During the day, the ladies will provide courses in catering and hospitality. Out of school hours, the facility will be used to assist with the development of the business. I believe that the achievement of these ladies ought to be committed to the public record because their activity is the type of volunteerism that has made this country strong. They are paid nothing and give their time enthusiastically. They make up one of the greatest teams 1 have ever come across. They are superb ladies who raise large amounts of money through a labour of love that is intended to help their children. I see that type of volunteerism in Meals on Wheels. Unfortunately, many retired people deliver meals to other retired people, which is an issue which must be addressed. I wish to give the Parliament an example of the way in which a group in my electorate is addressing this issue. Children from the high schools are doing Meals on Wheels with adults. The children are getting into the habit of being volunteers and doing something to contribute to the community without having to be paid for it. In the end result, it is that level of personal commitment and effort that keeps Governments small and taxation down. I know that a number of other members wish to address the House this afteraoon so I will take only a small amount of time to discuss two other very important issues in my electorate. The first matter relates to media comments circulating in the Aspley electorate conceraing services that are to be cut and police stations that will be closed. 1 want to put on record what is going to happen with the police. In July this year, a Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5417 new centre at Taigum wiU be commenced. The centre will be built within 18 months or two years and will become the regional headquarters. It will operate 24 hours a day for seven days a week and will massively enhance services in the northern suburbs. The centre is certainly overdue and I am delighted that, as a result of my representations, the date for commencement has been brought forward. It has also been said that police stations will close down. Although one may have to be relocated because it is in the path of a new road, the police station will not close. I want to put on record that the type of scare-mongering and speculation engaged in by some of my opponents in the election will not win them votes. What people dislike most are wild, unsubstantiated accusations. They result in the people who make them losing credibility. Mr McPhie interjected. Mrs NELSON: It will be 1974 revisited and they do not even know that it is going to happen to them yet. The other issue I wish to discuss is housing. Recently a proposal for the area of Fitzgibbon was announced by the Brisbane City Council. It is called a development precinct. The bulk of the land in the area is currently owned by the Railway Department and wiU shortly be put out to tender for sale as housing development land. I am concerned about the nature of the plan that is being proposed by the Brisbane City Council for that area. I have written to the Minister for Transport and asked for a meeting between himself, his senior officers and senior officers from the council in an endeavour to arrive at a sensible solution to the problem. I do not believe that it is appropriate, proper or necessary for 16-perch aUotments to be built in Bridgeman Downs and Carseldine. I believe that it will be to the detriment of existing properties in the area. Another facet about the proposal that I do not like at all is a plan proposed by Eugene Kneebone. I do not know if honourable members know very much about this fellow. He is the new planning wizard at City Hall. If I were Sallyanne, I would be very worried about this chap. He has the idea for a wonderful development model to include mobile homes, caravan parks, shops and taveras, residential A and residential B developments and tenements in an area. The development model could be approved immediately and the planner could walk away. The developers could get stuck into it, unfettered by quality control or the exercise of authority to ensure that the area does not turn into a ghetto overnight and that people who have purchased residential A land do not get ripped off by the constmction of a tenement next door. I urge this Parliament to keep a close eye on that type of development throughout Queensland. The last thing anyone wants is panic about a ghetto society being created in Australia. I support the Bill. Mr WHITE (Redcliffe) (4.22 p.m.): At the outset, I commend the Premier for the remarks he made this morning about the pharmaceutical industry, particularly when he referred to the plight of many country pharmacists who are getting the rough end of the pineapple at the moment from the Federal Labor Government. I understand from discussions that are taking place in the industry that the Federal Government is intent on putting approximately a thousand retail pharmacies out of business. Because of the current policies of the Federal Labor Government, a great number of jobs will be lost and many small-businesspeople wiU bite the dust. It is interesting that a party founded on the trade union movement with a commitment to conciliation and arbitration and one that is currently making a lot of noise about its objections to voluntary employment agreements, is the very party in Canberra that is denying independent arbitration to the pharmacists of this country. This highlights the hypocrisy of the Australian Labor Party that propounds unionism,

83909—182 5418 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1) compulsory arbitration, fairaess, equity and—as Mr Wells so often says in this House— natural justice. The members of the Australian Labor Party are the very ones who are denying the chemists of this nation the right to independent arbitration. I thank the Premier for the support he has given to the pharmaceutical industry, and in particular to the country chemists in Queensland. If the Federal Government goes ahead with these proposals, it will mean the closure of approximately 1 000 outlets throughout the nation and at least 200 or 300 in Queensland. Whilst on the subject of the pharmaceutical industry, I express my great regret at the activities being engaged in by personnel in the major pharmaceutical organisations that have done quite a job on a very well-respected member of the profession, Mr Alan Grant-Taylor. He has served the profession with great distinction over many years and, by means of a gmbby little exercise, representatives of those organisations have disparaged his good name and reputation to the Minister and Premier. I am pointing the bone not at the Premier or the Minister, but at the people in those professional organisations. It is a disgrace for this to happen to a man at the end of his career. He has served the community for approximately 30 years, much of it in his own free time. He is being forced to resign as chairman of the Pharmacy Board of Queensland. I am afraid that the Govemment has been misled on this matter. I seek leave of the House to table and have incorporated in Hansard the curriculum vitae of Mr Alan Grant-Taylor consisting of two pages, which clearly shows his considerable contribution to the industry, to education through the Creche and Kindergarten Association, and to sport, the RSL, Rotary and a multiplicity of welfare organisations. Leave granted. Whereupon the honourable member laid on the table the following document— ALAN MURRAY GRANT-TAYLOR, OAM Bom 14th April, 1922 In December 1941 at 19 years of age Alan Grant-Taylor joined the army to be discharged in March 1946 after service in New Guinea and Australia with the 2nd AIF. Before he enlisted he had passed his intermediate Pharmacy examination and had also commenced study for a degree in Industrial Chemistry. Whilst on service he managed, by private study, to do all the theory subjects for third year of what was a four year course. On retum from service, Alan Grant-Taylor resumed his pharmacy course one term behind everyone else and was successful in his final as well as his Industrial Chemistry exams. He began his involvement in official as distinct from retail pharmacy firstly as a special tutor appointed by the Pharmacy Board to teach special courses in Practical Galenical making and dispensing for final year students and later as a board examiner. His involvement with Pharmacy has seen him in many roles— • Member of the Pharmacy Board of Queensland since 1964 Chairman of the Pharmacy Board of Queensland: 1982 to present • Member of the Council of the Queensland Pharmaceutical Society: 1956-1966 Awarded Fellowship of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia: 1980 • National Councillor of the Pharmacy Guild: 1964-1982, 1985-1988 Member of the State Branch Committee of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia: 1958 to present Awarded Life membership of the Pharmacy Guild in 1972 • State Industrial Officer: 1962 to present National Industrial Officer: 1965-1978 • A Director of Australian Pharmaceutical Publishing Company A Director of Pharmacy Defence Limited A Director of Guild Insurance Group • Member of the Health Economics Committee: 1963-1982 Member of the Commonwealth Minister for Health's Joint Committee on Pharmaceutical Pricing Arrangements under the National Health Scheme: 1972-1978 Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5419

Member of the Standing Committee on EDP Processing of Pharmaceutical Benefits under National Health Scheme: 1972-1978 His Community Service has not been limited to Pharmacy— • Rotary Charter Member of Windsor Rotary Club Awarded the prestigious Paul Harris Fellowship in 1988 • RSL President of Kedron Wavell RSL 1955/56 until 1965/66 Holder of the Gold Badge of Life Membership • Sport Foundation Member of Teachers Norths Rugby Football Club Inc. • Welfare Treasurer for the Steering Committee for the Constmction of Windsor Senior Citizens Centre: 1983-1987 Education Alan Grant-Taylor's involvement started in 1958 with his own childrens' pre-school education at the local Lutwyche-Windsor Kindergarten and a strong belief to try to make a better world for the next generation. He saw the early years of childhood as the foundation for a happy life. He felt that these formative years should be organised with emphasis on love and happiness and high ideals. In 1963 his involvement in the local kindergarten was at an end as his own children had progressed but far from allowing his involvement in pre-school education to lessen he expanded his objectives. Alan Grant-Taylor joined the Board of Management of The Creche & Kindergarten Association as an Elected Member in 1963, advanced through the office of Vice-President, and became President of the Association in 1967. As President between 1967 and 1975, he presided during a period of major expansion of the Brisbane Kindergarten Teachers College and sustained growth in the Community Kindergarten Movement. This period also saw the introduction of the State Pre-School System, and protracted negotiations over the future of the Brisbane Kindergarten Teachers College. When the decision was taken in 1975 to have the College transferred to the control of College Council appointed under the Education Act, Alan Grant-Taylor accepted the challenge of being the first Chairman of the Council. The Brisbane Kindergarten Teachers College was then amalgamated with other Colleges to form the Brisbane College of Advanced Education in 1981 and he accepted an invitation to be a Member of the new Council, a position he still holds today. Since handing over the reins of Presidency of The C & K Association in 1975, Alan Grant-Taylor has continued to be a Member of the C & K Board, thus giving the Association and the Movement the benefit of his long experience. In recognition of his long and distinguished service to The Creche and Kindergarten Association, the Community Kindergarten Movement and to the young children of Queensland, it was the Board's wish that Alan Grant-Taylor be appointed a Life-Govemor of the Association and this was done in 1988. His service to the community in so many ways has been recognized through the awarding of an Order of Australia Medal in 1982. Mr WHITE: I will say no more about the matter, because I do not wish to embarrass people in the industry. I regret the matter very much, and I am sure that the Government will not look back on this matter with a great deal of pride. In the brief time remaining to me I wish to make some quick remarks about the housing industry. It is fair to say that Govemments have been spectacular failures as property-developers. A typical example of that was the widely heralded program instituted by Gough Whitlam to decrease the price of land in 1972. By the time he was kicked out of office he had spent $100m on the project and had not produced a single block of land. Land development might appear to be a profitable exercise, but in reality it is a very high-risk business. For every person who makes a fortune in land development, 20 5420 8 June 1989 Appropriation Bill (No. 1) have gone broke trying to do the same. The major problems are the long-term lead times involved and the cyclical nature of the demand. There are many traps for the inexperienced. Subdivisions usually require a lot of capital, and large borrowings and gaining the necessary experience can be a very costly exercise. The bankmptcy records of this nation typify what has happened to so many people who have embarked upon land development. Brisbane has recently gone through its traditional seven-year property boom. Two years ago developers had great trouble selling land and I predict that two years from now the land market will be back in the doldmms because it is well on the way down that track at the moment. When a land-developer considers a vacant paddock that might be suitable for subdivision, it takes approximately 12 months to obtain rezoning, followed by another four months for subdivisional approval. Calling tenders and the constmction of roads and services takes approximately another six months. At that stage the subdivision is in the hands of the local authority and the Department of Freehold Land Titles, provided it has had a clear passage. If the developer is unlucky enough to be in a major local authority area with an enormous bureaucracy, it can take up to two years for the appUcation to get through. A total of 28 months is needed, and yet only six of those months are the responsibility of the developer himself The rest are caused by delays in local authority and State Govemment departments. All of those factors add appreciably to the cost of borrowing and are significant components in the problems experienced by many young people who become involved in housing packages today. The Government has promised to fast-track Government subdivision and by-pass red tape. The developers have been pleading for this to happen for a very long time and I hope that the report presented to the Goverament will be adopted and implemented. If something is not done about the matter, Queensland will never come to grips with the high cost of land. The real reasons for the housing crisis are quite simple. For the previous seven years the market has been in the doldmms with minimal price rises, but over the last 12 months there has been a tremendous escalation in prices. Now there are the extraordinarily high interest rates placed upon this country by the Federal Labor Government and Mr Keating, due to their commitment to monetary policy. Until such time as the Federal Government makes changes in that regard, the chances of many young people owning their own homes are remote. The Hawke Government has increased interest rates in order to stop what it regards as an overheated economy. This is only aggravating the present position.

There is no simple answer to the housing crisis, but certainly a number of things could be done. A co-ordinated development plan, which I understand will now be accepted by the State Government, would go a long way along that track. I wish the Government well in that regard. There is no doubt that the unnecessary delays that are foisted upon the developing industry are a significant cost component. The difficulties and fmstrations in that industry just have to be overcome. One of the other major problems is the difficulty in dealing with headworks. I understand that some proposal is in the wind. Perhaps the Premier may comment on this at some appropriate time. If we could have some sort of scheme whereby the headworks were funded by the local authority through a State loan program and amortised over a period of time, it would certainly make it a lot easier for the developers to get in quickly and get the job done. The cost of those headworks could then be amortised over a long period of time so that it is not a substantial burden to the community. I am aware of the time. I thank the House for the opportunity to make a few brief remarks here this afteraoon and support the Premier.

Hon. M. J. AHERN (Landsborough—Premier and Treasurer and Minister for State Development and the Arts) (4.31 p.m.), in reply: I wish to thank all honourable members for their presentations today. Their various remarks will be taken on board and given Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 8 June 1989 5421 due consideration by my officers. I wish to make a couple of quick points in respect to the contributions made by the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Sandgate, who on occasions like this pull out the same speech and re-read it into Hansard. All the time the Leader of the Opposition carps on about Baudino and some lessons that he is taking me through. That is all a total fantasy. I do not know what sort of soup, or smoke, he has been taking lately, but it is all a total fantasy. He must really know that. Bob Baudino does not have those sorts of skills. For a start, he is not qualified in that area. He is a public relations consultant and, just as Labor Ministers all over the country have exteraal public relations consultants to facilitate contact with the business community and to ensure that there is a ready access of information there from the business community straight into Govemment, then Bob Baudino is appointed in that way. For the Leader of the Opposition to perpetuate this continual suggestion that somehow or other I am being actively rehearsed twice a week by Baudino is just quite irritating. I think it demeans the office of Leader of the Opposition when he perpetuates something which he really must know is wrong. I indicated also to the House this morning the plain, cold, hard statistics of the functioning of the economy of this State at the moment, which in any fair person's reading has to be very encouraging for the future. With unemployment down, employment up, levels of investment high and prospects good, this State looks good. The prospects for the future are great. The economy here is obviously working. One only has to move around the State to see it, but it is there in statistics. The strategy that we have set for the State is working, and it is working to the time-table that we have set, too. The honourable member for Sandgate has a continual obsession about this issue of writs. He has a pecuniary interest in relation to the matter, too. He also has a neurosis about it. The plain facts are there. When I became Premier of this State I said, "Leave all of that alone. Do not advance any of those issues. Let them die. Let them wither on the vine." But it was the Labor Party that saw some political advantage in cranking them up and advancing them. It was prepared to pursue the issue of costs. Because the writs were taken out by the Crown and the Ministers, obviously that is where the money would have to come from if the Labor Party challenged it. That is what the Labor Party did; it went through the process and said, "Let us take $60,000 from the tax-payers of Queensland and blame the Goverament for it." That is what has actually happened. Right out there in the general community, that is the way it will be recognised. I thank all other honourable members. I want to make particular reference to the member for Redcliffe, who made a particular presentation about Mr Alan Grant-Taylor. Can I say that Alan Grant-Taylor is a fine Queenslander who, down through the years, has contributed enormously in this State in various capacities. He has the thanks of everyone for the enormous contribution that he has made. As chairman of the Pharmacy Board, in recent times his contribution has been enormous. He has now chosen to retire. It is time that the pharmacy industry got behind the board, stopped some of the internecine argument that has been going on and started to work very constmctively in the future interests of the industry of the State. There is no reflection on this particular gentleman, who has suffered ill health in recent times and has now chosen to retire. I hail him as a great Queenslander. His contribution has been enormous. I have no hesitation in saying that today. I thank all honourable members for their contribution to the debate. I commend the Bill to the House. Motion agreed to.

Committee Clauses 1 and 2, as read, agreed to. Bill reported, without amendment. 5422 8 June 1989 Education (General Provisions) Act Amendment Bill

Third Reading

Bill, on motion of Mr Ahern, read a third time.

EDUCATION (GENERAL PROVISIONS) ACT AMENDMENT BILL

All Stages Hon. B. G. LITTLEPROUD (Condamine—Minister for Education, Youth and Sport) (4.39 p.m.), by leave, without notice: I move— "That so much of the Standing Orders be suspended as would otherwise prevent the immediate presentation to the House of a Bill to amend the Education (General Provisions) Act 1989 in certain particulars, and the passing of such BiU through all its stages in one day." Motion agreed to.

First Reading Bill presented and, on motion of Mr Littleproud, read a first time.

Second Reading Hon. B. G. LITTLEPROUD (Condamine—Minister for Education, Youth and Sport) (4.40 p.m.): I move— "That the Bill be now read a second time." I present to the House a Bill to amend the Education (General Provisions) Act 1989 in order to put beyond doubt the power of the Director-General, with the Minister's approval, to exclude a student in certain circumstances from any number of or aU State educational institutions either for a period determined by the Director-General or permanently. At the outset, I would like to put the provisions of this Bill into context. Following incidents at Kedron State High School on 30 March 1989 and 6 April 1989, the Director-General of Education, acting in accordance with regulation 36 of the Education Regulations 1988 and with the approval of the Acting Minister for Education, Youth and Sport, permanently excluded six students from State high schools. Two students were permanently excluded from Kedron State High School but are permitted to attend any other State high school in Queensland. Three students were permanently excluded from all State high schools but are permitted to continue their studies through either the School of Distance Education or the Hendra Centre for Continuing Secondary Education. One student was permanently excluded from all State high schools but is permitted to continue his studies through the School of Distance Education. Following this action, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has become involved. The department was served with an interim determination, issued by Mr Justice Einfeld, requiring it to allow these students back into Kedron State High School pending the outcome of the commission's inquiry into the matter. Following advice from the Acting Solicitor-General, the Department of Education declined at the time to comply with this interim determination. The legal representatives for the students then sought a Federal Court order to enforce this determination. This matter was heard in the Federal Court, Brisbane on Thursday, 1 June 1989 before Mr Justice Spender. Mr Justice Spender declined to issue the order sought by the complainants, but he did draw attention to the drafting of regulation 36 of the Education Regulations 1988. In his opinion, the regulation in its current form restricts the Director-General's powers to exclusion only from the school in question rather than every State school. Mr Justice Spender intimated that in his opinion the power to exclude from a State school pursuant to regulation 36 is confined to the particular school where the grounds for exclusion arose. He went on to intimate that he considered that the effect of the exclusion from all State schools in respect of the Kedron State High School incident is valid to the Education (General Provisions) Act Amendment Bill 8 June 1989 5423

extent that it excludes from that high school. It should be noted that Mr Justice Spender did not reach final conclusions in respect of either of these two positions. The Acting Solicitor-General is of the opinion that, should Mr Justice Spender be called upon to do so, he would probably reach that decision. It is in these circumstances that the provisions of the Education (General Provisions) Act 1989 relating to suspension and exclusion are required to be addressed. Members will recall that on 6 April this year, the Education (General Provisions) Act 1989 was passed by this House and subsequently received royal assent. This Act introduced new provisions, not yet proclaimed for commencement, which offer additional strategies to principals and others persons in charge of State educational institutions for the management of disciplinary situations. The principal or other person in charge of a State educational institution is given power under the Act to suspend a student for any period up to and including five days. More serious disciplinary situations may order, with the approval of the Minister, the permanent exclusion of a student or exclusion for any period considered by the Director-General to be appropriate in the circumstances. It will be recalled by members that the Act contains extensive provisions designed to protect the rights of students and to ensure that all matters are resolved expeditiously. My second-reading speech of 8 March 1989 explains these and consequently I do not propose to detail them again at this point. It should be noted that the wording or relative provisions of the Education Act 1964-1988 and the Education Regulations 1988 were drawn upon when drafting suspen­ sion and exclusion provisions of the Education (General Provisions) Act 1989 and, as a result, the intimations by Mr Justice Spender in respect of the matters in question might extend to the Education (General Provisions) Act 1989.1 hasten to stress that Mr Justice Spender did not reach a final conclusion in respect of this situation. Nevertheless, the Acting Solicitor-General has advised, and I concur, that this matter needs to be placed beyond doubt. It is essential that the Director-General, with the approval of the Minister, retain the flexibility to determine whether a student who is the subject of a serious disciplinary action is permitted to return to the school at which he or she is enrolled or to any other State education institution. The Bill clarifies and puts beyond doubt the authority of the Director-General to exclude students either permanently or for a specific period as determined by him from one or more State educational institutions when he is satisfied that the student is guilty of disobedience, misconduct or other conduct prejudicial to the good order and discipline of such institutions. I commend the Bill to the House. Mr BRADDY (Rockhampton) (4.45 p.m.): The Opposition accepts the need for this legislation to pass through all stages quickly. Therefore, it does not object, as it normally does, to the processing of the Bill through all stages. The Opposition supports the legislation. There is some concera in the community about the incident at Kedron State High School. It should, of course, be kept in perspective. The Education Department is not renowned for hastily expelling students from its institutions. In most instances, it exhibits a degree of tolerance and discretion, which is admirable. I say that not in any way to take sides in relation to the Kedron State High School incident because I am not sufficiently familiar with all the details to take sides. I believe that the general attitude of the Education Department towards students is a good one and, in my experience, the department is loath to expel students. However, there must be within the ambit of the department an opportunity and a legal right to expel students. One hopes that that ambit is always exercised with discretion and with propriety, as I believe it has been in most instances. In relation to this incident at the Kedron State High School—I believe that any opportunities for conciliation should be taken advantage of so that it cannot be said 5424 8 June 1989 Education (General Provisions) Act Amendment Bill that the Goverament and the department did not do their best to arrive at a conclusion without using legalities when conciliation could have been the way to achieve a result. As I have said, the department is loath to expel students. However, it must have that right in relation to students who, in many cases, are young adults. In a society in which more and more students are staying at high school for longer periods, the Opposition believes that the legislation is necessary. The Opposition understands the situation that has arisen, as well as the legal situation. As I have said, without commenting either adversely or favourably on the circumstances that led to the incident at the Kedron State High School, the Opposition supports the legislation. Mr BEARD (Mount Isa—Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party) (4.46 p.m.): The member for Rockhampton, Mr Braddy, made some very good points with which I do not disagree. In general it is not a good idea to base a system of philosophy or a law or an Act of Parliament on one isolated case, and I do not believe that that is happening now. It is unfortunate that this legislation may come to be associated in the mind of the public with an attempt by the Legislature to create a system to handle the Kedron State High School case. That is just not so. I certainly speak on behalf of the Liberal Party when I say that it will support the legislation. If I may—and it will not take long—I would like to reflect for a couple of minutes on my own days as a teacher. One of the best lessons I ever learned I learned from one of my colleagues. He was only about 21 years of age at the time. I have admired him ever since for that. He is still teaching at the Cairns State High School, 35 years later. He was listening to me speaking to my class one afternoon in my very early days as a teacher. On the way over to the pub to have a beer after school that afternoon, he said, "You were doing the wrong thing there. Kids hate ambiguity. Kids like certainty. They like discipline. They like to know where they stand. They like to know where the dividing line is. If you don't let them know where the dividing line is, today you'll let them cross it and you'll laugh about it, and tomorrow when they cross it, you'll clip them in the ear and you will confuse them and they will despise you for it eventually." That bit of advice from a 21-year-old friend of mine was one of the best bits of advice that I have ever received in my life. I have tried to apply it, more or less with success with my own children, and various other people through my life to let people know what my expectations of them are in the hope that those expectations will be met. Things are different in today's world. I do not blame the teachers, the Education Department or anyone else for that. We live in a completely different society from the one in which we lived 30-odd years ago when the incident to which I have referred took place. I fear that the expectations that society imposes on youngsters nowadays have greatly changed and greatly slackened and that our youngsters are terribly confused. I see nothing wrong with the word "discipline". People hesitate to use the word "discipline" nowadays. They overlook the fact that it has the same derivation as "disciple". All it means is establishing a set of values, a code of conduct, that people may follow and that they know they can follow. To establish discipline—and, as I say, children respect it and want it and need it so that they know where they stand—one needs a leader, a guide, a mentor, someone who wall establish the code of discipline and lead them to seeing that that code is a good thing. But a second concept is needed for discipline, and that is the concept of sanctions. If people deviate from the established code of conduct, whether it is the Bible, the Koran, the code of Buddhism, the code of chivalry or the code of the west, to the extent that they interfere with the rights of other people, then they have to be punished. Once again, the word "punishment" has the wrong connotations. Punishment does not mean driving someone into the ground or attacking them physically. It does not even necessarily mean anything severe. Punishment can be the frown of a parent, the disappointed look on the face of a teacher, or the disapproval of one's own peers. However, without sanctions, no code of discipline wiU be followed. Education (General Provisions) Act Amendment Bill 8 June 1989 5425

That is what honourable members are talking about. Honourable members are talking about some teachers who, in this case, have to mn a particularly large high school in an urban environment. This legislation relates to all the schools in Queensland. So that teaching can take place—which surely must be the object of our education system—a discipline or a code of values must be set in place which are subscribed to by the vast majority of the population and which we would hope that most of the parents of school students would want to foUow. That discipline having been set in place, there must be sanctions for those students who deviate from it to the extent that they interfere with the rights of other students to receive an education. The sanctions would obviously be graded in severity, from a frown right through to the worst punishment that one can inflict on a child at a school because of gross violation of discipUne, that is, expulsion, which is what honourable members are debating this afternoon. It has to be accepted that the teachers who staff schools are well trained and well intentioned, that they have the good of the children at heart. If they did not, they would not be in the profession that they are in, or, if they were in the profession, they would not stay in it for very long if they could not subscribe to these concepts. It has to be assumed that minor violations of discipline or initial violations of discipline will be met with minor sanctions, proceeding through a series of steps, as indeed happens in industry with workmen where the ultimate discipline, I guess, is dismissal. Parliament has similar sanctions. If we expect our teachers to do the job that is demanded of them in society without providing them with a graded series of sanctions whereby discipline can be set in place and maintained, we are setting them an impossible task. We see the fmits of that impossible task all too often in the world around us. We have graffiti artists, vandals, people who are virtually sociopaths, people who have nothing whatever in common with society and people whose whole aim in life is to offend society. No-one can teU me that they are happy. They are some of the unhappiest people with whom I have come in contact. If we do not want that and if we impose this demand on our teachers to produce from those schools students who will not be sociopaths but who will in general conform with the code of values that the majority of people accept, then we have to support them by allowing them to have the sanctions by which they can maintain that code of discipline. Our society will always accept eccentrics. Eccentrics are people who may deviate moderately from an established code but not to the extent that they interfere with anyone else. We are not talking about that. We are talking about behaviour that grossly offends or interferes with the rights of others and, according to all the reports that I have read and obtained at first and second hand, this is what happened at Kedron State High School on that day. It cannot be accepted that a teacher can be assaulted physically or abused verbally, and it cannot be accepted that a number of students will interfere with the rights of all other students at that school by staging sit-ins, calling the police or the media to the school, or doing whatever else happened, that interferes with what that school is there for. That offends the majority of the people in society. Our teachers and our educational professionals must be given the weapons to deal with that type of behaviour. I strongly support the Minister in his introducing this modification to the Education (General Provisions) Act so that those sanctions will be put in place. Motion agreed to.

Committee Clauses 1 to 4, as read, agreed to. Bill reported, without amendment.

84371—183 5426 8 June 1989 Queensland Intemational Tourist Centre Agreement Act Repeal Bill

Third Reading Bill, on motion of Mr Littleproud, read a third time.

QUEENSLAND INTERNATIONAL TOURIST CENTRE AGREEMENT ACT REPEAL BILL

Second Reading Debate resumed from 30 May (see p. 5192). Hon. M. J. AHERN (Landsborough—Premier and Treasurer and Minister for State Development and the Arts) (4.55 p.m.), in reply: I respond firstly to the statements by the honourable member for Lytton, who commented that the freehold titles held by the Iwasaki company extend to high-water mark. I would point out that the land is held in title in accordance with an older form of title, and similar forms of title exist in many other parts of the Queensland coast. The honourable member also referred to land purchased from Livingstone Shire Council. An area of 262 acres was purchased from the council. This land had come into council's possession through arrears of rates. However, it was generally accepted at the time that the company had paid top price for the land. As the member for Lytton knows, the Iwasaki company had and has no authority to order people from the beach in front of the resort. The public is not prevented from using the beach between low and high-water mark. The member for Lytton referred to the Barton committee report, and I would advise all members that it was following Mr Iwasaki's presentation to the Govemment of a conceptional plan for a tourist resort, in December 1973, that the Co-ordinator-General was directed to convene a committee to investigate the proposal. The Co-ordinator- General's committee prepared its recommendations during 1974. Most of these recom­ mendations led to further work being undertaken by the Iwasaki company, including the environmental impact study undertaken in 1978. I would remind members that the impact study satisfied both State and Commonwealth Government requirements. In my second-reading speech, I pointed out that the Bill provides for making existing uses and improvements lawful but at the same time brings these within the ambit of the Livingstone Shire Council and Government agencies as appropriate. This is in recognition of the not insignificant investment which the company has put into the resort and, in turn, to the central Queensland economy. The delay in meeting the timetables has been one of the factors giving rise to the Government's concern about the company's performance and, in turn, to the decision to repeal the legislation and cancel the agreement. I would also point out that the climate for the style of development has changed in the intervening 11 years. The Government and the company have recognised this, and the Government has moved to remedy the situation. However, I would remind this House that the Iwasaki legislation pioneered the resort/destination approach to tourism in this State. I would also remind members that the company has expended some $80m in the resort, which can only be to the benefit of the local community. Apropos my statement about pioneering, it is interesting to note that the honourable member for Stafford reinforced the concept of an innovative approach to tourism and the internationalisation of this industry. The member for Stafford commented on delays by the company. I would reply that the dilatory action by the company really affected only the company in the first instance. It had spent considerable sums without being able to obtain a creditable return on investment. While the company had failed to constmct accesses to beach and a recreation park, this failure hardly affected too many people. It has already been acknowledged that the resort suffers from lack of patronage. The failure is of a technical nature and not one of disaffection of the community and visitors. Queensland International Tourist Centre Agreement Act Repeal Bill 8 June 1989 5427

The member for Stafford spoke about the changes to the agreement requested by the company, but I would remind members that the Government did not accept the company's proposed amendment to the agreement, and this is evidenced by the provisions of the BiU before this House. I would remind the member for Stafford that there are penalties in the Bill for non-performance or breach of provisions—in fact, they are strong penalties. The repeal of the franchise agreement represents the ultimate penalty— but certainly not to strip an owner of his freehold title—that is absolutely repugnant to what this Government stands for. 1 also remind this House that the special leases have been cancelled by this Bill. Under the agreement, the Iwasaki company was entitled to convert these to perpetual lease. 1 tura now to the comments of the honourable member for Rockhampton, who said the penalty is not severe enough. The member seeks to have the 2 558 hectares of leases, which were freeholded, now converted back to leasehold. I would repeat that the company brought the leases and conversion to freehold followed under normal legislative requirements. 1 remind members that those leases are marketable real estate, and to forcibly resume such converted leases attacks the very principle of land tenure. The Government would have to resume it for some reason or another. I would also state that retrospectivity is likewise abhorrent when seeking to remedy a situation. The member for Rockhampton said that the Goverament has not gone far enough. However, the member fails to understand that the contracts to purchase the leases were in place prior to the introduction of the legislation. The company did not need the Iwasaki legislation to be able to freehold the leases, and its having freeholded the land, it is repugnant to suggest that the land should now be taken from Mr Iwasaki. I would also point out that most of the land has been developed and managed in an environmentally sensitive way. The style of land improvement is one of the major attractions of the resort, and even Mr Iwasaki's detractors do not usually accuse him of environmental vandalism; the contrary view is widely held. In his speech, the honourable member for Cairns referred to the issue of foreign investment policy. I respond to his comments by advising that the Government looks at investment proposals on their merits. What is best for Queensland is the uppermost consideration. The honourable member for Mourilyan also offered a discourse on foreign investment in general and the effect on local land economies. I would point out that the member fails to appreciate that the land transactions were of a private nature within the market­ place and did not involve priority tenure by the Government. Most of the member's debate seemed to relate to the Land Act. The nexus with Mr Iwasaki's transactions of 11 years ago is not clear. The honourable member for Bundaberg spoke to the Act which is subject to repeal under the terms of the Bill before the House, and the relevance of many of his comments was not at all clear, and that is a bit of an understatement. The member referred to the proposal for a retirement village. Members are reminded that that was located not on Iwasaki land and therefore it was outside the terms of the agreement. I repeat that Iwasaki's land is freehold, and the Goverament has no intention of stripping him of this land. I commend this Bill to the House. Motion agreed to.

Committee Clauses 1 to 22 and schedules I to IV, as read, agreed to. Bill reported, without amendment. 5428 8 June 1989 Special Adjournment

Third Reading Bill, on motion of Mr Ahera, by leave, read a third time.

SPECIAL ADJOURNMENT Hon. B. D. AUSTIN (Nicklin—Leader of the House) (5.04 p.m.): I move— "That the House, at its rising, do adjoura untU Wednesday, 5 July 1989, at 2.30 p.m." Motion agreed to. The House adjourned at 5.05 p.m.