PROOF ISSN 1322-0330

WEEKLY HANSARD Hansard Home Page: http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/hansard/ E-mail: [email protected] Phone: (07) 3406 7314 Fax: (07) 3210 0182

51ST PARLIAMENT

Subject CONTENTS Page Tuesday, 17 August 2004

ASSENT TO BILLS ...... 1709 PETITIONS ...... 1709 PAPERS ...... 1710 MINISTERIAL STATEMENT ...... 1715 Smart State ...... 1715 MINISTERIAL STATEMENT ...... 1716 Trade Mission to Chile, Brazil and United States ...... 1716 MINISTERIAL STATEMENT ...... 1718 Trade Mission to China, Hong Kong and Thailand ...... 1718 MINISTERIAL STATEMENT ...... 1719 Trade and Investment Missions ...... 1719 MINISTERIAL STATEMENT ...... 1732 Trade Commissioners ...... 1732 MINISTERIAL STATEMENT ...... 1737 Trade Mission to Japan and India ...... 1737 MINISTERIAL STATEMENT ...... 1737 Trade Mission to Chile, Brazil and United States ...... 1737 MINISTERIAL STATEMENT ...... 1737 Electorate Vehicles ...... 1737 MINISTERIAL STATEMENT ...... 1737 Electricity Supply ...... 1737 MINISTERIAL STATEMENT ...... 1739 National Electricity Market Management Company ...... 1739 MINISTERIAL STATEMENT ...... 1739 Powerlink ...... 1739 MINISTERIAL STATEMENT ...... 1740 Racing Industry ...... 1740 MINISTERIAL STATEMENT ...... 1741 Electricity Supply ...... 1741 MINISTERIAL STATEMENT ...... 1742 Citrus Canker ...... 1742

BY AUTHORITY L.J. OSMOND, CHIEF HANSARD REPORTER—2004 Table of Contents — Tuesday, 17 August 2004

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT ...... 1742 Department of Defence, Dauan Island ...... 1742 MINISTERIAL STATEMENT ...... 1743 TransLink ...... 1743 PRIVILEGE ...... 1744 Dr J. O'Duffy; Comments by Member for Darling Downs ...... 1744 MINISTERIAL STATEMENT ...... 1744 Backpacking Industry ...... 1744 REVOCATION OF STATE FOREST AREAS ...... 1745 PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE ...... 1745 Reports ...... 1745 SCRUTINY OF LEGISLATION COMMITTEE ...... 1745 Report ...... 1745 ESTIMATES COMMITTEE G ...... 1745 Report ...... 1745 PRIVATE MEMBERS' STATEMENTS ...... 1745 Electricity Supply ...... 1745 Suicide Prevention ...... 1746 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE ...... 1746 Electricity Supply ...... 1746 Electricity Supply ...... 1747 Employment ...... 1747 Electricity Supply ...... 1748 Ethanol ...... 1748 Electricity Supply ...... 1749 Department of Defence, Dauan Island ...... 1749 Electricity Supply ...... 1750 Statewide Literacy and Numeracy Tests ...... 1750 Dingoes, Sunshine Coast ...... 1751 Queensland Health, Clinical Waste Disposal ...... 1751 Berri Ltd ...... 1752 Skills Shortages ...... 1752 Electricity Supply ...... 1752 Chickpea Industry ...... 1753 PRIVILEGE ...... 1754 Queensland Trade Commissioner's Office; Answer to Question ...... 1754 PRIVILEGE ...... 1754 Electricity Supply; Answer to Question ...... 1754 PRIVILEGE ...... 1755 Mr W. Myers, Energex Board ...... 1755 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE ...... 1755 Nurses ...... 1755 Child Protection ...... 1756 Vegetation Management ...... 1756 SUSPENSION OF STANDING AND SESSIONAL ORDERS ...... 1757 ELECTRICITY SUPPLY ...... 1757 SITTING HOURS; ORDERS OF BUSINESS ...... 1817 MATTERS OF PUBLIC INTEREST ...... 1817 Electricity Supply ...... 1817 North Queensland Cowboys Rugby League Team; Adoption ...... 1818 Ipswich Motorway ...... 1819 A2 Milk ...... 1820 Queensland Multicultural Festival ...... 1821 Cosmopolitan Magazine ...... 1822 National Party Policy ...... 1822 Fishing Industry ...... 1823 Toowoomba, Police Services; Ergon ...... 1825 Coolangatta Special School ...... 1825 Domestic Violence Prevention ...... 1826 FREEDOM OF INFORMATION AMENDMENT BILL ...... 1828 First Reading ...... 1828 Second Reading ...... 1828 PLANT PROTECTION AMENDMENT BILL ...... 1839 First Reading ...... 1839 Second Reading ...... 1839 NATURAL RESOURCES LEGISLATION AMENDMENT BILL ...... 1840 First Reading ...... 1840 Second Reading ...... 1840 PETROLEUM (SUBMERGED LANDS) AMENDMENT BILL ...... 1841 Table of Contents — Tuesday, 17 August 2004

First Reading ...... 1841 Second Reading ...... 1841 PARTNERSHIP AND OTHER ACTS AMENDMENT BILL ...... 1842 First Reading ...... 1842 Second Reading ...... 1842 MARINE PARKS BILL ...... 1843 First Reading ...... 1843 Second Reading ...... 1844 INTEGRATED PLANNING AND OTHER LEGISLATION AMENDMENT BILL ...... 1846 First Reading ...... 1846 Second Reading ...... 1846 SOUTHERN MORETON BAY ISLANDS DEVELOPMENT ENTITLEMENTS PROTECTION BILL ...... 1849 First Reading ...... 1849 Second Reading ...... 1849 ADJOURNMENT ...... 1851 Reinke Family Property ...... 1851 Mr E. Redfern ...... 1851 Public Transport, Sunshine Coast ...... 1852 Seniors Week ...... 1853 Vegetation Management, Ballot Process ...... 1853 Morayfield State Primary School ...... 1854 South Burnett-Maidenwell Astronomical Observatory ...... 1854 North Queensland Cowboys ...... 1855 Moranbah Race Day ...... 1855 Narangba Rural Fire Brigade ...... 1856 Fraser Coast Chronicle ...... 1856 Table of Contents — Tuesday, 17 August 2004 17 Aug 2004 Legislative Assembly 1709 TUESDAY, 17 AUGUST 2004

Legislative Assembly Mr SPEAKER (Hon. R.K. Hollis, Redcliffe) read prayers and took the chair at 9.30 a.m.

ASSENT TO BILLS

25 June 2004 The Honourable R.K. Hollis, MP Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Parliament House George Street BRISBANE QLD 4000 Dear Mr Speaker I am pleased to inform the Legislative Assembly that the following Bills, having been passed by the Legislative Assembly and having been presented for the Royal Assent, were assented to in the name of Her Majesty The Queen on 24 June 2004: "A Bill for an Act to amend the Duties Act 2001" "A Bill for an Act to amend the Nature Conservation Act 1992" "A Bill for an Act to amend particular Acts to increase child safety, and for other purposes" The Bills are hereby transmitted to the Legislative Assembly, to be numbered and forwarded to the proper Officer for enrolment, in the manner required by law. Yours sincerely (sgd) Governor

PETITIONS

The following honourable member has lodged a paper petition and an e-petition for presentation together–

Adoption of Children Act 1964; Adoption of Children Regulation 1999 Ms Nelson-Carr a paper petition from 68 petitioners and an e-petition from 428 petitioners requesting the House to review the practices of the Department of Communities and Disabilities, namely, the Adoption of Children Act of 1964 and the Adoption of Children Regulation 1999 to include the biological name of the mother and father on all official birth certificates, particularly in step parent adoptions where the natural parent is deceased. The following honourable members have lodged paper petitions for presentation–

Noise Barriers, Gateway Motorway, Bald Hills Ms Barry from 56 petitioners requesting the House to build noise barriers along the Gateway Motorway for Northwind Estate residents in Bald Hills and/or build a quieter surface on the motorway without further delay.

Hunting Bows and Crossbows Mr Wallace from 118 petitioners requesting the House to not pass any legislation limiting or banning compound hunting bows or crossbows as such legislation would have devastating effects on the sport of archery which provides many families with fun and sport.

Electricity Supply, Cook Electorate Mr O'Brien from 89 petitioners requesting the House to order the installation of meters at every house and business between the Daintree River and Cape Tribulation in the electorate of Cook; to charge all householders and business owners for their electricity consumption at the same rate as the rest of Queensland; and to reimburse all householders and business owners the full cost of properly receipted equipment, fuel, maintenance and equipment replacement costs, less subsidies which the amendment has excluded from the distribution authority.

Townsville Community Music Centre Mr Reynolds from 1099 petitioners requesting the House to ensure that the Townsville Community Music Centre does not lose funding past 31 December 2004 and to provide the community adequate operational funding for the full three years of this funding round and all the assistance necessary to allow the Townsville Community Music Centre to recover from its recent and anomalous difficulties.

Women's Shelter, Mackay Mr Mulherin from 47 petitioners requesting the House to relocate a women's shelter from an established up-market residential area to a more appropriate location.

Mapleton Forest Reserve Mr Wellington from 303 petitioners requesting the House to make provision in the proposed new tenure for Mapleton Forest Reserve to have some of the already existing fire trails (approximately 2% of the forest) set aside as Conservation Park Corridors. 1710 Papers 17 Aug 2004

By doing so, 98% of Mapleton Forest would become National Park and horse riders will be able to ensure that fire tracks remain open and preserve the safety and livelihood of the surrounding community. The following honourable member has sponsored an e-petition which is now closed and presented—

Broadwater Avenue, Hope Island Mrs Croft from 2 petitioners requesting the House to take immediate action by reducing speed limits and provide right-hand only turning lanes along Broadwater Avenue, Hope Island until more funding is made available for a roundabout as a permanent solution to this serious black spot.

PAPERS

PAPERS TABLED DURING THE RECESS The Clerk informed the House that the following papers, received during the recess, were tabled on the dates indicated— 22 June 2004— • Response from the Minister for Transport and Main Roads (Mr Lucas) to a paper petition presented by Mr Foley from 6599 petitioners regarding charts of the coastline and sea channels for South-East Queensland from the Tweed River (Queensland-New South Wales border) to Bundaberg 24 June 2004— • Members' Ethics and Parliamentary Privileges Committee Report No. 63—Report on a Citizen's Right of Reply No. 16 • Response from the Minister for Health (Mr Nuttall) to a paper petition presented by Mrs Croft from 56 petitioners regarding the shortage of general practitioners in the Runaway Bay area 29 June 2004— • Response from the Minister for Environment (Mr Mickel) to a paper petition presented by Mr O'Brien from 149 petitioners regarding reopening the sand spit only, at the mouth of Cooper Creek, to amateur fishing 7 July 2004— • Response from the Minister for Tourism, Fair Trading and Wine Industry Development (Mrs Keech) to a paper petition presented by Mr McArdle from 218 petitioners regarding an application for a bottle shop to be located at Tenancy 3, Kawana Island Boulevard, Kawana • Response from the Minister for Transport and Main Roads (Mr Lucas) to a paper petition presented by Mr English from 810 petitioners regarding improvement at the intersection of Cleveland-Redland Bay Road and German Church Road • Response from the Deputy Premier, Treasurer and Minister for Sport (Mr Mackenroth) to paper petitions presented by Mr Hoolihan from 543 and 432 petitioners regarding relief to pensioners in the form of a rebate on added taxes • Response from the Minister for Natural Resources, Mines and Energy (Mr Robertson) to a paper petition presented by Mr Lucas from 1689 petitioners regarding a request to ensure that Energex reconsiders its proposal to construct an overhead double circuit 110kV power line from Lytton substation to the site of the future Fisherman Islands substation • Administrative Arrangements Order (No. 2) 2004 8 July 2004— • Response from the Minister for Local Government, Planning and Women (Ms Boyle) to a paper petition presented by Mr O'Brien from 41 petitioners regarding support for preventing the loss of Clifton Beach due to foreshore erosion • Permanent Trustee Company Limited—Consolidated Financial Report for the 5 month period ended 28 February 2003 9 July 2004— • Members' Ethics and Parliamentary Privileges Committee Report No. 64—Report on an examination of the appropriate scope of provisions on members transacting business with an entity of the state, and related matters • Members' Ethics and Parliamentary Privileges Committee—Information Notice No. 1 of 2004: Standing Order 158B 12 July 2004— • Response from the Minister for Environment (Mr Mickel) to a paper petition presented by Mr Hoolihan from 774 petitioners regarding access and usage of Nine Mile Beach for camping and recreational activities • Response from the Minister for Environment (Mr Mickel) to a paper petition presented by Mr Hoolihan from 713 petitioners regarding vehicle access to Three Rivers Beach at Byfield 16 July 2004— • Response from the Minister for Education and the Arts (Ms Bligh) to an E-Petition sponsored by Mrs Sheldon from 11 petitioners regarding workplace rehabilitation at Education Queensland, Nambour District 20 July 2004— • Response from the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice (Mr Welford) to an E-Petition sponsored by Mr Malone from 107 petitioners regarding a request for the appointment of an independent Special prosecutor with sufficiently wide terms of reference, time and resources to investigate all matters involving the Heiner Affair/Shreddergate • Report to the Legislative Assembly by the Minister for Natural Resources, Mines and Energy under section 56A(4) of the Statutory Instruments Act 1992 • Report by the Minister for Tourism, Fair Trading and Wine Industry Development (Ms Keech) on an overseas trip to the United States of America, 16-20 June 2004 23 July 2004— • Audit Report No. 1 2004-05—Results of Audits Performed as at 31 May 2004 • Response from the Minister for Primary Industries and Fisheries (Mr Palaszczuk) to a paper petition presented by Mr Wells from 150 petitioners regarding a request to end commercial fishing in Deception Bay and declare the area a recreational fishing ground • Response from the Minister for Local Government, Planning and Women (Ms Boyle) to paper petitions presented by: Mr McArdle from 1020 petitioners regarding a request to freehold the property known as Tripcony/Hibiscus Caravan Park at Caloundra and Mr Lawlor from 61 petitioners regarding the Gold Coast Harbour Vision 2020 Project and commercial development of the Broadwater (including Wavebreak Island) 17 Aug 2004 Papers 1711

28 July 2004— • Queensland Local Government Comparative Information 2002/03 • Response from the Minister for Health (Mr Nuttall) to a paper petition presented by Ms Lee Long from 1 petitioner regarding a request for reinstatement of Christina Wong as a doctor and to institute a public inquiry • Response from the Minister for Health (Mr Nuttall) to a paper petition presented by Mrs Croft from 31 petitioners regarding the shortage of General Practitioners in the Runaway Bay area • Response from the Minister for Health (Mr Nuttall) to a paper petition presented by Mr Wallace from 101 petitioners regarding assistance for the Mental Illness Fellowship North Queensland (MIFNQ) with funding for the Help for the Rural Caregivers of the Mentally Ill Program (HRCMIP) 2 August 2004— • Response from the Minister for Emergency Services (Mr Cummins) to a paper petition presented by Mr English from 631 petitioners regarding a request for a permanent paramedic on Macleay Island 3 August 2004— • Governor in Council approval of expenditure, in accordance with the Workers' Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 2003, by the Workers' Compensation Regulatory Authority to the Department of Industrial Relations for the prevention of injury to workers, notified in the Queensland Government Industrial Gazette on 23 July 2004 4 August 2004— • Crime and Misconduct Commission Report—The Tugun Bypass Investigation • Response from the Deputy Premier, Treasurer and Minister for Sport (Mr Mackenroth) to a paper petition presented by Mr Springborg from 3002 petitioners regarding the public liability insurance implications for community halls 6 August 2004— • Response from the Minister for Transport and Main Roads (Mr Lucas) to paper petitions presented by Mr Mackenroth from 206 petitioners regarding a request to install a right turn arrow at the intersection of Peregrine Drive and Nicklin Way, Wurtulla • Response from the Minister for Transport and Main Roads (Mr Lucas) to a paper petition presented by Dr Clark from 353 petitioners regarding scheduling of bus services to and from Cairns City and the suburb of Smithfield via Holloways and Yorkeys Knob Beaches 10 August 2004— • Estimates Committee F—Report 2004 • Estimates Committee F—Additional Information Volume 2004 • Estimates Committee A—Report No. 1, 2004 • Estimates Committee A—Report No. 2, 2004 • Estimates Committee A—Additional Information Volume 1 and 2 of 2004 13 August 2004— • Estimates Committee B—Report 2004 • Estimates Committee B—Additional Information Volume 2004 16 August 2004— • Estimates Committee C—Report 2004 • Estimates Committee C—Additional Information Volume 2004 • Estimates Committee E—Report 2004 • Estimates Committee E—Additional Information Volume 2004 • Response from the Minister for Transport and Main Roads (Mr Lucas) to a paper petition presented by Ms Stuckey from 2140 petitioners regarding a request to commit to dredging the bar at the mouth of Currumbin Creek STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS The following statutory instruments were tabled by the Clerk— Public Trustee Act 1978— • Public Trustee (Fees and Charges Notice) (No. 2) 2004 University of the Sunshine Coast Act 1998— • University of the Sunshine Coast Statute No. 1 (Making and Notifying University Rules) 2004 University of the Sunshine Coast Act 1998— • University of the Sunshine Coast Statute No. 2 (Review of Payment Demand for the Removal and Detention of Vehicles) 2004 Workers' Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 2003— • Workers' Compensation and Rehabilitation Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 74 Government Owned Corporations Act 1993— • Government Owned Corporations (QTSC Corporatisation) Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 78 Transport and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2004— • Proclamation commencing certain provision, No. 79 Transport and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2004— • Proclamation commencing certain provisions, No. 80 1712 Papers 17 Aug 2004

Nature Conservation Act 1992— • Nature Conservation (Protected Areas) Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 81 Community Services (Aborigines) Act 1984— • Community Services (Aborigines) Amendment Regulation (No. 3) 2004, No. 82 Legal Profession Act 2004— • Proclamation commencing certain provisions, No. 83 Statutory Instruments Act 1992— • Statutory Instruments Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 84 Government Owned Corporations Act 1993, State Development and Public Works Organisation Act 1971, Transport Infrastructure Act 1994— • Government Owned Corporations (Central Queensland Ports Authority) Regulation 2004, No. 85 Duties Act 2001, Fuel Subsidy Act 1997, Land Tax Act 1915, Taxation Administration Act 2001— • Revenue Legislation Amendment Regulation (No. 2) 2004, No. 86 Electrical Safety Act 2002— • Electrical Safety Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 87 Industrial Relations Act 1999— • Industrial Relations (Tribunals) Amendment Rule (No. 1) 2004, No. 88 Building Act 1975, Public Health (Infection Control for Personal Appearance Services) Act 2003— • Public Health (Infection Control for Personal Appearance Services) and Another Regulation Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 89 Architects Act 2002, Professional Engineers Act 2002— • Public Works Legislation Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 90 Building and Construction Industry Payments Act 2004— • Proclamation commencing remaining provisions, No. 91 Building and Construction Industry Payments Act 2004— • Building and Construction Industry Payments Regulation 2004, No. 92 Police Powers and Responsibilities and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2003— • Proclamation commencing certain provision, No. 93 Police Service Administration Act 1990— • Police Service Legislation Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 94 Police Powers and Responsibilities Act 2000— • Police Powers and Responsibilities Amendment Regulation (No. 2) 2004, No. 95 Police Powers and Responsibilities Act 2000— • Police Powers and Responsibilities (Australian Rugby Union Test—Wallabies v England) Regulation 2004, No. 96 State Penalties Enforcement Act 1999— • State Penalties Enforcement Amendment Regulation (No. 2) 2004, No. 97 Transport Operations (Passenger Transport) Act 1994— • Transport Operations (Passenger Transport) Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 98 Transport Infrastructure Act 1994— • Transport Infrastructure (Ports) Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 99 Chemical Usage (Agricultural and Veterinary) Control Act 1988— • Chemical Usage (Agricultural and Veterinary) Control Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 100 Plant Protection Act 1989— • Plant Protection Amendment Regulation (No. 3) 2004, No. 101 Water Act 2000— • Water Amendment Regulation (No. 2) 2004, No. 102 Associations Incorporation Act 1981, Bills of Sale and Other Instruments Act 1955, Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997, Building Units and Group Titles Act 1980, Business Names Act 1962, Collections Act 1966, Commercial and Consumer Tribunal Act 2003, Cooperatives Act 1997, Funeral Benefit Business Act 1982, Introduction Agents Act 2001, Land Sales Act 1984, Liens on Crops of Sugar Cane Act 1931, Liquor Act 1992, Motor Vehicles and Boats Securities Act 1986, Partnership (Limited Liability) Act 1988, Property Agents and Motor Dealers Act 2000, Residential Services (Accreditation) Act 2002, Retirement Villages Act 1999, Security Providers Act 1993, Tourism Services Act 2003, Trade Measurement Administration Act 1990, Travel Agents Act 1988, Wine Industry Act 1994— • Tourism, Fair Trading and Wine Industry Development (Fees) Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 103 Environmental Protection Act 1994— • Environmental Protection Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 104 Ambulance Service Act 1991— • Ambulance Service Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 105 17 Aug 2004 Papers 1713

Legal Profession Act 2004— • Proclamation commencing certain provisions, No. 106 Legal Profession Act 2004— • Legal Profession (Barristers) Rule 2004, No. 107 Legal Profession Act 2004— • Legal Profession (Tribunal and Committee) Rule 2004, No. 108 Legal Profession Act 2004, Supreme Court of Queensland Act 1991, Trust Accounts Act 1973— • Legal Profession Regulation 2004, No. 109 Supreme Court of Queensland Act 1991— • Supreme Court (Legal Practitioner Admission) Rules 2004, No. 110 Fisheries Act 1994— • Fisheries Management Plans Amendment Management Plan (No. 1) 2004, No. 111 and Explanatory Notes and Regulatory Impact Statement for No. 111 Fisheries Act 1994— • Fisheries Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 112 and Explanatory Notes and Regulatory Impact Statement for No. 112 Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995— • Workplace Health and Safety (Industry Codes of Practice) Amendment Notice (No. 2) 2004, No. 113 Medical Practitioners Registration Act 2001, Psychologists Registration Act 2001— • Health Legislation Amendment Regulation (No. 2) 2004, No. 114 Supreme Court of Queensland Act 1991— • Uniform Civil Procedure Amendment Rule (No. 1) 2004, No. 115 Environmental Protection Act 1994, Forestry Act 1959, Marine Parks Act 1982, Nature Conservation Act 1992, Queensland Heritage Act 1992, Recreation Areas Management Act 1988— • Environmental Legislation Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 116 Plumbing and Drainage Act 2002— • Plumbing and Drainage Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 117 Second-hand Dealers and Pawnbrokers Act 2003— • Proclamation commencing remaining provisions, No. 118 Police Powers and Responsibilities Act 2000, Second-hand Dealers and Pawnbrokers Act 2003, State Penalties Enforcement Act 1999— • Second-hand Dealers and Pawnbrokers Regulation 2004, No. 119 and Explanatory Notes and Regulatory Impact Statement for No. 119 Gold Coast Motor Racing Events Act 1990— • Gold Coast Motor Racing Events Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 120 Plant Protection Act 1989— • Plant Protection (Canker) Quarantine Notice 2004, No. 121 Queensland Building Services Authority Act 1991— • Queensland Building Services Authority Amendment Regulation (No. 2) 2004, No. 122 Integrated Planning Act 1997— • Integrated Planning Amendment Regulation (No. 3) 2004, No. 123 Plant Protection Act 1989— • Plant Protection (Canker) Quarantine Amendment Notice (No. 1) 2004, No. 124 Statutory Bodies Financial Arrangements Act 1982— • Statutory Bodies Financial Arrangements Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 125 Grammar Schools Act 1975— • Grammar Schools Regulation 2004, No. 126 Surveyors Act 2003— • Proclamation commencing remaining provisions, No. 127 Surveyors Act 2003— • Surveyors Regulation 2004, No. 128 and Explanatory Notes and Regulatory Impact Statement for No. 128 Survey and Mapping Infrastructure Act 2003— • Proclamation commencing remaining provisions, No. 129 Survey and Mapping Infrastructure Act 2003— • Survey and Mapping Infrastructure Regulation 2004, No. 130 and Explanatory Notes for No. 130 Petroleum Act 1923— • Petroleum (Entry Permission—Tipperary Oil and Gas (Australia) Pty Ltd) Notice 2004, No. 131 1714 Papers 17 Aug 2004

Stock Act 1915— • Stock Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 132 Plant Protection Act 1989— • Plant Protection (Canker) Quarantine Amendment Notice (No. 2) 2004, No. 133 Superannuation (State Public Sector) Act 1990— • Superannuation (State Public Sector) Amendment of Deed Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 134 Private Health Facilities Act 1999— • Private Health Facilities Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 135 Public Records Act 2002— • Public Records Regulation 2004, No. 136 State Penalties Enforcement Act 1999— • State Penalties Enforcement Amendment Regulation (No. 3) 2004, No. 137 Vegetation Management Act 1999— • Vegetation Management Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 138 Forestry Act 1959, Nature Conservation Act 1992— • Forestry and Nature Conservation Legislation Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 139 Plant Protection Act 1989— • Plant Protection (Approved Sugarcane Varieties) Amendment Declaration (No. 2) 2004, No. 140 Child Safety Legislation Amendment Act 2004— • Proclamation commencing remaining provisions, No. 141 State Penalties Enforcement Act 1999, Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995— • Workplace Health and Safety Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 142 and Explanatory Notes for No. 142 Radiation Safety Act 1999— • Radiation Safety Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 143 Queensland Building Services Authority Act 1991— • Queensland Building Services Authority Amendment Regulation (No. 3) 2004, No. 144 Legal Profession Act 2004— • Legal Profession Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 145 State Penalties Enforcement Act 1999— • State Penalties Enforcement Amendment Regulation (No. 4) 2004, No. 146 Terrorism (Community Safety) Amendment Act 2004— • Proclamation commencing remaining provisions, No. 147 Government Owned Corporations Act 1993— • Government Owned Corporations Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 148 Police Powers and Responsibilities Act 2000— • Police Powers and Responsibilities Amendment Regulation (No. 3) 2004, No. 149 Adoption of Children Act 1964— • Adoption of Children Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 150 Water Act 2000— • Water Resource (Georgina and Diamantina) Plan 2004, No. 152 and Explanatory Notes for No. 152 Water Act 2000— • Water Resource (Condamine and Balonne) Plan 2004, No. 151 and Explanatory Notes for No. 151 Motor Accident Insurance Act 1994— • Motor Accident Insurance Regulation 2004, No. 153 Food Act 1981, Health Act 1937, Health Services Act 1991, Pest Management Act 2001, Radiation Safety Act 1999— • Health Legislation Amendment Regulation (No. 3) 2004, No. 154 Racing Act 2002— • Racing Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 155 Jury Act 1995— • Jury Amendment Regulation (No. 1) 2004, No. 156 State Penalties Enforcement Act 1999— • State Penalties Enforcement Amendment Regulation (No. 5) 2004, No. 157 Supreme Court of Queensland Act 1991— • Supreme Court (Legal Practitioner Admission) Amendment Rule (No. 1) 2004, No. 158 State Penalties Enforcement Act 1999, Transport Operations (Marine Safety) Act 1994— • Transport Operations (Marine Safety) Regulation 2004, No. 159 and Explanatory Notes and Regulatory Impact Statement for No. 159 17 Aug 2004 Ministerial Statement 1715

PAPER TABLED BY THE CLERK The following paper was tabled by The Clerk— Chair, Estimates Committee D (Mr Poole)— • Estimates Committee D—Report 2004 • Estimates Committee D—Additional Information Volume 2004

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

Smart State Hon. P.D. BEATTIE (Brisbane Central—ALP) (Premier and Minister for Trade) (9.35 a.m.): Since parliament last sat on 18 June, the Smart State has continued moving ahead and I want to report today on some of those advances. Our strategies are building a new Queensland. I table a copy of the Smart State progress report for the information of all members. In July the government published a 44-page Smart State strategy progress report dealing with how we have invested more than $2.4 million in innovation, science and research. I table the report for the information of the House. The state has continued to grow and develop. I turned the first sod in the development of a $70 million University of Queensland Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation at Kelvin Grove. Cabinet approved an ethanol blueprint containing a 34-point action plan. I table that blueprint for the information of members. I also table a schedule of the roadshow which leaves today highlighting ethanol and what it means for Queensland. I hope all members will support it. Our TransLink program took a giant step forward with the introduction in July of integrated ticketing for public transport, putting 143 railway stations, 1,500 buses and 18 ferries on the one system. We opened the $127 million Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre. We announced $8.5 million for the Great Artesian Basin to ensure better water management. In addition, the national water initiatives were among key topics discussed at COAG on 25 June along with counter-terrorism. In a victory for Australian patients, COAG also agreed to examine the placement of GPs in or near our public hospitals. We also had a commitment from COAG to examine the role of grandparents as carers. I table a copy of the COAG communique. In early July in the tourism area the Environment Minister and I opened the first of the six Great Walks, and I table details of the first of those Great Walks for the information of all members. We also launched the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership, headed by Noel Pearson. We also moved to improve safety in the professional divers industry. Cabinet endorsed a public consultation paper on proposals to regulate the industry, and I table the diving industry regulatory impact statement for the information of members. I am also delighted to report that Dr Robin Sullivan has been appointed as the Director-General of the new Child Safety Department. We are moving to fix that problem. The government also announced an extra $10 million for the Brisbane Housing Company and committed a further $73,298 to the joint inner city homelessness response project. We launched a partnership between the Brisbane Airport Corporation and Queensland University of Technology to conduct research projects focusing on the airport environment. The Minister for Emergency Services and I also formally accepted HMAS Brisbane, which will become a dive site for the world's divers. The government also announced a review headed by the Under Treasurer, Gerard Bradley, that will examine the payment of executive bonuses by government owned corporations and other agencies where bonuses apply. We also opened the first round of public consultation for the final stage of development of South Bank in Brisbane, and I table an artist's impression of that development. The government announced that we will also examine homework for schoolchildren. Mr Speaker, you and I announced a date for the historic sitting of parliament in central Queensland on 4, 5 and 6 October 2005 in Rockhampton. As well, I presented cheques of $3,850 each to three charities—St Vincent de Paul, the Salvation Army and the Muscular Dystrophy Association. These were the proceeds of an auction of gifts to premiers, ministers and parliamentary secretaries, which highlights the accountability and openness of this government. I table for the information of all members material on the outcomes of the auction including a tax invoice with details in individual lots. I also table two letters I have sent covering packages of gifts including books forwarded to worthy organisations. These parcels were forwarded to the Shanghai polytechnic university and the Chinese Club of Queensland. I seek leave to have the rest of my ministerial statement incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. 1716 Ministerial Statement 17 Aug 2004

These were the proceeds of an auction of gifts to Premiers, Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries, that raised $11,550. I thank former Premier Rob Borbidge for his co-operation in this process, which involved a number of items given to him. Amid a continuing successful assault on public hospital waiting lists, the Health Minister and I revealed a plan to reduce waits for Category 3 (non urgent) surgery and oral health. The Minister for State Development and I outlined how the Brisbane Cruise Ship Terminal may be even bigger than originally planned. We held community cabinet meetings at Innisfail and the EKKA, and at the EKKA I joined three Outback mayors to launch Australia's Dinosaur Trail.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

Trade Mission to Chile, Brazil and United States Hon. P.D. BEATTIE (Brisbane Central—ALP) (Premier and Minister for Trade) (9.39 a.m.): What I demonstrated is that this government is getting on with the business of turning Queensland into the Smart State and ensuring that we have the future we want for all Queenslanders. As part of my reporting mechanism, in June I tabled a summary of my trade and investment mission to Chile, Brazil and the United States of America where I led a major biotechnology delegation to BIO 2004. At the time I announced that I would table a highly detailed report at a later date. Today I honour that commitment and table a full report together with documentation relevant to that mission. I am pleased to table the report. It covers that trip to Chile, Brazil and the United States in May-June 2004. I also table accompanying material, indexes and attachments, and I seek leave to have the rest of that ministerial statement incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. I am pleased to table the Report of my trade and investment mission to Chile, Brazil and the United States in May/June 2004. I have previously reported to Parliament in a number of ministerial statements, but am pleased now to provide a more detailed report on the mission. Since becoming Premier, I have placed considerable importance and priority on seeking out new markets for Queensland business. Given the population and location of Australia, and the resultant costs of doing business on other continents, it is vital that our State continually promotes itself in our target markets and place before Governments, business and opinion leaders the very real advantages of doing business with Queensland and Australia. Clearly we have over a long period, built up strong relationships in Europe and in the United States, and we certainly need to continually build on those historical relationships for our economic growth. At the same time however, I am very keen to open up new opportunities in new markets, and to this end became the first Australian leader to visit Chile and Brazil. Without question, the outstanding achievement of my mission was securing an agreement from President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva for joint co-operation on developing an ethanol export industry. Over the past couple of years in particular, public debate has seen Brazil as a major competitor, and even an enemy, of our own sugar industry. However, Brazil has considerable expertise and experience, and we need to use that expertise in developing our ethanol industry, and then hopefully joining Brazil in exporting ethanol to countries like Japan. It became clear during my discussions in Brazil that it recognises that Japan is insistent on having diverse sources of ethanol and is not prepared to rely on just one source. Therefore, an arrangement between Brazil and Queensland could lead to significant opportunities for both of us in Japan, and that was the basis of my agreement with the President of Brazil. Following on from the meeting with President da Silva came the organisation of an Ethanol Roadshow by both our Governments, commencing this week in Queensland. Without question, this is the time to build an ethanol export industry in Queensland and I believe that my visit to Brazil was a significant step towards that goal, both for the Queensland industry, and for a future partnership with Brazil. My Government will continue to promote the use of ethanol. This is clearly good public policy and essential for the future needs of our country. The success of my discussions on ethanol was unquestionably assisted by the attendance of a significant Queensland sugar delegation, co-ordinated by the Deputy Director-General of the Queensland Department of State Development and Innovation, Mr Bob McCarthy. The sugar delegation, as well as having a comprehensive itinerary of meetings and visits in several locations in Brazil, linked in with my program in Sao Paulo. As well as gaining an excellent overview of the sugar and ethanol industries in Brazil, the sugar delegation provided me with advice and information to assist my own meetings. My visit to Brazil and the future collaboration in research and commercial co-operation in sugar cane production technologies, sugar milling and ethanol technologies, sugar co-product developments, aviation and mining technologies and beef production, will be of great advantage to our state. My trip followed an earlier visit by our then Minister for State Development, the Hon Tom Barton, and significant work undertaken by the Queensland Office for the Americas, based in Los Angeles, California. Commissioner Bob Gibbs and his team are continuing to consolidate and develop Queensland's links in South America. The fact that, with new airline schedules, South America is so much easier to reach for Queensland is going to ensure that our relationships continue to expand. Queensland business is already doing good business in South American counties like Brazil and Chile, and is highly regarded. 17 Aug 2004 Ministerial Statement 1717

For example in Santiago, Chile I opened the new regional headquarters of Mincom, the Queensland based Software Company, which has been winning major contracts in South America. Queensland food is to be stocked by Jumbo, the major Chilean supermarket chain, which I visited whilst in the capital of Chile. I am particularly excited with the fact that a number of Queensland companies will be seen on Jumbo Supermarket's shelves, especially since Jumbo Supermarkets has a turnover of more than $2 billion US per annum. The Queensland companies so far lined up to provide products for Jumbo in Chile, are Golden Circle, Wicked Products, Buderim Ginger, Sunkist Gold Macadamias and Meriram. Without question the close links that the University of Queensland is developing with Codelco is going to pay great dividends in the future, not only for the UQ/Codelco relationship, but for the impact of Queensland in Chile generally. My visit to Chile enabled me to meet with Government officials and with key leaders of major business enterprises in that country including Antofagasta Minerals, which is one of the world's largest copper producers. The exciting news for Queensland is that Antofagasta have recently upgraded to the latest version of Minco's software product, Mincom Ellipse, a $500,000 contract, and is keen to look for other opportunities in our State. In addition, a Gold Coast based company, Electrometals Technologies, has won a contract worth nearly $1 million to build a plant for Technologios de Recicloje in Chile. My visit to South America, Chile—Brazil—served to give Queensland a high profile during both visits, and we must ensure that the benefits of the trip are consolidated and that priority is given to increasing our links and building relationships. The last part of my trip involved my attendance, for the sixth year in a row, at the Biotechnology Conference BIO 2004 in San Francisco. Because of the Government's demonstrated priority for biotechnology as a key feature of our Smart State plans, my regular attendance with a large Queensland contingent of scientists each year for the past six years, and the great achievements of Queensland's biotechnology industry, Queensland has a high profile at BIO, and considerable new business opportunities were developed by members of the Queensland delegation this year. Our continuing priority accorded to biotechnology is likely to employ some 10,000 people and generate $4 billion in revenue by the year 2025. Queensland hosted a number of events and meetings throughout my four days at BIO 2004, and of course with the agreement signed between all States of Australia, witnessed by the Federal Government representative in San Francisco, we are building a formidable Australian presence on the world biotechnology stage. I was particularly impressed by the meeting I attended, along with the Minister for State Development and Innovation, the Hon Tony McGrady, with the Queensland Biotechnology North America Council. Members of this Council are key people in the US biotechnology community, working with our staff in the Queensland Office for the Americas, and they continue to look for new opportunities for the Queensland biotechnology industry. For example, I subsequently met with representatives of major Washington State biotechnology organisations, who are working with the Council and with Queensland's Chief Scientist on possible collaborations with Queensland. At BIO 2004 I announced that the Smart State Research Facility Fund will provide a total of $34 million in third round of funding for seven projects. The $34 million comprises: • $8.1M to the University of Queensland to establish a Queensland Preclinical Drug Development Facility in Brisbane; • $3.5M to the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) to establish Queensland Crop Development Facilities at Ormiston and QUT's Gardens Point campus in Brisbane; • $9.5M to the University of Queensland to establish a Centre for Advanced Animal Science at Gatton; • $3.0M to the Mater Medical Research Institute in Brisbane to support cancer and other disease research; • $5M to the Queensland University of Technology to establish a Medical Engineering Research Facility; • $2.2 million to the University of Queensland to expand the Queensland Hypersonic Testing Facility Centre in Brisbane and Toowoomba; and • $2.52 million to the Queensland Institute of Medical Research to establish a Queensland Viral Testing and Product Characterisation Centre in Brisbane. I also announced other funding, including: • $5 million towards the development of a Queensland Clinical Trials Network which will be a one-stop shop for overseas or interstate companies which want to conduct drug trials in Queensland; • $4.7 million for a Smart State Health and Medical Research Fund to support and encourage Queensland's health and medical researchers; • $3 million towards the establishment of a Centre for New Foods. While at BIO 2004 I also announced: • The 2004 recipients of the Smart State Fellowship Fund which was created to attract and retain world-class scientists; • Biotech company Panbio will move most of its American manufacturing operations to Queensland, creating more than 50 new high-tech jobs; • A simultaneous ICT mission to Canada; • The creation of a network for expatriates working in high tech industries so that the Queensland-based Australian Institute for Commercialisation could use their expertise and contacts to create mentoring and investment opportunities; • The release of a report Queensland Bioindustries 1999-2004 which forecasts that if the Government continues to give biotechnology a high priority, the industry will employ 2,500 people by 2010 and 10,000 by 2025; • The release of a new, 175-page directory designed to showcase the Smart State's strengths in scientific research and development to the world (and I table a copy of the directory); • The holding of the 2004 World Congress on Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics in Brisbane, attracting about 1,500delegates; the 2004 Ausbiotech National Conference in Brisbane, attracting about 1,500 delegates; the 2004 1718 Ministerial Statement 17 Aug 2004

International Strawberry Symposium on the Sunshine Coast, attracting about 300 delegates; the marketing in California of two Queensland-developed strawberry varieties; Griffith University researchers were promoting their work on developing a skin cancer vaccine technology; the way in which the Queensland delegation to BIO 2002 had led to the commercial development of VitroGro, a QUT product to accelerate the healing of wounds; the awarding by the US Food and Drug Authority of Orphan Drug status to Progen Industries' PI-88 drug for the treatment of malignant melanoma and other cancers. Another priority for me on each visit to the United States is to renew our contacts with the film industry in Los Angeles, which is so important to the development of our own film industry here in Queensland. On this occasion I met with representatives of Disney and talked with them about some exciting plans for the future. I was tremendously impressed with the success of Australia Week in LA early this year. It clearly made a big impact, and the profile it generated for Australia, and all States taking part, including Queensland, was significant. Much of the credit lies with the foresight and tenacity of the Australian Consul-General in Los Angeles, the Hon John Olsen. Our office in LA also provided considerable support. Accordingly, I was pleased to announce whilst in LA, that Queensland will contribute $100,000 to Australia Week in 2005. The Report on this overseas trip outlines in greater detail a number of the meetings held and outcomes of those meetings. Most importantly the trip served to renew our contacts in the United States, especially in the field of biotechnology and the film industry, resulted in a giant leap forward for our priority work on building an ethanol industry and supporting the Queensland sugar industry, and opened up new vistas in South America through the developing contacts in Chile and Brazil. My wife, Dr Heather Beattie, also accompanied me on the South America leg of the trip. As well has jointly hosting and attending a range of events and meetings with me; she had her own separate program, focused particularly on her particular professional interests of nursing and health. Her separate report to Parliament on that program will also be tabled. I am very grateful to Commissioner Bob Gibbs and his staff in the Queensland Office of the Americas, not only for the organisational arrangements for both the South American and US legs of the trip, but for the continuing work they are doing in building Queensland's profile and promoting Queensland business with targeted companies and with Government and business generally in the countries concerned. I am also appreciative of the assistance given by Australia's Consul-General in Los Angeles (the Hon John Olsen), the Australian Ambassador to Chile (Her Excellency Elizabeth Schick), and the Australian Ambassador to Brazil (His Excellency Mr John Sullivan) for the superb work they do for Queensland and for Australia, and most especially for their support for my mission and the generosity of their time and advice given throughout this particular trip.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

Trade Mission to China, Hong Kong and Thailand Hon. P.D. BEATTIE (Brisbane Central—ALP) (Premier and Minister for Trade) (9.40 a.m.): I recently completed a very successful and highly productive 10-day trade and investment mission to China, Hong Kong and Thailand, leading a delegation of more than 50 business leaders from the Smart State. It is crucial, as you know, for the state government to increase exports because one in five jobs depends on exports, a figure that rises to one in four in our regions. I table accompanying material, which is the five boxes on the table, together with two indices which highlight what is in them. As members know, I am determined to report fully on these overseas trade and investment missions, and no-one can say that I do not. I seek leave to incorporate the rest of that ministerial statement in Hansard. Leave granted. The tremendous results from this mission prove that Queensland is punching above its weight in increasing trade opportunities and job creation. I was the first Australian premier to visit Thailand after the signing of the Australia-Thailand free trade agreement and spent an hour talking about trade opportunities with Prime Minister Dr Thaksin Shinawatra. We had both just visited Brazil and agreed that it makes sense to co-operate on creating ethanol industries and on export strategies. I am delighted that on behalf of Queensland, the engine room of Australia, I signed an initial three-year agreement covering trade, investment and tourism with China's engine room, the province of Guangdong. It was a tremendous achievement to open the door to business opportunities with a province of 86 million people in the Pearl River Delta, which boasts it is the fastest growing region of the fastest growing large economy. It also claims the largest amount of imports and exports in China and is home to millions of the biggest spenders in China, with the highest rate of consumer spending on travel, telecommunications and foreign education in China. I also renewed the State's cooperation agreement with China's biggest city, Shanghai, which, after input from our trade and investment office, has signed a deal with AVESCO to stage V8 Supercar races at its new track. I also spent an hour talking about trade opportunities with one of the most senior leaders of China's 1.3 billion people, Vice- Premier Zeng Peiyan, who is the equivalent of deputy prime minister. He said he would instruct officials to visit the Aurukun bauxite lease. I believe that as a result of this mission we may attract two bids for the Aurukun bauxite lease. I held meetings in Thailand to emphasise that Queensland companies have the Smart State credentials to win contracts under Thailand's $45 billion transport initiatives in Bangkok. Many agreements and contracts were signed throughout the mission, including a $14 million clean coal technology contract and an agreement with one of Thailand's biggest companies, the CP Group. I urge members and business leaders to read the full report which I now table. As Minister for Trade I have been determined to build an export culture in Queensland. This is because one job in every five depends on exports, a figure that rises to one in four in the regions. I have said that 2004 would be a year of exports and have already led three targeted trade and investment missions this year. As I have indicated, I will be leading a fourth trade and investment mission—to Japan and India next month. 17 Aug 2004 Ministerial Statement 1719

I have tabled in Parliament the full details of the previous trips.

On each one of these trips I have been accompanied by a substantial business delegation and that will continue.

As part of my accountability and determination to build an export culture, I have also encouraged media representatives to accompany me on these trips.

I was accompanied by Channels 9 and 7 to Israel and by The Courier Mail to South America and the United States.

I have been disappointed by the lack of media coverage of the positive results achieved during these missions because this could have helped accelerate the development of an export culture.

Coverage would also inform the public of my activities, showing them that the media was keeping me accountable.

For these reasons I am disappointed that media organisations have generally been unwilling to accompany me on these missions where they can make their own assessments.

All I can do is to continue to encourage media to accompany me.

Too often some media just seek to criticise trade missions without understanding their benefit to the economy, in that one in every five jobs depends on exports, a figure that rises to one in four in the regions.

I am determined to increase the number of Queensland companies which will create new jobs through becoming exporters.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

Trade and Investment Missions

Hon. P.D. BEATTIE (Brisbane Central—ALP) (Premier and Minister for Trade) (9.41 a.m.): This year so far the business delegates who have accompanied me on three trade and investment missions have generated or are in the process of generating close to $40 million in business outcomes. This is in addition to the expected long-term business outcomes of $33 million from the Queensland attendance at BIO 2004. From time to time I get questions about the results of these trips. I am tabling today details of these trips to highlight exactly what they mean for this economy. Here are the results. I seek leave to incorporate the rest of my ministerial statement in Hansard, along with comments from participants from business and a detailed analysis headed 'Examples of 2004 trade mission activities and successes'. This is a lot of detail, but it highlights just how hardworking these trade missions are and why they are worth every cent. Leave granted.

Examples of 2004 Trade Mission Activities and Successes

Hong Kong

Birkdale Nursery Tour Birkdale Nursery has a state of the art, 200 Increased hectare Qld nursery in Zhuai, Guangdong to horticulture sale supply horticulture products to the Chinese market. In November 2001 Disney confirmed Birkdale Nursery as the contract supplier of nursery products and services to the theme park in Hong Kong. The contract is for $20 Million. Golden Circle Product 25 companies had their product launched in the 4 companies have Launch GrEAT Food Hall in this promotion. 4 have secured export secured their first export orders. orders.

University of Contract The signing event was reported on a number of Southern the major newspapers in Hong Kong, amongst Queensland them the Hong Kong Economic Times and the Sing Tao Daily News - the highlights on 'good start for Nurse training project'…'the first time such a program being introduced in Hong Kong'.

1720 Ministerial Statement 17 Aug 2004

Israel

The University of MOU signed 2 MOUs signed between UQ and The Increased Queensland’s Agricultural Research Organisation of Israel; collaboration Centre for Native Floriculture

Cavalier Homes and Joint Venture Cavalier Homes JV with IATA in building $220,000 initial Israel- Australia homes in Israel. contract Trade Assist (IATA) Potential for 90-100 homes per year. SAP’s Queensland Contract Primary IT solutions provider for the Israeli Corporate Research Gov’t Centre

Ireland

Irish Minister For MOU & Mr Brennan strengthened Queensland’s ties Transport Inbound with Ireland and laid the groundwork for a Mission Queensland business mission to Ireland in October this year.

Irish Minister For Staff As a result, the Qld DPW is to second further Continuation of Finance Exchange personnel as part of an exchange with the Irish personnel exchange Government. Representatives of the Irish Ministry of Finance visited Queensland in June. QLD DPW is to provide further consultancy services to the Ministry of Finance in Dublin

Irish Health Minister, Meeting Promoted Queensland technology to save Water and energy HE Michael Martin, about $250,000 a year at every major hospital saving technology TD through energy and water. After the test transfer programs produce the forecast savings, the Queensland Government and the companies involved will market and sell the intellectual property. Sinclair Knight Merz Joint Venture SKM is the lead design engineer in a joint QLD input into (SKM) – Luas Light venture for the design and construction of the design and Rail project $1 billion light rail project in Dublin. construction of light rail project

ADP & Smithfield Joint Venture The total value of the Smithfield Markets More jobs in Markets Urban redevelopment project is approximately A$265 Brisbane Redevelopment million. This is a 3 year and commenced in project August 2002. JV Cost Management Consulting, which will be providing the full scope of Quantity Surveying services for the developer, Fusano Properties. About 30% percent of the quantity surveying for the project will be done by ADP in Brisbane. APD expects to expand its Brisbane team due to projects won in Ireland, and is expecting to increase its current team working in Ireland from 9 to 12. Aughinish Alumina Contract Contract between Worley and the Aughinish Multi-million dollar Refinery visit Alumina Refinery. contract for Worley

17 Aug 2004 Ministerial Statement 1721

United Kingdom

Minister Patricia Inbound The British Government will sponsor a biotech Sponsorship for Bio Hewitt, UK Mission mission of 12-15 British companies to mission to QLD Secretary for Trade Queensland for the Ausbiotech 2004 & Industry and conference in November. Minister for Women Cutting Edge Statement of Signed a statement of intent with Granada $600K Intent Television to compile the raw footage and story-line for the TV giant's latest reality series “Hell's Kitchen” $600,000 contract. Calthapharm Q-daily Product Launched 6 Q-Daily products - developed by Anticipated sales products Launch Sunshine Coast sugar technologist Graeme are $3.3 million Brewer. Medihoney, (a Product Release of a hospital study findings showing Leading to subsidiary of Promotion the special honey based cream inhibits the increased sales Capilano Honey) golden staph superbug, and helps heal wounds. In discussions with Community Foods, one of the UK’s leading natural products distributors. Onyvax Research Promotion of Queensland’s bio-tech research R&D collaboration Deal capabilities which has contributed to a London- Brisbane biotech partnership being extended to start tackling kidney cancer and other malignancies.

Bundaberg Brewed Product Brewed soft drinks were launched in Britain’s Drinks’ Launch Costco supermarket chain. United Kingdom Investment UKSA plans to invest a further $400,000 in its $1 million in direct Sailing Academy international centre at Mooloolaba. The spending by (UKSA) academy will start a Yacht Training course in + 300 students November, generating a further $200,000 by generating about $2 chartering two local yachts for nearly six million months. In 2004-05 financial year it expects 300 international students to attend its six- week courses generating turnover of approx. $2 million. The centre will spend $400,000 on new equipment. HOK Sport and Project HOK Sport+Venue has a role in about 850 Sport infrastructure Mike Driscoll & Update sports projects worldwide, including the Associates (MDA) redevelopment of Wimbledon tennis centre, Wembley Stadium, Royal Ascot Racecourse and Arsenal Stadium, as well as leading London's master plan bid for the 2012 Olympic Games. MDA specialises maximising financial returns from retail, merchandising and food and drink outlets at sporting event and has been working on the Wembley and Royal Ascot projects with HOK. Weathered Howe Weathered Howe is part of the consortium Multimillion $ undertaking the master plan for London's bid partnership over for the 2012 Olympics and has been short next 3 years listed for the Indy circuit to be developed in Korea. Negotiations on a multimillion dollar partnership will be concluded within the next 3 months”. This will require a “major increase in capital base for expansion of overseas opportunities”. Ingeus Meeting Ingenus has won a contract to source jobs for Education promotion people with disabilities in Birmingham (UK’s 2nd largest city). Currently in advanced negotiations with the French Government.

1722 Ministerial Statement 17 Aug 2004

United Kingdom (contd)

Study Queensland Product Launch of a “Study Queensland” Gap Year Student attraction Gap Year website Launch website offering information designed to meet the needs of UK students looking for a destination for their Gap Year break.

Sports Theme Networking As a result of the Sports Theme lunch, QGTIO Lunch Europe has been invited to apply for membership of a network which will pursue opportunities arising from London’s bid for the 2012 Olympic Games. Tourism Product Met with the Chairman and CEO of Trailfinders Inbound tourism Queensland Promotion which helped cement a major co-operative Increase by about marketing campaign due to run in October this 1200 from UK year. The campaign will see an estimated additional 1,200 British visitors to Queensland.

China

China Government Meeting Meeting with HE Zeng Peiyan Vice Premier of (Beijing) China reinforced the government’s commitment to support closer economic, political and cultural ties with China. He Zeng Peiyan made it clear to me that China would be taking part in the bidding process for the Aurukun bauxite mining lease and said he would instruct officials to visit Queensland.

Flight Training Contract The Premier congratulated Flight Training Australia (Beijing) Australia on its latest aviation training agreement in China with Sheyang Institute of Aeronautical Engineering University. Under the agreement, Flight Training Australia will teach the University's staff basic aeronautical knowledge which will be followed up by Flight Training Australia's instructors going to China to teach aviation English and theory. This is the precursor to the students coming to Queensland early next year to learn to fly. Aluminium Inbound Mr Xiao Yaqing, Chairman of Chalco confirmed Corporation of China Mission that Chalco has set up a taskforce to prepare for Ltd (CHALCO) Aurukun international bidding. The taskforce is (Beijing) led by Mr Luo Jiangchuan, Executive Vice President of Chalco, who has visited Queensland last week with a Chinese investment mission for further discussion of Aurukun project. Griffith University Joint Venture The Premier witnessed the signing of an R&D joint venture (Beijing) agreement between Griffith University and Peking University to research and develop a complementary medicine program with the intention of commercialising results. With a commitment of an initial grant of A$100,000 from David Catsoulis, of the Healing Power, Professor Cordia Chu, of Griffith University, and Professor Liu Jinchen, of Peking University, will build a team of Chinese and Australian researchers to begin work in assessing, testing and refining 13 different herbal medicines with an initial focus on kidney diseases.

17 Aug 2004 Ministerial Statement 1723

China (contd)

Griffith University Contract The Premier witnessed an agreement between Export of QLD (Beijing) Griffith University and China University of expertise in sports Political Science and Law to export its sports law law expertise to China. This agreement is particularly important in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics and a further International Sports Conference is proposed to be held following the Athens Olympics Games Conference in Beijing in November with international keynote speakers from the Athens Conference. Kensington Contract The Premier witnessed the signing of an 3 QLD teachers for Education agreement for Kensington Education China International (Beijing) International to deliver English language courses to the China Red Cross Society Foundation Beijing Bacui Bilingual School. It will lead to the employment of three teachers in China and support staff in Queensland. Successful graduates of the courses will be able to obtain direct access to Queensland Universities, providing further job opportunities. Southern Skies Contract The Premier witnessed the signing of an Youth event Events (Beijing) agreement between Peter Armstrong, Director of Southern Skies Events, and Beijing International Sports Exchange Centre to stage an international youth event in China next year. They will present the first annual China Stars International Friendship Games in Beijing in August 2005. Queensland Letter of The Premier witnessed the signing of the Letter Training of pre- Ambulance Service, Intent of Intent between Queensland Ambulance hospital staff QUT and the Service and Queensland University of Emergency Branch of Technology and the Emergency Branch of Chinese Hospital Chinese Hospital Associations. The agreement Association (Beijing) outlines how the organisations are planning to develop university award courses and other training programs for Chinese pre-hospital care staff. The letter of intent is expected to result in a substantial economic boost for Queensland, the creation of new jobs in teaching and an international advertisement for our Ambulance system. JSIS Engineering Contract The Premier witnessed the signing of an JSIS will provide (Beijing) agreement between Mackay company JSIS technology/product Engineering and the Zoucheng Tiangong and technical support Electrical and Mechanical Equipment Company. Under this agreement JSIS will provide the technology/product and technical support to Zoucheng Tiangong in return for access to their Chinese mining network and sales & marketing support. IATCA Corporation Contract The Premier congratulated Queensland training English (Beijing) certifier IATCA Corporation for signing an communications skills agreement with the Civil Aviation Management course to Chinese air Institute of China to deliver an English traffic controllers communications skills course to Chinese air traffic controllers. Huaneng Group Office in Huaneng confirmed that they will establish a Rep office in (Beijing) Queensland representative office in Brisbane to follow up its Brisbane power station investment in Queensland and is interested in more investment opportunities. ComEnergy Contract The Premier witnessed the signing of a contract $14million contract (Zhengzhou) between Queensland company ComEnergy and involves Hebi using Hebi Coal Industry Group valued at A$14 million. technology The contract involves Hebi using technology developed by developed by ComEnergy in Queensland to ComEnergy generate power from coal-mining waste and mine methane.

1724 Ministerial Statement 17 Aug 2004

China (contd)

Shanghai MOU In Shanghai, The Premier signed the 7th New agreement Government Memorandum of Agreed Co-operation with includes opportunities (Shanghai) Shanghai Mayor, Han Zheng. for collaboration on The new agreement focuses on co-operation in a major infrastructure, number of key areas, including sustainable construction and economic development, education, health, arts training projects and government-to-government relations. The new agreement includes opportunities for collaboration on major infrastructure, construction and training projects which arise from events such as the Expo (Shanghai is the host of World Expo 2010).

Shanghai Airlines Meeting Australian Consul-General in Shanghai agreed to (Shanghai) arrange a meeting with Shanghai Airlines for the Hon. Tom Burns AO during his visit in September 2004 to discuss potential direct flight between Shanghai and Brisbane. TAFE (Shanghai) In Shanghai, The Premier officiated at the Queensland TAFE graduation ceremony for 120 students attending at Shanghai Secondary Polytechnic University.

Educational links have also resulted in hundreds of Shanghai students visiting Queensland for study tours during summer and winter holidays to learn English and experience Queensland life and culture. AVESCO (Shanghai) Contract The Premier witnessed the signing of an This 5 year contract agreement between Gold Coast based guarantees China will Australian Vee Eight Supercar Company host one of the 13 (AVESCO), Greenland Group and Shanghai rounds of the V8 International Circuit. This 5 year contract Super Car guarantees China will host one of the 13 rounds championship series of the V8 Super Car championship series a year a year in Shanghai. in Shanghai.

It is understood that this event will be seen live on Chinese free to air television and will opens a number of commercial opportunities for AVESCO and the V8 Supercar teams. Bundaberg Brewed Product In Guangzhou, The Premier launched the Additional sales. Drinks Launch Queensland Food Exhibition at the Park’n Shop Golden Circle Golden Circle Megastore, showcasing products from 10 secured an order for Parmalat (Pauls Milk) Queensland food and drink producers. This is 2 containers of Capilano Honey the first time that Queensland products have packaged juice and (Guangzhou) been featured in a promotion in mainland China. shipment will be in The event was well covered in the major Chinese the next 4 months. newspaper and local TV media, over 25 journalists attended the Opening. As a result of the promotion, 4 companies are in business discussions with Park N’ Shop to supply directly to the supermarkets in China.

17 Aug 2004 Ministerial Statement 1725

China (contd)

Deputy Mayor of Meeting The Premier held talks with the Deputy Mayor of Guangzhou HE Chen Guangzhou HE Chen Mingde and members of Mingde (Guangzhou) the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade in Guangzhou to strengthen business ties and create new business opportunities for Queensland. Potential projects for co-operation include water supply, and management, environmental protection technology and urban planning and design. There are also opportunities for Queensland food and wine exporters. Accounting Education Joint Venture The Premier presented certificates to More jobs in Qld. Institute at Kangda outstanding students at the Accounting College Education Institute at Kangda College, a joint University of venture between the University of Southern Southern Queensland and South China Normal University. Queensland This institute is not only producing results for the (Guangzhou) Chinese students but it is also producing results for Queensland, with fees boosting the economy and with 17 new jobs for Queensland so far. - Senior Management from the South China Normal University (the partner identified by QGTIO Hong Kong to jointly offer the Accounting program with USQ in South China) were impressed by the keen support of the Queensland Premier on the program; - USQ benefited in strengthening further this ongoing good working relationship and a well sustained partnership with one of the top 10 universities in South China on a collaboration which has enormous opportunity for growth to continue the increase in student in-takes. - The event was reported in the major Chinese newspapers distribution in Hong Kong as well as all major cities in China. The contract is for $2.5 Million. Maroochy Water Joint Venture The Premier witnessed the signing of a joint Services partner agreement between Maroochy Water (Guangzhou) Services and Agile Holdings Ltd for the treatment of waste water in Guangdong valued at A$4 million. Governor of MOU The Premier met with the Governor of Potential bid for Guangdong Province Guangdong Province, He Huang Huahua and $100K in (Guangzhou) signed a MOU on the Promoting of Friendly environmental Exchanges between the State of Queensland services and the Guangdong Province. - As a result of Premier's visit, Jiangmen delegation led by Jiangmen Party Secretary and Executive Vice Mayor will visit Queensland to finalize the master planning contract for 108 sq km new district in Jiangmen. - Dah Chong Hong Mission to Queensland to finalize partnership with Queensland Environmental Industry to bid for project in China valued at A$250 million. The contract is for $100,000

1726 Ministerial Statement 17 Aug 2004

China (contd)

Queensland Networking Attended a networking function in support of the Business Delegation Queensland business delegation. (Guangzhou) 2 buying missions from Guangzhou and senior delegation visit by the CCPIT Chairman and Port - Custom DG are scheduled to visit Queensland in Sept/Oct 2004. About 120 guests attended the networking event and the Premier met with the major clients and companies in Guangzhou. Follow-up discussions on some major buying missions to Queensland and also promotion events to be staged in Southern China.

France/Austria/Vienna

Australian Food As a result of the meeting, the Ambassador Ambassador To promotion has expressed interest in organising a Austria, H.E. Ms promotion of Queensland’s food and wine Deborah Stokes products in Austria (Austria) Frequentis (Vienna) Investment Announced that aviation company, Frequentis, New HQ in is establishing its Australasian regional Brisbane, creating headquarters in Queensland. . 15-20 new jobs

European Contract Following this visit, Department of Defence EADS and Qantas Aeronautical selected EADS to supply 5 air refueling Defense Services Defence and Space tankers to RAAF worth approximately $2 will have the (EADS) (France) billion. Queensland has been chosen by modification of the EADS and Qantas Defence Services for both A330 aircraft and the modification of the A330 aircraft and the the heavy heavy maintenance. This will mean significant maintenance done investment in Queensland and creation of in QLD. jobs.

Chile

Mincom & Contract Mincom has won a $500,000 contract to $500,000 Antofagasta Minerals upgrade its Ellipse software used by PLC Antofagasta Minerals, one of the world's largest copper producers. Official opening of Mincom's new Latin American headquarters office in the Chilean capital of Santiago Electrometals Contract Electrometals Technologies Ltd that uses Plant sold worth Technologies Limited electrochemical technology to reclaim metals $920,000 has been awarded a contract to build a 600 square metre plant in Chile worth $920,000. The plant sold to Tecnologios de Recicloje in Santiago will use Electrometal’s patented technology to recover powdered zinc metal from hazardous zinch waste. Golden Circle Product Six Queensland companies will be supplying New sales of food Wicked Products, Launch processed food products to Chilean retail giant products to Chile Bundaberg Brewed Jumbo Supermarkets which is the largest and Drinks Buderim fastest growing supermarket chain in Latin Ginger America with a turnover of more than US$2 Meriram and billion per annum. This is a result of a previous Suncoast Gold visit in September 2003 to Queensland by Macadamias Jumbo Supermarkets.

17 Aug 2004 Ministerial Statement 1727

Brazil

Acominas Attended a meeting in Brazil with Macarthur Potential additional Corporation and Coal and senior management of Acominas to sales Macarthur Coal – discuss the potential for additional Macarthur coal sales to Acominas.

Vice- Governor of MOU & Signed two documents under the MOU with the Brazilian mission to Minas Gerais Inbound State of Minas Gerais. Joint activities under the Queensland with a Mission MOU include: focus on sustainable - the establishment of a joint management mining. committee to develop business initiatives of trade and investment. - Acknowledgement that the Minas Gerais Ministry of Environment is to send a delegation to Queensland in 2004, to further their interests in sustainable mining. Brazilian President Inbound Agreed to co-operate on the possibility of Potential of Luis Inacio da Silva Mission developing an ethanol export industry and technology transfer and Vice President - co-organise talked positively about collaborations on for ethanol Jose Alencar Ethanol biotechnology. conference in The Premier announced the Queensland QLD 2005 Government would organise a major international conference in 2005 on the future of ethanol.

Thailand

Thai Foreign Minister Meeting The Minister is looking forward to a planned visit to Queensland The Charoen MOU Signed MOU on the cooperation in the area of Will lead to food and Pokphand Group (CP food and agribusiness as well as food science food technology export Group) and technology with CP Group Thai Crown Prince Meeting Five Star Tooling Contract Five Star Tooling signed a technical agreement Increased turnover in with Thai company YNP Engineering in relation to Brisbane tooling. Under the technical agreement, Five Star Tooling will export its engineering and technical services to Thailand and will have some tooling work undertaken in Thailand for import into Australia. This will enable Five Star Tooling to increase its turnover in Brisbane and increase their supply capacity. Automotive products are to benefit as a result of reduced tariffs under the CER-FTA. Thai Minister for Inbound Over the next 5-6 years, the Thai Government Transfer of transport Transport Mission plans to spend around AUD$45 billion on an technology expanded mass rail system for Bangkok, rail links between major cities, roads and highways and a satellite city outside the capital. This creates potential opportunities for Queensland firms to supply infrastructure related to new rail links and upgrades of existing links, and the development of a Bus Transit System for Bangkok. The Thai Minister for Transport will led a transport delegation to Queensland in October 2004 to attend a transport conference. Auscham Networking Attended a networking function in support of the Queensland business delegation. 80 people attended.

1728 Ministerial Statement 17 Aug 2004

San Francisco

Progene After the US Food and Drug Authority had Raising of ‘smart granted "Orphan Drug" designation to a new QLD company” in Progene drug used in the treatment of the market malignant melanoma, the company experienced an increase in market capitalisation. EMCO CAL Product Two new strawberry varieties developed in Increased Launch Queensland will be trialed in the US, where the horticulture sale Californian is worth more than $1 billion a year. The Queensland Government had signed a licensing agreement with EMCO CAL, a Californian strawberry marketing company, allowing them to distribute some of the Queensland-developed varieties outside of Australia and New Zealand. The 5th International Strawberry Symposium/Conference, organised by the Int’l conference at International Society for Horticultural Science, the Sunshine Coast will be held on the Sunshine Coast in In September. September 2004 and is expected to attract 300 delegates. Organisers estimate the conference will provide an economic boost of more than $1 million to Queensland and provide local growers with news of latest industry developments. Bio 2004 06-09 June Outbound The Premier led a delegation of 78 $33.4 million in Mission representatives from 39 organisations, including business outcomes service providers to Bio2004 in San Francisco. over the coming A subsequent survey of these delegates years projects $33.4 million in business outcomes over the coming years. A total of 153 quality leads and 80 potential partners in areas of co- development, technology licensing, equity investment and commercialisation were generated for Queensland participants. It was agreed a feasibility study be conducted in Queensland with input from PATH and other Washington players. Xenome Product Trials Queensland biotechnology spin-off company, Xenome, announced it had received US Food and Drug Administration approval to conduct human clinical trials for its new pain relief drug which may one day be more effective more than morphine. PANBIO Office in Leading Australian biotechnology company Move of Queensland PANBIO, (develops, manufactures and markets manufacturing from diagnostic kits for more than 27 infectious USA to QLD creating diseases) will move most of its United States 51 new jobs. manufacturing operations to Queensland later this year creating 51 new scientific jobs over the next five years. This is in addition to the 62 people already employed at the company's current head office in the Brisbane suburb of Windsor.

This year so far, the business delegates who have accompanied me on three trade and investment missions have generated, or are in the process of generating, close to $40 million in business outcomes. This is in addition to the expected long term business outcome of $33 million from the Queensland attendance at Bio 2004 This means many more jobs for Queenslanders as these companies will expand production here to meet new orders. As the Parliament is aware, I am a strong supporter of robust Free Trade Agreements and also of the benefits of promoting Queensland's export capabilities to the world. That's why my government will be seeking to harness the gains flowing from free trade agreements with the USA, Thailand and Singapore and continuing at every opportunity to maximise trade and investment prospects. Increasing Queensland's exports is an important way to achieve my Government's priorities. That is, growing a diverse economy and creating jobs by expanding market access, exports and investment opportunities. When I launched the Trade Strategy in October 2001, the Australian dollar was at an all time low of about 50 cents to the US dollar. 17 Aug 2004 Ministerial Statement 1729

In early 2003, the dollar passed the 60 cent mark and later in the year 70 cents. Our exporters, and in particular those in the mining sector, have had it tough in recent times. Notwithstanding this, this sector has done well in selling its expertise in clean technology, environmental services, and mining safety among others. Other factors such as SARS, terrorism, and the war in Iraq, also have impacted on Queensland's export performance, as it has on the global economy. Over the last five years, that is between 1998-99 to 2002-03, our exports of goods and services, averaged over the 5-year period, a growth rate of 6.2% against Queensland economic growth of 3.8%. I am pleased with the export growth performance, but I would like to see this figure even higher. As I mentioned earlier, export is an important economic driver for Queensland. My Government has been working hard to diversity Queensland's export base and increase its knowledge intensive exports in order to reduce Queensland's exposure to currency fluctuations. In this increasingly competitive global environment it is very important to be seen and heard. Trade is all about building relationships—relationships between governments, between governments and business, and between businesses themselves. Trade missions are also about exposing Queensland companies to efficient and profitable industries in other countries and thus bringing back ideas to increase the competitiveness of Queensland industries. This year, in the company of significant business delegations I have visited the UK, Ireland, Europe and Israel, the United States, Chile and Brazil and also China, Hong Kong and Thailand. I would also reinforce, that business delegates pay their own way! I wish to inform the House of some of the achievements and opportunities that have been generated as a result of these trade missions. On my mission to the UK, Ireland and Europe, I attended, in London, the signing of a statement of intent between Cutting Edge and Granada Television to compile the raw footage and story-line for the TV giant's latest reality series 'Hell's Kitchen' worth $600,000. I also had the opportunity to meet with Ms Patricia Hewitt, Minister for Trade and Industry who advised that the British Government would sponsor a biotechnology mission of 12 to 15 British biotech companies to the Ausbio 2004 conference to be held on 7-10 November in Brisbane this year. In Ireland, I witnessed the signing of a multi-million contract for the Queensland company Worley Engineering to provide design services for the Aughinish Alumina Refinery. In Israel, I witnessed a joint venture deal between Cavalier Homes and the Australia Israel Trade Assist to build homes in Israel. The initial sale is for two display homes valued at $220,000. The company is aiming to sell 90-100 homes per year with the potential to reach 300-400 over the coming years. The government has been working hard to promote Queensland's biotechnology capability. On my mission to the USA and South America, I led a delegation of 78 representatives from 39 organisations to Bio 2004 which was held in San Francisco. These delegates expect to generate somewhere around $33 million in future business outcomes from this mission. In Brazil and Chile, we have achieved considerable success for Queensland's mining sector. Mincom, Queensland's largest mining software provider, has secured a $500,000 contract to upgrade the software used by one of the world's largest copper mines. Some of the sugar industry delegates that accompanied me to Brazil were stunned by the sheer size of Brazil's sugar industry and how sugar mills are no longer just producing sugar but combining the production of ethanol, cogeneration and sugar. The longer term benefits from this mission, should some of the sugar mills adopt an integrated model of producing sugar, ethanol and cogeneration, will be huge. The Chinese economy continues to offer many export opportunities for Queensland. On my recent visit to China, I witnessed a number of agreements, including education, research and mining. I signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the China National Development Reform Commission which makes Queensland and its resources a preferred destination for major investors. This should lead to the expansion of Queensland's resources sector and also to the creation of many more jobs. I also attended the signing of a contract between Queensland company ComEnergy and Hebi Coal Industry Group valued at A$14 million. The contract involves Hebi using technology developed by ComEnergy in Queensland to generate power from coal-mining waste and mine methane. On my visit to Thailand, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed with the CP Group. The CP Group is one of the largest conglomerates in Thailand and comprises over 250 individual companies, with more than 200,000 employees and sales of approximately US$13 billion a year. The MOU will open up export opportunities for Queensland food producers to break into the Thailand market, for food harvesting technology and food safety knowledge export in the first instance. Thailand also offers interesting opportunities to access China via a third market. Next month, I will be leading a business delegation to Japan and India. Japan continues to be a great source of investment for Queensland industries and remains Queensland's number one export market. The Japanese economy is emerging from its 10 year slump and is projected to grow between 3.5-4%. 1730 Ministerial Statement 17 Aug 2004

This bodes well for more export opportunities for the Queensland resources sector, tourism and education. Along with China, India is an emerging market which holds a great range of export possibilities for Queensland. India is already Queensland's fourth largest export market, registered GDP growth of 8.2% last year, and is forecast to exceed 6% this year. During the last election campaign, I announced that I would establish a Queensland Government Trade and Investment Office in India. So in India I will be fulfilling this election commitment. I will be officially opening the Queensland Government Trade and Investment Office in Bangalore, in the State of Karnataka. We will be concentrating our trade effort on promoting our capabilities in the mining, tourism services and education sectors, amongst others. With export success in the areas of construction materials, agriculture, and landscaping we have now a representative in Doha, Qatar to expand our access to export opportunities in the Middle East. Qatar will host the Asian Games in 2006 and needs to upgrade its overall infrastructure which will provide opportunities for Queensland companies in a multitude of areas. If Queensland is to remain a leading export state in Australia, then it is vital that we take every opportunity to visit our trading partners and establish new links for Queensland companies. Since returning from these missions, I have received letters of appreciation from participants. They have thanked me for helping their companies gain access to government officials and CEOs of businesses that otherwise would not have been possible. In leading these trade missions, I am able to show that the Queensland Government supports Queensland companies. My government will continue to promote and seek export and investment opportunities so that we can uphold our reputation as Australia's Smart State. I am delighted by comments made by trade mission delegates about their outcomes from these missions and I have included some of these as part of this statement. United Kingdom Participants' Comments— Greg Soden, Flashback Frames We now have full commercial relationship with Cutting Edge that was cemented on the mission. The mission gave access to higher level people not able to meet otherwise (Chair of All England Club and English Olympic Committee). John S Howe Weathered Howe As a result of the mission, negotiations on a multimillion partnership will be concluded within the next 3 months. This will require a major increase in capital base for expansion of overseas opportunities here in Queensland. The Premier's acknowledgement assisted greatly in our reputation and standing with potential partners Mathew Lawson, Cutting Edge Having the Premier attending the signing was beneficial as it has added depth to our international reputation. Israel Participants' Comments— Robert Pedler, SAP Australia Pty Ltd Learnt about business models/practices gained from exposure to an overseas organisations. The Premiers mission was able to provide access to higher levels of management in overseas companies or Governments that would otherwise have been not possible. Chile Participants' Comments— Richard Fraser, Senior Consultant, Rylson Group Access to higher levels of management in overseas companies or Governments that would otherwise have been not possible Note: Mr Fraser was already visiting Chile during the Premier's mission and joined the Premier in the market. Mr Fraser specifically asked to join the Codelco meeting as he is developing a relationship with an agent in Chile with Codelco as a target client. Mr Fraser was also included in the Antafogasta meeting. He was very appreciative of the meetings and was grateful that the Premier mentioned his company a few times during both meetings. Professor Ted Brown, University of Queensland The new International Mass Mining Foundation is now almost in place. A further series of meetings with sponsors will be held in Santiago in the week beginning 16 August. The outcome will be the establishment of a major new international activity at the University and the expenditure of several millions of dollars a year on its program of research and technology transfer. Richard Fraser, Senior Consultant Rylson Group The trade mission lead to increased export. It allowed access to higher level management in overseas companies than otherwise would have been possible. Gordon Scott, Director Mincom Ltd Mission help solidify existing business opportunities and opened door to several new business contacts. 17 Aug 2004 Ministerial Statement 1731

Brazil Participants' Comments— Mr Campbell Olsen, President, Agrichem Our profile has increased significantly; this will lead directly to much larger and more frequent orders. The mission will lead to a heightened level of awareness within the Brazilian government after introductions to various secretaries and ministers. We note that the Premier made time available to meet with our 2 largest customers and the feedback from them has been very positive. It has lead directly to a much greater level of respect for our organisation and a reinforcement of the 'seriousness' of our Australian business. It provides excellent credibility for us. Mr Martin Jones—GM, CSR Ethanol An important opportunity to learn about the industry's major competitor. Brazil's equipment capability is impressive. Should we be planning for a new ethanol plant, will look towards Brazil for technology. Mr Eddie Westcott—Chairman, Mackay Sugar If you actually see how the Brazilian's integrate ethanol, sugar and cogeneration it makes much more sense than studying on paper. Without the Premier, we would not have had access to high level management and would not have received that depth of information. We will now take a much closer look at the Mackay plant with a view of how to integrate the different modes of production. Gary Lee, Macarthur Coal Attending a meeting with the Premier with Acominas Corporation was beneficial as it allowed us to present our case for additional sales. Assoc.Professor, Paulo Vasconcelos, UQ The Trade mission assisted in profiling UQ's expertise in the mining sector and assisted in the establishment of a student exchange program. Benefits to Queensland will accrue over time in particular as the students return to Brazil. China Participants' Comments— Michele Fleming, HOK It was good to use the Queensland Government (Premier) to access higher levels of the Chinese Government and greater access to senior officials within organisations. Looking to obtain further contracts in association with Beijing Olympics and work in other parts of the China and Asia Games. Harvey Lister, Ogden IFC (by Letter) The mission may lead to the following A potential consultancy role at the Beijing Olympic Stadium; An advisory role to Beijing State Owned Asset Management Company Ltd initially on resolving some issues they have with their Olympic Swimming Centre Project; A potential role in the design and operation of the large indoor arena being constructed in Beijing, initially to host the Olympic Basketball tournament, but for major indoor sport/concerts/entertainment events thereafter; A potential role in two major convention/exhibition centres being developed in China, with the potential for further similar projects, at the early discussion stage; A likely Joint Venture with a commercial subsidiary of the Department for the General Administration of Sport in establishing the first private management company in China specialising in the professional operation of major public assembly facilities, with this potential joint-venture being at an advanced stage of negotiations, and with the intent of focusing on Olympic projects. Mitchell Smith, Albert Smith Group Result will be in future sales and the establishment of an international profile for the AS.Group in both China and Australia. Access to overseas companies and officials was very useful. Peter Armstrong, Kensington Education International Successful in the development of new ventures. Ms Ethel Lau, Byte Power New investment opportunities in both China and Bangkok gained from the Premier missions. Also, development of new networking relationships with other mission participants was very beneficial. Access to high level of management in overseas companies that would have otherwise not have been possible. Michelle Lee, Royal Brisbane International College Through this Trade mission, we have been able to further interest in education and health food. In Shanghai good progress was made with respect to expansion of franchised education export. Hong Kong Participants' Comments Mike Groth, Manager Crows Nest (letter) Result from trade mission is a second order of sale into Hong Kong. Trade mission allowed us to gain a foot in the door and hopefully will lead to the establishment of a strong market. 1732 Ministerial Statement 17 Aug 2004

Thailand Participants' Comments— Craig G Spencer, Managing Director, Carter & Spencer (letter) The mission was invaluable to our company providing key introductions not easily available to our business. Your government signing of the MOU with the CP group in Thailand will create valuable opportunities for our company and other Queensland businesses.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

Trade Commissioners Hon. P.D. BEATTIE (Brisbane Central—ALP) (Premier and Minister for Trade) (9.42 a.m.): I also wish to pay tribute to the work and initiatives of the Queensland trade and investment commissioners. They are constantly arranging for Queensland companies to do business in their areas and thus create more jobs for Queenslanders. Today I am tabling just a few of their success stories in recent years. While I am doing so, I will also table a list of their employment conditions and their credit card expenses. The total corporate credit card expenditure incurred by the commissioners in Europe, Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia and the Americas, together with special representatives, is all set out in this material. In addition, I seek leave to incorporate the rest of my ministerial statement in Hansard, along with the total expenses and estimated expenses for each one of the trade offices from around the world, together with all the details of their expenses on travel and their expense cards, together with the employment conditions and the full details of what are the employment packages for the Queensland government commissioners. Leave granted.

2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 (Estimate) Tokyo 2,569,067 2,315,066 2,333,292 2,422,832 London 1,826,503 1,693,552 1,757,166 1,474,296 Taipei 998,825 903,403 807,467 657,603 Hong Kong 1,396,124 1,448,042 1,549,401 1,085,353 Shanghai 1,141,572 1,111,987 1,055,898 1,218,783 Los Angeles 1,643,880 1,788,222 1,861,266 1,484,455 Jakarta 625,139 574,181 629,765 700,208 Semarang 258,631 204,644 225,709 217,884 Osaka 552,073 612,944 475,665 272,984 Seoul 228,333 786,819 836,900 800,040

Total 11,240,147 11,438,860 11,532,529 10,334,438

One in four jobs in Queensland's regions depends on exports, so our trade and investment commissioners are major job creators. Not only do they spot new openings for our companies but they can open doors for companies who are unfamiliar with the way in which foreign companies and governments operate. They smooth the way in negotiations and have expertise when it comes to closing deals. There are nine overseas offices—in London, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Jakarta. Today I am tabling just a few of their success stories in recent years. While I am doing so I will also table a list of their employment conditions and their credit card expenses. The total corporate credit card expenditure incurred by the commissioners in Europe, Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia and the Americas, together with the special representatives from March 1, 2001 to June 1, 2004 was $677,082.23. I released the credit card expenses of Mr Gibbs several weeks ago but in the interests of completeness, I again table them. The special representatives are the Honourable Mike Ahern for Africa, the Middle East and India, Sallyanne Atkinson AO, for South-East Asia and the Honourable Tom Burns, chair of the China Council and special representative for Vietnam. The Osaka office is managed by the Tokyo Commissioner but every other office is managed by a commissioner. All commissioners are engaged under the provisions of Section 70 of the Public Service Act. Pay conditions are modelled on the arrangements applicable to senior officers of the Commonwealth Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The overall budget allocation for the overseas offices for 2003-04 was just over $10 million with the annualised costs of the commissioners' contracts (including base contracts and variable costs) totalling about $2.7 million. 17 Aug 2004 Ministerial Statement 1733

Commissioners' Contracts Allowances and Variable Costs—Explanations Cost of Post Allowance (COPA)—is designed to compensate staff for the wide range of impacts that postings have on their lives. It serves as an incentive for overseas service, and provides a buffer to even out the effect of any specific cost not picked up in the Cost of Living Allowance. Cost of Living Allowance (COLA)—is designed to compensate employees for the different cost of purchasing goods and services at the overseas location. The system uses a post index data supplied by a private sector International Human Resources company called Employment Conditions Abroad (ECA). Child Supplement—for employees who take their dependant children to the overseas location with them Child Reunion Supplement—for employees who leave their dependant children in Australia Tertiary Students Allowance—for an employees dependant child undertaking full time university study in Australia Dependant Spouse Allowance—for employees who leave their dependant spouse in Australia Hardship Allowance—paid at certain overseas posts (currently Jakarta, Shanghai, Seoul, Tokyo) to compensate for any significant adverse effect on the lifestyle or welfare of employees and their families which are assessed as being significantly different to Australia. Factors that are taken into account are climate; health; language and culture; goods and services; isolation; social network and leisure; housing, utilities and education; personal security and socio-political tensions. Allowances are adjusted fortnightly in line with movement of the Australian Dollar against the overseas currency. Variable cost items are: utilities, telephone, household maintenance and assistance, storage and insurance of furniture, transport of personal effects to and from post, return visits, compassionate travel, club membership, medical and education assistance and motor vehicles.

COMMISSIONERS' CORPORATE CREDIT CARD EXPENDITURE The total corporate credit card expenditure incurred by the Commissioners of the Queensland Government Trade and Investment Offices in Europe, Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia and The Americas and the Special Representatives for the period 1 March 2001—1 June 2004 was A$677,082.23. Overseas Offices—QGTIOS There are currently nine overseas Queensland Government Trade and Investment Offices (QGTIOs). The offices are located in London, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul, Taipei, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Jakarta. The QGTIOs contribute strongly to the Department's export and inward investment outcomes, varying in degree to the nature of the particular markets being serviced. The network of overseas offices has been strategically established to provide market access assistance for Queensland businesses in key export markets and to channel overseas investment into Queensland industries. SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVES The Queensland Government has three Special Representatives: The Honourable Mike Ahern, Sally-Anne Atkinson AO and The Honourable Tom Burns. Their roles in these positions are to broaden the representation of Queensland's overseas interests with a particular focus on identifying and developing trade and investment opportunities and providing high level strategic advice to the Premier, senior Queensland Government Ministers and officials, and business people.

COMMISSIONER MARKET Total (A$) Scott Shepherd QGTIO China 30,533.31 Zijian Zhang QGTIO China 83,777.35 Matthew Kang QGTIO Korea 85,309.80 Ross Buchanan QGTIO Japan 11,454.56 Stephen Moriarty QGTIO Japan 441.59 Simon Lee QGTIO Hong Kong & Southern China 6,096.27 Ronald Huang QGTIO Taiwan 14,275.23 Wilfred Schultz QGTIO Indonesia 29,577.33 Robert Wardrobe QGTIO Indonesia 11,035.61 John Dawson QGTIO Europe 34,755.35 Bob Gibbs QGTIO The Americas 227,100.63 Sally-Anne Atkinson Special Representative – South East Asia 24,330.41 Hon Mike Ahern Special Representative – Africa, the Middle East and India 52,288.94 Hon Tom Burns Chair, Queensland China Council and Special Representative 66,105.85 for Vietnam

TOTAL OF EXPENDITURE 677,082.23

1734 Ministerial Statement 17 Aug 2004

Robert Gibbs Ronald Huang Location Los Angeles Taipei

Title Queensland Government Commissioner Queensland Government Commissioner

Commencement Date 10/01/2000 1/01/1991 Completion Date 9/01/2005 31/12/2004 Period of Last Extension N/A - Original Contract 6 months Base Salary 119,853 135,888 Employer Superannuation 15,281 - Leave Loading 1,613 - Motor Vehicle Yes 19,464 Accommodation Allowance or 93,496 - Housing / Rent - - Overseas Living Allowance or 32,319 - Cost of Living - - General Adjustment - - Post Adjustment - - Cost Of Post - - Child Supplement - - Tertiary Student - - Dependant Spouse - - Hardship - - North American Allowance 11,542 - Utilities 26,549 -

Full rental + 20% of local calls + full cost of Telephone - metered and claimed official STD/ISD calls Household Maintenance and Assistance 3,387 - (Housekeeper) Storage / Transport/ Insurance of Furniture and Yes - Effects Transport of Personal Effects to and from post Yes -

Return Visits 1 Business and 3 Economy Class pa -

In accordance with Department of Foreign Compassionate Travel - Affairs and Trade Conditions Membership of Business Club Yes Yes Medical Insurance or Yes -

Medical / Dental Expenses - -

Education Assistance - -

Additional Recreation Leave - - LESS Rent and Utility Contribution - - TOTAL $Australian 304,041 155,352

Currency $T Exchange Rate @ 15/8/04 24.57186 Housing/Rent Salary 3,339,027 Motor Vehicle 478,260 Accommodation Superannuation Medical Insurance 17 Aug 2004 Ministerial Statement 1735

Simon Lee Robert Wardrobe Location Hong Kong Jakarta

Title Queensland Government Commissioner Queensland Government Commissioner

Commencement Date 1/07/1993 19/04/2004 Completion Date 30/06/2006 18/04/2005 Period of Last Extension 2 Years N/A - Original Contract Base Salary 217,875 97,902 Employer Superannuation 16,341 12,483 Leave Loading - 1,318 Motor Vehicle Yes Yes Accommodation Allowance or 89,234 - Housing / Rent - 37,631 Overseas Living Allowance or - - Cost of Living - - General Adjustment - - Post Adjustment - - Cost Of Post - 22,092 Child Supplement - 3,085 Tertiary Student - - Dependant Spouse - - Hardship - 23,703 North American Allowance - - Utilities - 100% reimbursement

Full rental + 20% of local calls + full cost of Telephone - metered and claimed official STD/ISD calls Household Maintenance and Assistance - 100% reimbursement (Housekeeper) Storage / Transport/ Insurance of Furniture and - Yes Effects Transport of Personal Effects to and from post - Yes

1 per annum to Australia. 1 per annum to SE Return Visits - Asia. Both Business Class In accordance with Department of Foreign Compassionate Travel - Affairs and Trade Conditions Membership of Business Club Yes Yes Medical Insurance or 1,195 - In accordance with Department of Foreign Medical / Dental Expenses - Affairs and Trade Conditions In accordance with Department of Foreign Education Assistance - Affairs and Trade Conditions Additional Recreation Leave - Yes LESS Rent and Utility Contribution - - TOTAL $Australian 324,644 198,213

Currency $HK $US Exchange Rate @ 15/8/04 5.59628 0.7175 Housing/Rent 27,000 Salary 1,219,287 Motor Vehicle Accommodation 499,378 Superannuation 91,446.53 Medical Insurance 6,686 1736 Ministerial Statement 17 Aug 2004

Matthew Kang Takeshi Adachi Location Seoul Tokyo

Title Queensland Government Commissioner Queensland Government Commissioner

Commencement Date 15/01/2001 26/07/2004 Completion Date 14/04/2005 25/07/2005 Period of Last Extension 3 Years N/A Base Salary 114,056 114,056 Employer Superannuation 14,542 14,542 Leave Loading 1,535 1,535 Motor Vehicle Yes Yes Accommodation Allowance or 96,000 120,910 Housing / Rent - - Overseas Living Allowance or - - Cost of Living 31,577 40,673 General Adjustment 18,517 - Post Adjustment 10,395 - Cost Of Post - 24,030 Child Supplement - 12,309 Tertiary Student - - Dependant Spouse - - Hardship - 8,942 North American Allowance - - Utilities 100% reimbursement 100% reimbursement

Full rental + 20% of local calls + full cost of Full rental + 20% of local calls + full cost of Telephone metered and claimed official STD/ISD calls metered and claimed official STD/ISD calls Household Maintenance and Assistance 100% reimbursement 100% reimbursement (Housekeeper) Storage / Transport/ Insurance of Furniture and Yes - Effects Transport of Personal Effects to and from post Yes - Return Visits 1 per annum Business Class 1 per annum Business Class In accordance with Department of Foreign In accordance with Department of Foreign Compassionate Travel Affairs and Trade Conditions Affairs and Trade Conditions Membership of Business Club Yes Yes Medical Insurance or - - In accordance with Department of Foreign In accordance with Department of Foreign Medical / Dental Expenses Affairs and Trade Conditions Affairs and Trade Conditions Education Assistance - -

Additional Recreation Leave - - LESS Rent and Utility Contribution 12,116 - TOTAL $Australian 298,739 336,997 TOTAL $ 2,206,120 Currency Yen Exchange Rate @ 15/8/04 79.398 Housing/Rent 9,600,000 Salary Motor Vehicle Accommodation Superannuation Medical Insurance

I will now table the details of the commissioners' contracts, about the allowances and variables. I table them for Commissioner Jang, who is our China representative; Commissioner Shepherd, who was the commissioner in Shanghai; Commissioner Lee, who is from Hong Kong; Commissioner Wardrow, who is now our Trade Commissioner in Jakarta; Mr Schultz, who was our Trade Commissioner in 17 Aug 2004 Ministerial Statement 1737

Jakarta; Commissioner Gibbs, our Trade Commissioner in Los Angeles; Commissioner Kang, who is our Trade Commissioner in Shanghai; Commissioner Wong, who is our Trade Commissioner in Taiwan; Commissioner Moriati, who was briefly our Trade Commissioner in Tokyo; and Commissioner Dawson, who was our Agent-General in London. I also table the full details of our trade commissioners, our special representatives, Ahern, Burns and Atkinson. Never before has any Queensland government tabled the full details and information. I do that to demonstrate their value to the Queensland taxpayer so that everyone understands how important they are, driving 20 per cent of all jobs in Queensland.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

Trade Mission to Japan and India Hon. P.D. BEATTIE (Brisbane Central—ALP) (Premier and Minister for Trade) (9.43 a.m.): From 6 to 16 September I will lead a trade and investment mission of Queensland business delegates to Japan, our No. 1 export market, and India, Queensland's fifth largest export market according to newly released preliminary 2003-04 data. This will be my last trade trip for 2004, but it is consistent with the other trips that have been undertaken. I seek leave to incorporate the rest of the ministerial statement in Hansard. Leave granted. This mission will build on our strong relations with sister states in both countries. In Japan I plan to meet with the Governors of Saitama and Osaka, and in India with the Chief Minister of Karnataka—to cement the formal memorandum of understanding I signed there in February 2003. Building business relationships between Queensland and these vital export markets is also a high priority of this mission. In Japan I will promote the Smart State's strong credentials as an investment destination, particularly for the tourism and mining industries. I will encourage more exports to Japan of our high quality beef, coal and minerals, and push for stronger educational and biotech- related linkages. In India I will promote Queensland's capabilities as a supplier to large scale tourism and residential developments. I will witness the signing of education-related agreements and will fulfil a 2004 election commitment by opening a Queensland Government Trade and Investment Office in Bangalore.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

Trade Mission to Chile, Brazil and United States Hon. P.D. BEATTIE (Brisbane Central—ALP) (Premier and Minister for Trade) (9.44 a.m.): I now table for the information of the House the full report of the trade mission to Chile, Brazil and the USA. I also want to table my full report to China, Hong Kong and Thailand, and reports from Dr Heather Beattie as well.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

Electorate Vehicles Hon. P.D. BEATTIE (Brisbane Central—ALP) (Premier and Minister for Trade) (9.45 a.m.): While I am tabling information, I table a list of repairs to electorate vehicles which occurred during the second term of my government. As everyone knows, as a result of an election commitment these cars are no longer available. The list today is the missing link, if you like. Details of all repairs, apart from any recent accidents, have now been released by the government. I have previously released details involving my family, so they are not contained in it. The only other minister not mentioned is the Deputy Premier, who had no accidents at the time of that document. No-one can complain. The full information is now available for all the community to see. Members can see from the information that these cars simply have the normal accidents that any busy vehicle fleet would have. Having dealt with all that openness and accountability that we have never seen in the history of this parliament, now let me move on.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

Electricity Supply Hon. P.D. BEATTIE (Brisbane Central—ALP) (Premier and Minister for Trade) (9.46 a.m.): In March the government commissioned a review into the state of Queensland's electricity distribution network. The government called for an independent review in response to concerns about the performance of the network and the businesses that run it during the series of storms and unusually hot 1738 Ministerial Statement 17 Aug 2004 weather in January and February this year. I table that report and its summary for the information of all members. Electricity distribution and service delivery for the 21st century is a detailed report of the independent panel and summary report. As you can see, Mr Speaker, and any reader could see of the report—and they will be able to attest—the panel gave a warts-and-all picture of the network and the businesses and a clear blueprint for the future. Importantly, it found on page 202 of the detailed report the taking of special dividends had not affected Energex's or Ergon's ability to deliver services. It also concluded that Queensland is generating plenty of spare power. As the summary report states on page 7— In terms of the state's electricity demand there are now sufficient electricity reserves for several years. Cabinet committed to the implementation of all 44 recommendations which cover improving the reliability of electricity supply, strengthening the regulatory arrangements, improving communication with the public by Energex and Ergon Energy, and improving staffing levels within Energex and Ergon Energy. Cabinet made three directors-general responsible for ensuring implementation by government, Energex, Ergon Energy and the Queensland Competition Authority. As a result of meetings with myself and the key ministers, the board and management of Energex and Ergon are now very focused on the network and the customers who rely on that network. Put bluntly, the panel found that reliability of the network is not good enough. The government's response is essentially in two parts: firstly, addressing the coming summer season and, secondly, putting in place long-term solutions. The approaching summer storm season will be the network's litmus test of the network and, as a matter of urgency, the government required Energex and Ergon to outline their summer storm preparedness plans. The government has now received and endorsed the plans. They have just been endorsed by the Cabinet Budget Review Committee. I table them for the benefit of the House. They are Ergon Energy’s Summer 2004-05 Preparations—I table it for the information of the House—and the Energex Strategic Plan for Summer 2004-05 as well. I have asked for copies of these to be distributed to every member. I promised we would fix it; this is the beginning of the plans to fix it. I table them for the information of the House. These plans aim to cushion the impact of the storms dramatically and in the event of outages, which no network can prevent, significantly improve responses to customers. To ensure the plans are on track before summer, the government will commission an independent audit of implementation in November this year. The key elements of these plans are: substantial increased capital expenditure to increase network capacity—Energex is investing $85 million in key distribution assets, including 23 new power transformers at zone and bulk supply substations; upgrades of 92 11kVa feeders and 350 distribution transformer upgrades—Energex has purchased 12 large mobile generators to provide short-term relief in heavily storm affected areas and Ergon is investing in additional capacity and by the beginning of this summer capacity will be increased by about 10 per cent compared with last year's peak demand. Priority programs in Wide Bay, Mackay and the Eastern Darling Downs regions will be completed prior to summer. There will be a comprehensive program of preventative maintenance. Here is the detail: Energex has increased its vegetation management program in 2004-05 to $30 million from $22 million in 2003-04 and is targeting those areas worst affected by the January storms. We are tackling the problem head on and fixing it. The government has already announced Energex's undertaking an $8.37 million special suburban sensitive area project that will target vegetation management, maintenance and repair work in those area worst affected by last year's storm activity. This work will be in addition to Energex's rural version of the program covering North Maclean, Jimboomba, Palmwoods, Black Mountain and Gympie. Energex plans to trim vegetation around the entire urban network by September of this year. At the same stage last year only about 30 per cent of the urban high voltage network had been trimmed in the preceding 12 months. It is a dramatic improvement. Energex is undertaking extensive helicopter and car patrols to identify potential maintenance requirements. Ergon is also targeting cyclone prone areas as part of its preparation for the summer storm season. Ergon will spend $6 million on protecting network infrastructure to key community facilities under its cyclone area reliability enhancement program. Another part of our plan for this summer and the future is improvements to communications with the public. This will include increased telephone response capacity, more regular and accurate updates on outages, an agreement with a radio station for updates every 15 minutes, and a new dedicated emergency line for life-threatening situations. This pre-summer work, however, is only the first step in a larger schedule of works to be undertaken in coming months and years. This is the beginning. A lot more work needs to be done. The strategies to improve the power service to Queenslanders year round will see Energex and Ergon significantly increase their capital expenditure to $421 million and $506 million respectively—almost a billion dollars. This is an increase in expenditure of approximately 36 per cent for both Energex and Ergon on last financial year—36 per cent! Other actions of the government and government owned corporations reinforce how we are moving to fix the system as quickly as is practicable. Yesterday the Energy Minister, Stephen Robertson, and I welcomed the latest in a series of initiatives to improve the network when we met 37 new Energex 17 Aug 2004 Ministerial Statement 1739 apprentices. Their intake more than doubled the number of new apprentices hired by Energex this year to 61. That increases by one-third the 41 apprentices hired last year and it doubles the average of around 30 apprentices recruited in previous years. Prior to the 41 last year the average was about 30. This year there will be 61. The apprentices are an investment in the future of electricity distribution in our rapidly-growing state. In closing on this point I thank Mr Darryl Somerville and his panel, industry expert Mr Steve Blanch and Queensland Commissioner for Electrical Safety Mr Jack Camp, for their comprehensive report. I also thank the unions that gave technical input to the review and Energex, Ergon and the Queensland Competition Authority for cooperating with the panel. We have a challenge ahead but we are going to meet that challenge and we are going to fix this up.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

National Electricity Market Management Company Hon. P.D. BEATTIE (Brisbane Central—ALP) (Premier and Minister for Trade) (9.54 a.m.): A preliminary report from the National Electricity Marketing Management Company, NEMMCO, confirms the Queensland government's view that the national body must explore unanswered questions about Friday night's four-state power failure. The report was provided to the government late yesterday and I thank NEMMCO for providing it in a timely manner. I look forward to reading the full report. The report states quite clearly that the event that triggered Queenslanders' power failure was radical. It says— At 9.41 pm a current transformer failed explosively at the Bayswater Power Station switchyard in the Hunter Valley NSW. This failure significantly disturbed the power system voltage and resulted in six generators in the vicinity automatically tripping out of service. The total generation loss was about 3,100MW or about 14 per cent of total supply. Due to the loss of this generation the power system frequency fell to approximately 48.9Hz across the entire power system and this drop in frequency automatically disconnected a number of load blocks totalling about 1500MW which was 7 per cent of the demand at the time. Okay, but the report also raises questions about Queensland's share of the shedding—one-third of the total—even though four states were involved. It says— Immediately following the generation loss, the system frequency fell quickly to a minimum of approximately 48.9Hz and automatic under-frequency load shedding was initiated in each of the NEM states as follows: South Australia 25 MW; Victoria 488 MW; New South Wales— where it all started— 480 MW; Queensland 500-550 MW. The Queensland market is smaller than New South Wales and Victoria but it provided a greater percentage of the load. It states further that ‘equal sharing of load shedding cannot be guaranteed'. It also makes the point that the load shedding prevented a system shutdown. In other words, Queensland did the lion's share of work to prevent a catastrophic four-state power system shutdown. The report also raises the question why two blocks of load, including one in Queensland, did not 'trip'. It says— There are two load blocks that possibly should have initiated, but did not. (QLD Boyne Island Pot Line 3 plus Proserpine and a second VIC Alcoa Portland Pot Line). NEMMCO is investigating these further. If these had shed as intended, this clearly would have altered the load shed sharing between the jurisdictions. Minister Robertson has written to NEMMCO requesting answers to the above and to the federal minister, Ian Macfarlane, to ensure the next ministerial council considers the load shedding procedure. This is the first time the load shedding list has been reviewed by NEMMCO. After all, this was the first major event in the national market. As part of the openness and accountability I demonstrated earlier, I table this NEMMCO report headed Power system incident report, Friday 13 August 2004. I emphasise it is an interim report. I look forward to reading the full report when it is finalised.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

Powerlink Hon. P.D. BEATTIE (Brisbane Central—ALP) (Premier and Minister for Trade) (9.57 a.m.): While we are talking about power, the national electricity market, and this is from Powerlink, is designed to operate at a frequency of 50Hz or 50 cycles per second. The NEM power station manager, NEMMCO, needs to keep the system within a tight tolerance around 50Hz so that all the power stations stay 1740 Ministerial Statement 17 Aug 2004 synchronised with each other. NEMMCO does this by keeping supply and demand in instantaneous balance. You cannot store electricity. The graph which I am about to table shows the system frequency around 50Hz until the six New South Wales power stations dropped off at 21:42 at which point the frequency plunged reflecting the temporary out of balance between supply and demand. You can see that graphically from that graph. I table that for the information of all members. That plunge has to be immediately arrested to prevent the power system from cascading into a total collapse, as happened in the United States last year. This is achieved by automatic load shedding that started within milliseconds across all four states. This brings supply and demand back into balance, arrests the frequency plunge and NEMMCO then slowly revamps up generation output to restore the frequency to 50Hz. This can be seen on the graph between the times of 21:42 and 21:50. Once the system has been stabilised, the shed load can be progressively restored. This is also done steadily to ensure that the system remains stable. Let me conclude my remarks on electricity by saying this: we know that we have a distribution problem because the independent report we commissioned established this. We also know that we have a solution. The 44 recommendations provide the solution. They will be implemented.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

Racing Industry Hon. R.E. SCHWARTEN (Rockhampton—ALP) (Minister for Public Works, Housing and Racing) (10.00 a.m.): Racing continues to contribute to Queensland's economy and our social fabric. It annoys me to continually read stories that paint the industry in crisis when all the indicators show that this is far from the case. It seems that positive stories like Eagle Farm being packed with thousands of people on Exhibition Wednesday rarely get a start. Many people went to Eagle Farm to see Queensland's leading maiden race won by Colin's Party. We hope it will go on to rival the grand champion Strawberry Road, which made me a lot of money in its heyday. Mr Horan interjected. Mr SCHWARTEN: I have been to a lot, actually. Mr Horan: Which ones have you been to? Mr SCHWARTEN: If the member is so interested in that I will give him a list of them. I went to Eagle Farm the other day and lost some money, if the member would like to know. I am told that it was a top day. So this is hardly an indicator that the industry is on its last legs. From all accounts, wagering on thoroughbreds is up by more than eight per cent, which is better than any other state. Prize money has never been higher, with a $15 million increase this year. Again, this is hardly a suggestion that the industry has been scratched. Contrast this with South Australia, which is down $3 million in returns. This highlights the reason for the chair of Queensland Racing, Mr Bob Bentley, pursuing more black type races. Mr Seeney interjected. Mr SCHWARTEN: The member opposes more black type races for Queensland. I thought he would. This highlights the reason for the chair of Queensland Racing, Mr Bob Bentley, pursuing more black type races for Queensland. It is high time that all parties who purport to be interested in racing got behind Bob Bentley in attacking the arrogance of states like South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia that are demanding more than their fair share of group 1 races. The integrity of the industry is paramount and, to this end, the Premier and I instigated a review of the integrity processes in the industry. This review is now almost complete, with the report set to be handed down at the end of this month. Yesterday I appointed a three-person panel to start the process of filling the two vacant positions on the Queensland Racing Board. Mr Hopper: Get a few more Labor mates in. Mr SCHWARTEN: I will take that interjection—Labor mates, hey? I will get that on the record— my Labor mates. I will get to that. The panel members are the chair of Queensland Racing, Bob Bentley; the chair of the Queensland Country Racing Council, Mr Cyril Vains; and Dr John O'Duffy, a retired paediatrician with over 40 years industry experience, including 20 years as the chair of the Rockhampton Jockey Club. He is a former president of the Tattersalls Club and a former adviser to four National Party racing ministers in this state. A government member interjected. 17 Aug 2004 Ministerial Statement 1741

Mr SCHWARTEN: A good Labor mate! His integrity should not be impugned in this regard. This man has a long history in racing, as indeed do the other three. All have a long and proud association with the Queensland racing industry. I stress that as minister I cannot appoint the new board members but have full faith that the panel has the interests of racing at heart and the integrity necessary to select new board members who will work hard to advance the industry. I have made it clear to all panel members that they must come to a unanimous decision and that I will not have any input into that decision. Opposition members interjected. Mr SCHWARTEN: I know that honourable members opposite are not interested in racing, but let me just continue. As I have stated time and time again, this Queensland government, like all its predecessors, does not run the day-to-day affairs of racing. My role is to administer the Racing Act 2002—an act which everybody in this House supported—and this House can be assured that I will do that to the letter of the law, despite what some sections of the media may report. It is not within the law or the rules of racing for the minister to become a hands-on manager of the day-to-day challenges of running an industry like this. I do not share the view that the industry is in crisis or that it is in decline. The recently completed winter carnival was very successful, with our quality fields attracting thousands of people to the track and spending record amounts on the punt—including me. On the country racing front, I can also report that a constituent of mine advised me that he travelled to Middlemount last Saturday and brought home $300 for his horse running fourth. He advised me that there were some 1,000 people at the Middlemount races on Saturday and, even allowing for the notorious exaggeration of those associated with this industry, this again tells me that country racing is not running stone motherless last either. The truth is that the industry is on track and is not about to fall at the turn. To those who want to attack the board of racing, I say: look at the facts and not personalities. Forget the square-ups and let us all work together to keep this industry moving forward. Mr Hobbs interjected. Mr SCHWARTEN: We know that those opposite want to undermine racing. I am working with Queensland Racing to develop a better model for country racing and I look forward in the near future to releasing to the parliament more details on this issue. I will also update members once the new board members are selected and the integrity review is completed.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

Electricity Supply Hon. S. ROBERTSON (Stretton—ALP) (Minister for Natural Resources, Mines and Energy) (10.06 a.m.): On the weekend, a gloating Leader of the Opposition said that Queensland was not generating enough electricity to prevent Friday night's unfortunate power outages and was importing power from New South Wales. Both statements are totally false and expose in the Opposition Leader gross hypocrisy and an appalling lack of understanding about how the power industry operates in Queensland and indeed Australia. Fact: Queensland has the capacity to generate more power each day than we consume. We have a daily surplus of spare capacity of the order of 2,100 megawatts or 25 per cent of what we generate. Fact: on Friday night Queensland was not importing power from New South Wales at the time of the blackouts. Queensland is a net exporter of power into the national electricity market via the Queensland- New South Wales interconnector. Mr Gordon Jardine, CEO of Powerlink Queensland, addressed the Opposition Leader's misinformation about Friday night's events in a report he issued yesterday to all Powerlink staff, which I table for the information of the House. Mr Jardine writes— Queensland transmission and electricity distribution networks and Queensland power stations were not responsible for the power outage last Friday and operated as they were designed to protect Queensland's electricity system from worse harm. There have been reported comments along the lines that load shedding was caused by a number of Queensland generators being out for maintenance, and/or Queensland relying on other States for generation capacity. These assertions are totally incorrect. The opposition has been caught out telling fibs once again. He goes on— The results would have been the same even if no Queensland generating units were out for maintenance at the time, and regardless of whether Queensland was importing power from the south at the time (which it wasn't) or exporting power to NSW (which it was.) There was plenty of generation capacity in the NEM—and in Queensland—both before and after the event. Indeed, had there been inadequate capacity after the 6 NSW units tripped, then the restoration of the shed load would have taken much longer than it did. 1742 Ministerial Statement 17 Aug 2004

Mr Jardine advises that load shedding across all member states of the national electricity market on Friday night was absolutely essential to stabilise the grid and thereby avoid ‘A much more serious national electricity market wide cascading system collapse, such as occurred in the USA last year'. Queensland certainly had sufficient generation capacity available to restore power quickly on Friday night had we panicked because of politics. However, membership of the national electricity market carries responsibilities as well as benefits. I am advised that, had we taken Mr Springborg's option and restored all power immediately, there was a very real danger that we would have crashed the entire national electricity grid and caused catastrophic outages across all four states—again, as we saw in the USA and Canada just last year. The government regrets that some Queenslanders lost power for up to two hours on Friday night. However, unlike the Opposition Leader, we took the responsible course of action to minimise the damage and prevent a much more devastating system collapse across the entire national grid.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

Citrus Canker Hon. H. PALASZCZUK (Inala—ALP) (Minister for Primary Industries and Fisheries) (10.10 a.m.): The Queensland government, through the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries and with the tremendous cooperation of the Queensland citrus industry and the local community, has been fighting a major exotic citrus disease outbreak in central Queensland. The serious disease, citrus canker, remains confined to a single property in the Emerald area. However, the repercussions of citrus canker were widely felt within Queensland and have also impacted on the rest of Australia. Within days of detecting the outbreak, the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries had assembled a response task force of almost 250 individuals from the department and also from its interstate counterparts. The detection of the disease meant that all local, interstate and export markets were closed to Queensland citrus for varying periods of time. The aim of the response remains to eradicate citrus canker from Queensland and to return market access for all citrus-growing areas to normal. More than 100 people were recruited and trained as casual plant health inspectors to certify that citrus fruit consignments met the quarantine conditions needed to regain access to markets within Queensland, Australia and overseas. In fact, Queensland might well have set a world record in the time taken to regain such a large proportion of market access after a citrus canker outbreak. Growers from the state's major citrus-growing regions outside the pest quarantine area centred around Emerald were able to sell fruit on interstate markets in just 17 days after these markets had been closed. The normal benchmarks are set around three months. Eradication of infected trees is continuing and, on current evidence, more than 90 per cent of the 250,000 commercial citrus trees on the single affected property will have to be destroyed. This is clearly a significant loss for the property owners but is absolutely essential to protect the rest of Queensland and Australia's citrus industries from what could have been major losses and costs stretching over many years. Last week, national approval was received to continue Queensland's eradication program, which of course includes surveillance, over the next two and a half years. I wish to place on record my congratulations to the staff of the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries for the rapid response to this outbreak to protect Queensland's $200 million citrus industry. Some have made personal sacrifices and have worked tirelessly to contain the outbreak and reopen the markets for Queensland's citrus producers. I also acknowledge and thank those staff from other government departments who capably assisted in this very large and intense response effort. But the hard work has not stopped yet. Under the national eradication program, surveillance will continue until November 2006 to prove Queensland has successfully eradicated citrus canker and to re-establish the state's pest free area status for the disease.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

Department of Defence, Dauan Island Hon. R.J. MICKEL (Logan—ALP) (Minister for the Environment) (10.13 a.m.): The protection of Queensland's marine environment is a key priority for this government. So it is with dismay that I must inform the House of a recent incident involving the Defence Department which resulted in the degradation of a reef flat and seagrass beds in the Torres Strait. I am advised by my department that the damage occurred while equipment was being unloaded from a barge at Dauan Island. The equipment was being brought ashore for the construction of radar facilities on an unoccupied and inaccessible area on the southern side of the island. The barge could not access the beach and, as a result, two excavators were unloaded directly onto the reef flat in thigh-deep water. One of the 30-tonne excavators 17 Aug 2004 Ministerial Statement 1743 became bogged while trying to reach the beach, and I show to the House some photographs of the incident of the barge becoming bogged. The excavator was carrying a skip bin loaded with 20 fuel drums, each containing 200 litres of fuel. The skip bin was anchored onto the reef flat for later retrieval to make recovery of the excavator easier. Unfortunately, the contractors failed to return that night at high tide to float the skip ashore and it filled with water, sank and all the fuel drums floated away, and I again show photos to the House of this particular incident. Fortunately, the drums were recovered intact. The excavator was also recovered, but not before a great track had been gouged in the reef flat and the seagrass all the way to the beach, and I show further photos to the House to support this statement. I am advised by my department that the Defence Department did not have the necessary permit for fuel storage under the Coastal Protection and Management Act. I am also advised that it had not applied for such a permit. Officers from my department and from the Department of Primary Industries, which is responsible for the protection of marine plants, have met Department of Defence representatives to discuss this incident and the approvals required. I am advised that the Defence Department has now lodged applications for permits. I have serious concerns about the Defence Department's failure to put a contingency plan in place to cover the unloading of the equipment and to secure the proper approvals. If a contingency plan had been in place, this incident, which can only be described as environmental vandalism, may have been avoided. What is known as a ‘dumb’ barge is now being used to move materials to the site. This type of barge allows access to the beach and will minimise any further damage to the seagrass. The Defence Department has shown an appalling disregard for the delicate nature of our marine environment and for the laws which are designed to protect it. I expect the federal government to abide by any state laws covering work carried out in Queensland, and I will be writing to my federal counterpart to stress that point. I will be asking him to raise this matter with his colleagues to ensure there are no more illegal works such as occurred in this instance. It is disappointing to see that, yet again, there appears to be one rule for the Howard government and another rule for the rest of us.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

TransLink Hon. P.T. LUCAS (Lytton—ALP) (Minister for Transport and Main Roads) (10.17 a.m.): I wish to inform the House of the successful introduction of the TransLink integrated ticketing system on 1 July. TransLink has proven a great success in its early phase and has surpassed all expectations both in terms of revenue dollars and patronage. TransLink represents a new era in public transport. South-east Queensland residents are voting with their feet. Patronage for the first month of operation was 10.45 million, a 10 per cent increase on the same period last year, and this is without the data for Surfside buses on the Gold Coast which we are currently awaiting. On-board ticket sales revenue for rail, bus and ferry services in July was $13.6 million, which is six per cent above budget and 10 per cent better than for the same period last year. Bus services in outlying urban areas reported the most impressive increases in revenue as more passengers embraced the reduced fares. For example, revenue from bus ticket sales in Morayfield has doubled; in Park Ridge it is up 55 per cent; and in Caboolture it has jumped 46 per cent. But it does not stop there. Revenue from rail ticket sales is up 14 per cent. This means that we will be able to improve the public transport network. More commuters are choosing public transport because TransLink has made it easier and cheaper for them to go from one mode of transport to another. Reduced fares integrated journeys were expected to mean reduced revenue, but I am delighted to say that this has been offset by increased patronage on all rail, bus and ferry services. About 60 per cent of travellers get a saving under the new fares for integrated journeys. The affordability and convenience is also appealing to pensioners and seniors. Bus operators report that increasing numbers are taking advantage of the reduced fares. Many are now travelling in off-peak times to visit shopping centres, clubs and other facilities. I would like to thank those people who have already written with their positive feedback since the advent of integrated ticketing and offering suggestions about the nature of future expansions to the network. I welcome feedback—positive or negative—because it is very important for our continued development. The Beattie government will continue to deliver better public transport infrastructure and services across south-east Queensland as part of the 10-year TransLink network plan. This is about providing convenient, accessible and reliable public transport that encourages people to leave their cars at home to reduce traffic congestion and pollution. We will soon be going to residents to ask them what they want. This is a key part of our commitment to delivering responsive government. Public consultation on the draft network plan is expected to commence shortly. A range of other activities are planned to encourage members of the public and key stakeholders to comment on the draft. So as they say, watch this space. Stage 2 of integrated ticketing will involve 1744 Ministerial Statement 17 Aug 2004 tag-on, tag-off smart cards, which will enable to us to pinpoint people's travel needs and tailor future services to best meet those needs. A pilot of stage 2 will commence next year.

PRIVILEGE

Dr J. O'Duffy; Comments by Member for Darling Downs Hon. R.E. SCHWARTEN (Rockhampton—ALP) (Minister for Public Works, Housing and Racing) (10.20 a.m.): I rise on a matter of privilege. Earlier, whilst I was making a ministerial statement, the shadow spokesman made an interjection across the chamber wherein he said that I had appointed a board the same as Merri Rose had appointed and that it was full of Labor Party mates. Dr John O'Duffy, who is one of the people whom I appointed to the panel, has never served on a panel put together by former Minister Rose. As far as I am aware—not that this comes into it, because we on this side of the House do not discriminate on the basis of people's political membership because it is against the law— Mr Quinn interjected. Mr SCHWARTEN: We certainly do not discriminate. The Liberal Party finds that amusing. No doubt they discriminate on that basis. We do not discriminate against them, as the law requires. Mr Cummins: We appointed Dr Watson. Mr SCHWARTEN: Yes. I appointed Dr Watson to the review panel. This morning I reported to the House that Dr John O'Duffy had served on a ministerial advisory committee to four National Party ministers. I regret to advise that I was mistaken in that regard. He actually served on the committees of Ministers Hinze and Randell—two National Party ministers—but he also served on the boards of three other ministers: Ministers Chalk, Knox and Edwards, who were Liberal ministers. I respectfully suggest to the opposition that it convey to Dr John O'Duffy its apologies for besmirching his name in this place this morning. He is an honourable person. Dr O'Duffy has been defamed in this place under parliamentary privilege for the simple reason that he has been asked to do a job on behalf of this government. This is the sort of gutter politics that people do not expect from members of this House. Dr O'Duffy is entitled to be on a board without having his name and his credibility dragged through the mud. I trust that there will be an apology forthcoming.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENT

Backpacking Industry Hon. M.M. KEECH (Albert—ALP) (Minister for Tourism, Fair Trading and Wine Industry Development) (10.22 a.m.): Queensland's latest job-creating tourism team is working to ensure a positive future for the backpacking industry. I have asked the government and the industry team to map out a strategy to ensure that Queensland regains its standing as the destination of choice for backpackers. Our share of the lucrative backpacker market has weakened in recent years. While more than 270,000 international backpackers still flock to Queensland and the industry is worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year, I am not happy with our reduced slice of the backpacker cake. In June I convened an industry forum to discuss the key issues impacting on Queensland's backpacker market. Industry participants from the Gold Coast to Cairns joined with government agency representatives. The industry knows that the Beattie government is on its side when it comes to the backpacking industry. The forum was warmly welcomed by the industry who said that it was the first time for many years that it had been able to sit down with the decision makers to address industry concerns. The industry gave us an undertaking that it would work with us towards common goals. A joint industry and government working group met for the first time on 23 July. Four subgroups have been established, each with its own terms of reference. Work plans will be established for each group by mid-September as part of developing a broader plan for the sector by the end of the year. The strategy will help foster the future growth and development of Queensland's important backpacker market. In the meantime, I have asked Tourism Queensland to refocus on this important tourism sector. Our loss of the backpacker market share can be attributed in part to loss of air access, particularly into and out of Cairns. Other factors include competition from destinations such as South Africa and from within Australia and the rising Australian dollar. The Beattie government continues to lobby airlines to add Queensland to the network or to boost current service levels. As Tourism Minister, I welcome the 20 per cent boost to international seat capacity between April and October this year, or an extra ten and a half thousand seats. Queensland is 17 Aug 2004 Private Members' Statements 1745 the best tourist destination in the world. We want to not only boost the number of backpackers coming here but also improve the experience for them. That is exactly what the Beattie government is focused on doing.

REVOCATION OF STATE FOREST AREAS Hon. R.J. MICKEL (Logan—ALP) (Minister for the Environment) (10.24 a.m.): I lay upon the table of the House a proposal marked A by the Governor in Council under section 26 of the Forestry Act 1959 and a brief explanation of the proposal. I also lay upon the table of the House a proposal under sections 32 and 70E of the Nature Conservation Act 1992 and a brief explanation of the proposal. I give notice that after the expiration of at least 14 days, as provided in the Forestry Act 1959, I shall move— 1. That this House requests the Governor in Council to remove the setting apart and declaration of state forest under the Forestry Act 1959 of those areas as set out in the proposal tabled by me in the House today on 17 August 2004; 2. That Mr Speaker and the Clerk of the Parliament convey a copy of this resolution to the Minister for Environment for submission to the Governor in Council. I give notice that after the expiration of at least 14 sitting days as provided in the Nature Conservation Act 1992 I shall move— 1. That this House request the Governor in Council to make a revocation by regulation of the dedication of protected areas and forest reserves under the Nature Conservation Act 1992 of those areas as set out in the proposal tabled by me in the House today on 17 August 2004. 2. That Mr Speaker and the Clerk of the Parliament convey a copy of have this resolution to the Minister for Environment for submission to the Governor in Council.

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE

Reports Mr FENLON (Greenslopes—ALP) (10.26 a.m.): I lay upon the table of the House the annual report of the Public Accounts Committee for 2003-04. The report outlines the activities of the committee during the year and includes the work undertaken by the committee of the 50th Parliament. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the work performed by the previous committee and also I would like to thank the current committee members for their input and support. I also lay upon the table of the House a report of overseas travel undertaken in May-June 2004.

SCRUTINY OF LEGISLATION COMMITTEE

Report Hon. K.W. HAYWARD (Kallangur—ALP) (10.26 a.m.) I lay upon the table of the House the Scrutiny of Legislation Committee's Alert Digest No. 4 of 2004.

ESTIMATES COMMITTEE G

Report Mr MULHERIN (Mackay—ALP) (10.27 a.m.): I table the report of Estimates Committee G relating to the estimates of expenditure referred to it and contained in the Appropriation Bill together with additional information provided to the committee.

PRIVATE MEMBERS' STATEMENTS

Electricity Supply Mr SPRINGBORG (Southern Downs—NPA) (Leader of the Opposition) (10.27 a.m.): Queenslanders are becoming more and more subject to a power crisis that has been of Mr Beattie's and his government's own making. The most galling thing about this power crisis is that it was totally predictable—in actual fact, it was predicted—and it was totally avoidable. In 1999 in this place the opposition warned Mr Beattie and warned his Labor Party government that unless he stopping stripping the dividends out of the electricity GOCs in Queensland at the rate at which he was doing so, we would see a meltdown in the power industry in this state. That is precisely what has happened. 1746 Questions Without Notice 17 Aug 2004

This man who sits opposite is not fit to be the Premier of Queensland because he ignored the early warnings that were so obvious of the status of the electricity industry in this state. We warned the Premier in 1999. He has been subsequently warned. In the past few weeks we have seen a whole range of people, including the directors and former board chairmen of the electricity GOCs, coming out and also saying that they warned this government. As Queenslanders last year stumbled up their staircases with candles, as they threw out their spoiled food, as they— An Opposition member: Even the clocks stopped. Mr SPRINGBORG: This morning we have also seen the clock stop in this place. As Queenslanders threw out their spoiled food, they had nobody to blame but Mr Beattie, because Mr Beattie knew about this and he was warned about it, as was Minister Lucas in June last year when he was briefed, and he came out again in July and said that there was no problem. This government has complicity in this crisis. This government and Mr Beattie caused this crisis. They deliberately set about stripping from Ergon and Energex the dividends which were so crucial to ensure that they were able to keep the lights on in Queensland. But they were not able to keep the lights on in Queensland. When Mr Beattie looks for somebody to blame, he should look no further than his— Time expired. Suicide Prevention Mrs REILLY (Mudgeeraba—ALP) (10.29 a.m.): In the lead-up to 10 September, which is International Suicide Prevention Day, I invite all honourable members, staff and media to a briefing on 1 September at 1 p.m. in the conference room on level 5. The briefing will outline a program called Help When You Need It, which is a youth suicide prevention kit aimed at teenagers and designed for distribution through schools. The program was launched on the Gold Coast in April last year and has already been adopted by many Gold Coast schools. While research released by the Queensland Parliamentary Library this week reports that suicide rates have declined from their peak in 1997, which is in part due to the good work done in suicide prevention by government and non-government agencies, now is not the time to become complacent, because depression, mental illness and substance abuse rates remain high among young people. Programs such as Help When You Need It are vital in providing support to troubled youths. Help When You Need It is a multimedia package featuring one of Australia's leading adolescent psychologists, Dr Michael Carr-Gregg. It provides a virtual one-on-one experience providing practical advice to young people, parents and teachers. It covers topics such as eating disorders, bullying, drugs and alcohol, depression and other issues, including grief and grief management. Distribution of the kit has been assisted by the Lions Rotary Foundation and by people in the field such as Dr Raelee Taylor, who is well known and respected in the field of suicide prevention. She will be giving the briefing. I urge members to take this opportunity to come along, learn more about this program and consider taking it on as something they can sponsor for distribution in their own schools. Mr SPEAKER: Order! The time for private members' statements has expired.

QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Electricity Supply Mr SPRINGBORG (10.31 a.m.): My question is addressed to the Treasurer. I refer to the power distribution crisis which his government has caused and which was covered up prior to the last state election. How long will this disaster continue to be a part of Queensland? How much will this disaster cost to fix? Will the Treasurer give an undertaking in this parliament today that he will not take any further dividends from the power authorities until Queenslanders are provided with a reliable power service? Mr MACKENROTH: In answer to the member's questions, first I go back to the statement he made in his private member's statement that he warned us in 1999. If he was aware of it in 1999, why did he not do something about it in 1997-98 when he was in government? In 1997-98 the then government did not take a special dividend; it took an equity withdrawal. It called it an equity withdrawal, not a special dividend. It took $314 million from Energex and $155 million from the distribution companies which formed Ergon. That is what those opposite did in government. They conveniently want to forget about that. In relation to the report which has been done, I was asked last week or the week before by a television station whether I believed I was accountable. My answer was simple: yes, I am accountable. One of the things I did with the Premier and the Minister for Energy was establish the inquiry which has looked at the situation. Mr Seeney: You had no choice. 17 Aug 2004 Questions Without Notice 1747

Mr MACKENROTH: We did have a choice. It was three weeks after an election. Of course we had a choice. We wanted to have a look at the situation in terms of the distribution system. We established an inquiry. We gave it broad terms of reference to actually have a look at the system. We said at that time that we would make its report public, and we did that. We actually established the inquiry because we were not happy with the storms and the answers we were getting in relation to that. Mr Seeney interjected. Mr MACKENROTH: The question was in three parts. It was not three questions. I am getting there. Mr Horan: The most important part is: are you going to stop taking the dividends and fix it? Mr MACKENROTH: If it was the most important part, that is what should have been asked. In relation to our response, this morning the Premier tabled the first part of that in relation to this summer. On 23 August a further submission will go to the Cabinet Budget Review Committee. That has been made public. That will look at how much this is going to cost and how we will pay for it. When we have done that we will make that public.

Electricity Supply Mr SPRINGBORG: I note that the Treasurer is still going to take the dividends. My next question is also addressed to the Treasurer. I table his cabinet submission—security classification C—in which he recommended 29 people for appointment to GOC boards. In the submission he misled his colleagues by claiming that no issues had been identified which may draw into question the proposed appointees' private interest and their public duty. Is it not a fact that one of these appointments was his personal mate Wayne Myers? Is it not a fact that Mr Myers, once on the telecommunications subcommittee of Ergon Energy, stopped a deal with Optus with the advice 'the Treasurer won't like it'? Is it not a further fact that as a result of stopping this deal Mr Myers' own company Sirocco and its associated entities picked up the business worth $119,223? If that is not corruption, what is? Mr MACKENROTH: I have seen the anonymous document the member is reading from. It was sent to the Premier and a copy was sent to him. I guess there are two parts to the question. One is about Mr Myers being on the telecommunications subcommittee of Ergon Energy. No. 1, there is no such subcommittee. He does not serve on it because there is not a telecommunications subcommittee. There is not one. In relation to the fact that Mr Myers' company, Sirocco Technologies, does work for a company which is called Avaya, that was actually in the paper I think a year ago. It was explained then, and I will explain it to the Leader of the Opposition again. The company Avaya won a contract with Ergon Energy before Wayne Myers was appointed as a director. There is one thing that I can say quite categorically in this parliament, and that is that Wayne Myers is a person of the highest integrity and a person who I know would never do anything like the member is alluding to—nothing whatsoever. Employment Mrs ATTWOOD: My question is addressed to the Premier, and I ask: how did Queensland fare in the latest labour force report? How does that reflect on our industry incentives, which are designed to create new jobs in Queensland? Mr BEATTIE: I thank the member for Mount Ommaney for her question, because this is a true indication of what is happening in Queensland. The statistics I will reveal in a minute show just how effectively the Smart State strategy is working and how effectively the programs we have been running through the QIS scheme and other schemes to encourage new jobs and enterprises here are delivering for Queenslanders. Queensland's unemployment rate has dropped to 5.7 per cent. This is the lowest rate since 1981 and the equal lowest since the ABS monthly labour force figures started in 1978. We promised jobs, jobs, jobs and we have delivered, delivered, delivered. The result is further proof that Queensland is the economic engine room of Australia. As a country we have experienced a sustained period of growth. This government has made sure that Queensland maximises the benefit of that growth. The proof of our resolve is seen in our employment numbers. The ABS labour force results for July 2004—the latest—reveal the true extent of the government's smart approach to employment creation. The jobs data for July shows the results of the hard work by the government since coming to office. All but 500 of the 5,900 jobs created in Australia in the month of July were created in Queensland. That is, 91.5 per cent of all jobs created across Australia in the month of July were created in Queensland. The national unemployment level is coming down because of us. Queensland's annual employment growth is rocketing at 4.2 per cent compared to a national growth rate of 2.4 per cent. Queensland's Smart State strategy is delivering. Queensland recorded the largest annual rise in employment of any state over the last 12 months, with 75,900 extra people being employed. All up, 1748 Questions Without Notice 17 Aug 2004

Queensland accounted for over 30 per cent of the national rise in employment over the year, which is a fantastic result for a state that accounts for only 19 per cent of the population. Crucially, full-time jobs are driving the impressive employment performance. Queensland contributed 78.5 per cent of new full-time jobs in Australia in July. Over the year the Smart State generated 41 per cent of national full-time jobs growth. A 5.7 per cent Queensland unemployment rate, as I said, is the lowest it has been since 1981—well below the 9.5 per cent unemployment rate delivered when the National and Liberal parties ran the state. This is proof that our Smart State strategies including our incentives for major projects are working. So those incentives that the opposition go out and whinge about are delivering. I table for the information of the House the rest of this document. This is what is important to Queensland—jobs. Electricity Supply Mr SEENEY: My question without notice is directed to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer confirm that the acting head of the Office of Energy, Ms Loretta Bowman, is the same Loretta Bowman that appears on this list of Labor Unity members alongside him and the Premier? Can he confirm that Ms Loretta Bowman is the same person who appears in this newspaper report at the Premier's fifth anniversary bash along with two other Labor Premiers? Mr Mackenroth interjected. Mr SEENEY: Do you want me to table it? Mr Mackenroth: I can't see it from here. Mr SEENEY: I will table that one. I am a bit reluctant to table this, but if the Treasurer insists I will table the list of Labor Unity faction members. I am a bit reluctant to do that but I will table both of them on the request of the minister. Can the Treasurer advise the House what independent advice was given to him by Ms Loretta Bowman, the acting head of the Office of Energy, about Queensland's emerging power crisis? Mr MACKENROTH: Here we go; further character assassinations, just like the last one from the Leader of the Opposition. There are some people who are feeding a lot of stuff to the opposition and to the media which is totally inaccurate. Last week my office was contacted by a journalist in relation to Loretta Bowman and her husband, and the journalist had some absolute bedrock information that I was the godfather to their three children. No. 1, I do not know how many children they have; No. 2, I do not know what religion they are; and, No. 3, I do not know if they are christened. So the answer went back, ‘No, I am not.’ Not to be outdone, the question came back again: ‘Is he the godfather to children from a previous marriage?’ I would not know, but I did get someone to ask the question. There had not been any previous marriages but— Mr SEENEY: Mr Speaker, I rise to a point of order. My question was about advice. Mr SPEAKER: Order! There were several points to your question and the minister is answering them. Mr MACKENROTH: Firstly, I am giving the member the sort of information that is being fed out there and peddled, which is absolute rubbish and which people are acting on. In relation to Loretta Bowman, she was appointed the acting head of the Office of Energy after the election. One of her jobs was to assist the Somerville inquiry. In fact, the Somerville inquiry commended her office for all of the assistance that they gave. Ethanol Mr MULHERIN: My question without notice is directed to the Premier and Minister for Trade. Could the Premier inform the House what is the background to and the purpose of the Brazilian ethanol roadshow which is currently touring Queensland? Mr BEATTIE: I thank the member for Mackay for his question because I know that he, like members of the cabinet, are committed to doing everything they can to advance the sugar industry. During my recent trade mission to Brazil—the report for which I table today—it was obvious to me and the Queensland sugar industry representatives who accompanied me that Brazil has shown the world that ethanol is a viable and desirable product. Brazil leads the world in the production of ethanol. The Brazilians agreed during my visit there to come to Queensland to help us promote ethanol and, importantly, a Queensland ethanol industry. The fact that this ethanol team from Brazil has travelled to Queensland to assist us is a strong indication that it may be possible to forge an alliance with Brazil to supply ethanol to the world. I will come back to that. This has the potential to be a tremendous benefit to our sugar industry, our cane farmers and their communities. Although the Queensland sugar industry leads the world in many respects—for example, its efficiency and quality—the fact is that Queensland sugar producers have to diversify. Queensland produces about 94 per cent of Australia's sugar. Australia produces more than five million tonnes of raw 17 Aug 2004 Questions Without Notice 1749 sugar a year from more than 35 million tonnes of sugar cane. By comparison—and this is the important point about diversification—Brazil's sugar harvest totalled 340 million tonnes in the year to 30 June 2004 and 55 per cent of the harvest was used to produce ethanol. It is almost 50-50. That is where we have to move if the sugar industry is going to have the future we want. In Australia our focus is on raw and refined sugar production while everything else is an add-on. That has to change. One of the main purposes for the roadshow which Tony McGrady, the Minister for State Development, and I launched yesterday and the series of seminars being held in various communities will be to correct some of the misinformation about ethanol. The public needs to become aware of the benefits of using ethanol and the fact that it will not damage their cars, particularly E10. With China, the European Union and Japan all now looking to import ethanol, there is a tremendous potential to develop a strong ethanol export industry. Today the roadshow is in Bundaberg. On Thursday it will be in Mackay, and on Friday it travels to Townsville and Ayr. It will be in Ingham on Saturday and I hope the member will be there. On Monday it travels to Cairns and on Tuesday it will be in Innisfail. It is a 10-day Brazilian ethanol express starring Ethyl, a green bus powered by E10. There is something that concerns me, and the government with Tony McGrady and Tom Barton before him have been pursuing it. While in Thailand a few weeks ago on a trade and investment mission I had discussions with the Thai Prime Minister who, surprise, surprise, had just returned from where? Brazil. They know that they have to be part of a Brazilian export industry, and unless we get this together in Australia we are going to be left behind. What will happen is that Brazil will do a deal with Thailand unless we are part of it. We have to be part of it. I say to Mark Vaile: get out there and do something about an export industry in partnership with us. Electricity Supply Mr HORAN: My question without notice is directed to the Hon. Minister for Employment, Training and Industrial Relations. We know that ACTU heavyweight and Labor hack Grace Grace already gets $26,160 for sitting on the Energex board. We know she gets $15,000 for her appointment to the South Bank Corporation. We know she gets $1,877 for her place on the workplace health and safety board, and we know she gets $2,500 for being deputy trustee of the QSuper board. But Q-Comp refuses to release how much Grace Grace gets for sitting on the Q-Comp board. Will the minister now reveal this figure so that taxpayers can see once and for all what they are paying Grace Grace as part of his government's Labor cronies package? Mr BARTON: I do not have that figure immediately with me, but I will consult with the chairman of Q-Comp and I will consult with my director-general because I do not have a problem with that amount being made publicly available. I will check to see if there is any reason why it would not be. The member has not provided the detail of what steps he has taken to get that information. Can I just check this? In fact, I think the member is wrong. Sorry, no, she is on the Q-Comp board, the member is right. I will check to see if there is any legal barrier for why the member cannot be provided with that information, but I am not aware of one. I personally do not have a problem with that type of information being publicly available. I will follow that through and let the member know. Department of Defence, Dauan Island Mr O'BRIEN: My question without notice is to the Minister for the Environment. Minister, what implications does the environmental incident in the Torres Strait involving the Defence Department which he referred to earlier have for the management and protection of the marine environment in Queensland? Mr MICKEL: I thank the honourable member for Cook for the question. I can understand his concern—representing that area very well the way he does—about the environmental vandalism that he saw this morning carried out by the Defence Department. In other words, what the Howard government has done is flout the law in relation to the environment when it comes to Queensland. I am so concerned about this that I am going to take it up. I know that the opposition does not care about this. The members opposite do not care about vandalism at all when it comes to the environment. That is why I say to the member for Cook: go back up to your electorate and reassure your electorate that the Queensland government cares very much about the law. Mr SPEAKER: Order! The minister will address the chair. Mr SEENEY: I rise to a point of order. I think the minister is being disrespectful to the chair. I think he should address the chair. Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have asked the minister to address the chair. I will do my job. Mr MICKEL: Thank you for your protection, Mr Speaker. I was paying a courtesy to the member for Cook, who had asked me the question. I meant no disrespect to you at all. I simply want to reassure the constituents of Cook that this government takes the environmental issues very seriously. But the 1750 Questions Without Notice 17 Aug 2004 great contrast in this issue is the attitude of the federal government when it comes to other issues in respect to Queensland. If people live on the Gold Coast they have every right to expect that the Commonwealth government would behave the same way. Instead, what do we find? At the behest of the Leader of the Opposition we have a Great Walk on the Gold Coast that has been stopped—stopped because the Leader of the Opposition went to the federal minister to have 1.9 kilometres of Great Walk stopped dead in its tracks. What were the radical things the government was proposing to do with the camp ground? We were providing a toilet block. We have environmental vandalism on the reef. We are trying to improve the Great Walks and it has been stopped dead in its tracks by the federal government. We also see on Fraser Island another rule where the federal government announced by media release that it was going to put in a pathway costing $300,000. Did they consult us? There was not one word on it! So we have one rule up there on Cape York, where they can wreck anything they like with no permits. On the Gold Coast they interrupt an activity. On Fraser Island they say it is okay. Is it any wonder that people throughout the state wonder what this federal government is up to. I might say that they did the same thing with the Misty Mountains trail. They found no problem at all with that. On the Gold Coast there are plenty of problems with the federal government. If people are from the Gold Coast, ask this of the federal government: why is there one rule for the Gold Coast and another rule for everywhere else? Let me go to the mouse pad of the Leader of the Opposition, and say this: ‘Come, comrades. We have found a better way.’ Electricity Supply Mr QUINN: My question is directed to the Minister for Mines and Energy. I refer the minister to Saturday's Courier-Mail story regarding the Treasurer. It said— Beattie this week indicated that the government would decrease the percentage of profits it took from the power GOCs but Mackenroth says he will do no such thing. I ask the Minister: as the other shareholding minister in both Energex and Ergon, whose dividend policy does he support—the Premier's or the Treasurer's? Mr ROBERTSON: I thank the honourable member for the question. I would refer him to the answer provided earlier by the Treasurer. Statewide Literacy and Numeracy Tests Mr LIVINGSTONE: My question is to the Minister for Education and Minister for the Arts. I understand that students in years 3, 5 and 7 will undertake statewide literacy and numeracy tests today and tomorrow. In May this year the minister reported that last year's tests were reissued to report against the national benchmarks, a federal government requirement if students with reading problems were receiving a $700 tertiary credit. Will the minister advise if any Queensland families have received the money under the federal government's promised $700 tertiary credit scheme? Ms BLIGH: I thank the member for the question. He is right; today sees the beginning of the annual literacy and numeracy tests for children in years, 3, 5 and 7. Some 162,000 young Queenslanders in state and non-state schools today will be undertaking the first of those tests in numeracy. In fact, some of them are probably sitting down with their sharpened pencils right at this moment. There are approximately 54,000 students in each of the year levels taking those tests, and I am sure that other members of the House will join me in wishing them all well as they undertake the tests in the next couple of days. Members may recall that in mid-May this year the federal government, through the federal Minister for Education, announced a new scheme that would see a $700 credit go to families of children who were struggling with literacy and numeracy, as evidenced in their results on the national benchmark tests. Members may also recall that the initial proposal from the Commonwealth was that Queensland children would be excluded from that credit, but it had to backflip very quickly and Queensland children are now eligible. It is now three months since the Commonwealth made that decision, and three months on I can advise the House that we have yet to see one child in Queensland and, to my knowledge, we have yet to see one child in Australia receive the credit. The federal guidelines have seen tenders for a state broker in each of the states. The tender documents have been issued and they closed on 30 July, but no broker has yet been appointed. The federal government has put conditions on the spending for this program, and it imposes guidelines and deadlines which I am frankly not sure that it is possible to meet. The federal conditions require that the tuition credits be spent in term 3 and term 4 of this year. Term 3 finishes in four weeks time, and there is as yet no broker for the funds appointed in Queensland. It is also a federal requirement that the tuition credits must be spent before the end of February 2005. School does not start in Queensland until 24 January. Members have only to do the maths to realise that, unless we have a broker for the funds appointed very quickly, a crash course in speed reading will be required over the Christmas holidays. As if the way that this program was initially announced was not enough evidence, it is now absolutely evident that this policy, this program and this response to one of the most critical issues 17 Aug 2004 Questions Without Notice 1751 facing our country was one that was put together on the run. This is a piecemeal approach to good- quality policy and program making. Frankly, it can be described as nothing short of sloppy and half- baked. It is clear that there were no plans in place—not one—for how this program might be implemented. Our children deserve better, and I call on the federal Minister for Education to get his department moving and make sure that these funds go to our children as soon as possible. Dingoes, Sunshine Coast Mr WELLINGTON: My question is to the Minister for the Environment. Over recent months some of my constituents have expressed real concern at the boldness of new dingoes on the Sunshine Coast hinterland, with the dingoes approaching houses and sheds. Many people believe that these dingoes, which show little fear of people and strong similarities with Fraser Island dingoes, may have been relocated from Fraser Island to the Sunshine Coast hinterland. I ask: Minister, has the government been involved in a relocation of dingoes from Fraser Island to the mainland? Mr MICKEL: I thank the member for Nicklin for raising this matter with me today. Let me give him an assurance that there is no policy, while I am the minister, of ever relocating the dingoes from Fraser Island to any other constituency. The dingo problem on Fraser Island will be handled on Fraser Island, so the member can give his constituents that assurance. But it gives me a chance to say this of our dingo awareness program on Fraser Island: I want to assure all honourable members that public safety is our No. 1 priority when it comes to dingoes. We have an ongoing dingo awareness program which is designed to educate visitors about the dangers of feeding or provoking these wild animals. It is the feeding of dingoes that continues to be one of the greatest problems we have. I appeal to the 400,000 visitors who will go to Fraser Island this year to adhere to the guidelines to ensure that dingoes are treated as what they are: they are wild animals; they are not pets. There are penalties of up to $3,000 for people caught feeding dingoes. All 82 actions recommended under the Fraser Island dingo management strategy have been completed or are under way. We have employed camp ground rangers to raise visitor awareness about dingoes and increase compliance, with four rangers specifically focusing on dingo management issues. Fences, lights, barbecue covers, washing-up facilities and food lockers are being progressively installed at selected locations, including—and I say this for the benefit of the member for Nicklin—the new $1.2 million Central Station camp ground which I opened recently. A research project is under way to increase scientific knowledge about the population dynamics and behaviour ecology of Fraser Island dingoes. Risk assessments are conducted regularly and incidents are closely monitored to proactively manage threats from dingoes. In summary, public safety is our No. 1 priority and every action that can be taken to ensure that dingoes are managed effectively is being carried out. I want to reassure the member's constituents that there will be no relocation of dingoes from Fraser Island to any other constituency—not while I am the Minister for the Environment and, I trust, not ever while the Beattie government is in office. Queensland Health, Clinical Waste Disposal Mr FRASER: My question without notice is to the Minister for Health. Can the minister provide details of the audit of clinical waste management in Queensland Health hospitals? Mr NUTTALL: I thank the honourable member for the question and congratulate him on becoming a father recently. In response to an estimates committee question on 21 July I gave an undertaking to have my department conduct an audit of clinical waste in Queensland Health hospitals. Clear terms of reference were determined for the audit committee. They were to define the department's responsibilities for the management and disposal of waste generally and clinical waste specifically, to provide a report on the current level of compliance with the legislative requirements by all Queensland Health facilities and, thirdly, to make recommendations as necessary to improve current practices. This audit is currently under way with substantial progress already achieved and I will have a completed report by the end of this month. While I stand by this commitment I must question the authenticity of photographs that were produced during the estimates hearing and the assertions made by the opposition. The photographs and issues raised regarding disposal of clinical waste in Townsville do not appear to be consistent with the accompanying claims. Some of the photographs have an uncanny resemblance to those taken by Thuringowa City Council officers of an incident that occurred in February of last year at the Jensen Street landfill in Townsville. Thuringowa City Council investigated that incident and found medical waste from a private hospital in Townsville had been deposited at the landfill. The matter was taken up by council with the hospital direct and was not reported to the EPA at that time. It is not surprising that a great deal of waste is generated by an organisation the size of Queensland Health and in order to minimise the bulk of the waste and to lessen its impact on the environment Queensland Health has taken comprehensive steps to improve its management of waste. This has caused some discontent among waste contractors who feel the reduction of waste required to 1752 Questions Without Notice 17 Aug 2004 be disposed of in a specialised manner has reduced the profitability of their businesses. I am more than happy to have the department investigate any possible incidents involving Queensland Health facilities, but I expect that any such investigation would be based on facts and that complaints should be made through established channels. Mr SPEAKER: I welcome to the public gallery students and teachers from Scarborough State School in the electorate of Redcliffe. I welcome the pride of the peninsula. Berri Ltd Mr HOBBS: I note that after the Premier's assurance this morning about the electricity supply the power to the chamber clock has failed twice. I have a question for the Minister for State Development. The minister recently advised that the Berri grant was not signed off during the caretaker period but was signed off two days after the 2001 election. Given that the minister will be introducing legislation hiding this information for at least a further eight years later today, will the minister now tell Queenslanders when the deal was approved by cabinet and who the minister was who signed off on the grant? Mr McGRADY: I thank the honourable member for the question. The information I gave at the estimates hearing was the information which was conveyed to me and I do not change one single word that I said during the estimate hearings. In relation to the second part of the question as to when we will be announcing any further information, I think what the member should do is wait to see what is introduced in this parliament in the near future. Mr SPEAKER: I welcome to the public gallery students and teachers from Redcliffe High School in the electorate of Redcliffe. Skills Shortages Mr CHOI: My question is to the Minister for Employment, Training and Industrial Relations. I understand the government is ramping up its push to counter skill shortages in key industries. Can the minister give any details of these new measures? Mr BARTON: I thank the member for Capalaba for the question. The member regularly speaks to me about training and skills shortage issues and I am pleased to answer this question for him because one of the major priorities of this government this term is addressing skills shortage issues. One of the reasons for that is that Queensland to some degree is a victim of its own success. The Premier detailed earlier in question time the high number of new jobs and the amount of development that is being generated in Queensland. What that is doing, of course, is putting stress on the skill levels that are out there, despite the fact that we are attracting a large number of people to come from interstate. Last week I was very proud on behalf of this government to launch the SmartVET strategy document which provides a comprehensive overview of this visionary three-year plan and a range of groundbreaking initiatives to enhance our training outcomes and particularly to address skills shortages that are out there and may, in fact, stop us from getting the level of growth that we intend to maintain. SmartVET highlights Queensland's vocational education and training system as the primary source of increasing the skills of labour for the state's priority industries. These include new and emerging industries as well as the major traditional industries where people are needing and seeking to upgrade their skills to remain internationally competitive. The SmartVET strategy details how we intend to spend over $1 billion over the next three years to expand the state's vocational education and training services and to align them with the priority requirements of industry over this next three-year period. That includes not just us enhancing the output from TAFE but also the user choice through private providers. It is a very comprehensive plan to make sure that we do align the increased money that we have put out there for training with the needs that are there with a whole raft of industries in this state. Last week I also had the privilege of releasing a new DVD—it also comes on video—promoting careers in manufacturing. This was produced as part of the manufacturing industry initiative that I am involved in jointly with the Minister for State Development and Innovation to promote careers in this key industry sector to students, their parents, teachers and careers advisers. The week before that we had a very good careers and manufacturing industry day in the member for Kurwongbah's electorate which promoted this to teachers, parents and students. We need to enhance the image of manufacturing and make sure that people do understand that there are great career choices and great training. We are working very heavily on that. As well as those DVDs and videos there are also a series of brochures detailing this great new initiative. Electricity Supply Dr FLEGG: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Natural Resources, Mines and Energy. As residents in my electorate sat in darkness last January they were assured about all the money that was being spent by Energex on maintenance. Imagine their surprise. I refer the minister to the Somerville report and the panel's findings regarding maintenance expenditure by Energex. Why 17 Aug 2004 Questions Without Notice 1753 were millions of dollars diverted from Energex's maintenance budget to the office of the CEO and to his PR division? Why did the government mislead Queensland voters at the last election by claiming this PR money was being spent on maintenance? Mr ROBERTSON: I am not aware of the particulars that the member has alleged in this place. Dr Flegg: Haven't you read it? Mr Quinn: It's your report. Mr ROBERTSON: I am more than happy to have that matter checked out. But I have to say that in relation to the Somerville report it provides us with a road map forward in terms of increased expenditure for operations and maintenance and upgrading the network to meet the demands and expectations of Queenslanders in the 21st century. We are determined, as we have shown today, that we have a comprehensive road map forward. The tabling today of the preparedness reports and strategies by both Ergon and Energex indicate a commitment by this government to fix the problems identified in the Somerville report, which I believe to be an excellent report. Dr Flegg: You haven't read it. Mr ROBERTSON: I can assure the member I have read it and read it and read it. There would be no-one else who has read this report more often than I have. What we have put in place are significant increases in the short term to capital expenditure and operations maintenance expenditure for both Energex and Ergon. In the near future, we will be providing a comprehensive way forward which will take us past the demands expected this summer. I suggest that the member for Moggill become part of the solution and not go down the path that we have seen the Opposition Leader go down. Mr Quinn: You're part of the problem. Mr ROBERTSON: Even the member for Robina recognised that the Opposition Leader's response to this report has been less than useful to the debate. I recall very well his media statement criticising the Leader of the Opposition when he came out with strategy number whatever it was which was laughable in the extreme, comrade. Mr Mickel: Was that the one that nationalised the industry? Mr ROBERTSON: That was it. True to form of the mouse pad, comrade Springborg believes in renationalising the electricity network. Even the member for Robina saw that for the ridiculous strategy it was. I suggest and encourage the member for Moggill to be part of the solution on behalf of his constituents. We have a comprehensive strategy being put in place. We saw the tablings by the Premier this morning. There is more good news to come in terms of fixing the problems identified in the Somerville report. Chickpea Industry Mr McNAMARA: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Primary Industries and Fisheries. I refer the minister to the growth in chickpea cropping. How quickly is the industry growing? What is the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries doing to support this new industry? Mr PALASZCZUK: I thank the honourable member for the question. I also recognise his keen interest in the chickpea industry. Just by looking at him and his sleek shape, he is an example of a person who partakes in our clean, safe, healthy food that is produced here in Queensland. The good news is that chickpea production in Queensland has increased sevenfold over the past nine years from around 13,000 tonnes to up to 100,000 tonnes. It is set to accelerate even faster over the next five years. The Department of Primary Industries research is indicating that our chickpea exports could top the $70 million per annum mark by the year 2009, with annual export earnings increasing from $5 million now to around $38 million over the same period. What is the reason for this acceleration? It is good breeding of new chickpea superior varieties that are highly sought after overseas for their seed quality. This paves the way for an expanding and vibrant Queensland industry. The large seed size of our new varieties is considered highly desirable in the internationally trading arena and preferred over most competitors' seeds at present. The overseas demand for the newly released Jimbour seed has seen the variety occupy 50 per cent of the crop sown in Queensland over the past two years. Further research is going to be entered into in the chickpea industry. It is going to be supported by a $1.8 million investment in 2004-05 by the Queensland government and the grains industry into crop improvement for chickpeas, mung beans and peanuts. In addition, the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries have developed a new publication titled Chickpea disorders: The ute guide which is designed to assist current and intending chickpea growers to improve their chickpea production. Not only do we have a ute guide to support and assist our chickpea growers, we also have a ute guide to assist other industries. A ute guide is a loose-leaf 1754 Privilege 17 Aug 2004 cardboard production with a ring binder that allows our producers to get the latest technology and latest research on how to best to grow the product. The honourable member for Toowoomba South and the honourable member for Toowoomba North would know about this because I have shown both members an example of the chickpea guide. Anybody listening via the Internet should know that they are available for the good price of around $20. It is a good buy. Interruption.

PRIVILEGE

Queensland Trade Commissioner's Office; Answer to Question Hon. P.D. BEATTIE (Brisbane Central—ALP) (Premier and Minister for Trade) (11.18 a.m.): In the aggregate figures I tabled earlier in relation to the expenditure of the Queensland Trade Commissioner's Office the figures for 2003-04 were labelled as estimates. I am delighted to advise the House now that I have received an update of the figures. These figures bring forward the reconciliation of the trade office expenditure for 2003-04, while under the responsibility of the Department of State Development, with the expenditure since the trade office has been transferred to my department. These figures would normally be reconciled at the end of the financial year. I make them available now in the interests of providing a complete picture of the current expenditure of the trade office and seek leave to have them incorporated in Hansard. Queensland has never seen such accountability.

2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 Tokyo 2,569,067 2,315,066 2,333,292 2,485,463 London 1,826,503 1,693,552 1,757,166 1,611,091 Taipei 998,825 903,403 807,467 717,307 Hong Kong 1,396,124 1,448,042 1,549,401 1,201,537 Shanghai 1,141,572 1,111,987 1,055,898 1,270,233 Los Angeles 1,643,880 1,788,222 1,861,266 1,484,686 Jakarta 625,139 574,181 629,765 707,145 Semarang 258,631 204,644 225,709 228,215 Osaka 552,073 612,944 475,665 293,496 Seoul 228,333 786,819 836,900 810,775

Total 11,240,147 11,438,860 11,532,529 10,809,948

PRIVILEGE

Electricity Supply; Answer to Question Hon. T.A. BARTON (Waterford—ALP) (Minister for Employment, Training and Industrial Relations) (11.19 a.m.): I rise on a matter of privilege suddenly arising. The member the Toowoomba South raised a question with me about payments for fees for QComp by Grace Grace. I have checked those figures. It is a matter that a meeting fee applies for meetings of QComp of $491 per meeting where it is a four-hour meeting. If it is a shorter meeting, a lesser fee applies. There are typically 11 meetings per year. The actual amount that Ms Grace would receive would depend on how many meetings she attends. To her knowledge she has missed only one meeting in recent times. So people can work out the basic annual amount. I am yet to check whether that shows up in QComp's annual report or elsewhere. I would be very amazed if it was not, or if it is not in the Gazette somewhere as to what the meeting fee is. I can answer the question. It is $491 per meeting. I should also add that all of the board fees that Ms Grace receives that were referred to by the member for Toowoomba South do not go into her pay directly. They are paid to the Queensland Council of Unions. The only one that is not paid directly to the Queensland Council of Unions on her behalf is Energex where that is paid to her. She then pays that fee directly into the Queensland Council of Unions. So she does not receive any personal benefit for all of the very hard work that she does on those government boards. 17 Aug 2004 Questions Without Notice 1755

PRIVILEGE

Mr W. Myers, Energex Board Mr SPRINGBORG (Southern Downs—NPA) (Leader of the Opposition) (11.20 a.m.): I rise on a matter of privilege. Earlier in an answer to a question to the Treasurer regarding the appointment of Wayne Myers to the Energex board and a payment to an associated entity of Mr Myers's company Sirocco, the Treasurer indicated that the payment was indeed made to this associated entity. Mr MACKENROTH: Quite clearly I said that the contract was let to Avaya before Mr Myers was a director, and that is the case. Mr SPRINGBORG: I would like the Treasurer to explain why it does not appear in that annual report, because Wayne Myers was appointed to the board on 5 July 2001. So he was on the board in 2002 and it was in the 2002-03 period that Sirocco Communications received business to the tune of $119,223. The Treasurer is wrong in his claim that Mr Myers was not on the board at the time. If it is true that the contract was let in that earlier year, why did it not appear in that annual report? Why did it appear in the subsequent annual report? Mr MACKENROTH: I will check in relation to that point, but I might say once again that the contract was let before Mr Myers was a director. Therefore, the accusation that he in some way influenced the letting of that contract is wrong—is absolutely wrong. I will check about the other point that the member raised. Mr SPRINGBORG: I am happy to table the exact extracts from both annual reports. The Treasurer can go and get it, but I am saying that the relevant bits are there. We can actually read them. The Treasurer obviously cannot. Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member has made his point of privilege.

QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE Resumed from p. 1754. Nurses Ms LEE LONG: My question is to the Minister for Health. The average or median age for nurses in Queensland's public hospitals is now 42 years of age. This ageing of our nursing population proves that tertiary education is not giving us nurses with long careers in caring, and I ask: will the minister consider introducing a form of non-tertiary nursing training to help counter this trend? Mr NUTTALL: I am not quite sure about the premise of the question in saying that nurses who are over 40 are not going to do a good job. In terms of— Ms LEE LONG: I rise to a point of order. I did not say that nurses over 42 years of age are not doing a good job. I said that the median age— Mr NUTTALL: I will try to answer the question in terms of nurse recruitment in general, and I trust that that is what the honourable member is trying to get at—that is, we have an ageing population and how we are going to make sure that we have enough nurses to look after people as they get older. I assume that that is the premise of the question. Ms LEE LONG: I rise to a point of order. The minister obviously has not heard my question, so does he want me to repeat it or what? Mr SPEAKER: The minister would like the member to repeat it, so repeat it. Ms LEE LONG: I said that the average age for nurses in Queensland's public hospitals is now 42 years. This ageing of our nursing population proves that tertiary education is not giving us nurses with long careers in caring. I am asking the minister if he will consider introducing a form of non-tertiary nursing training to help counter this trend. Mr NUTTALL: The premise of the question is simply incorrect. It is simply incorrect to say that the reason that— Mr Mickel: The reason that somebody over 40 is old is wrong! Mr NUTTALL: That is right. There is no intention of the government to introduce non-tertiary training for nurses, because the premise of the member's question is wrong in saying that because we have tertiary education it does not attract young nurses. That is simply not the case. We gave an election commitment to employ 1,500 nurses over the term of this government—that is, 500 nurses a year. We are honouring that commitment and, in some places, we are actually employing more than the 1,500 nurses over the three years depending on the year. In some years we might employ more than 500; it could be 600 or 700. We are employing additional nurses, for example, in emergency 1756 Questions Without Notice 17 Aug 2004 departments. But we have had an ongoing commitment for quite some time to continue to employ over 500 nurses a year. Child Protection Mrs SMITH: My question is to the Minister for Child Safety. Minister, the transition from the former Department of Families to the new Department of Child Safety has been occurring at a rapid rate. Can the minister please outline how the reforms will benefit child protection services throughout the state, especially in regional areas outside of Brisbane? Mr REYNOLDS: I thank the member for Burleigh for the question. I am pleased to indicate that there will be two brand-new child safety service centres established on the Gold Coast, bringing the total number in her area to four. The new Department of Child Safety reached another important milestone recently when I announced a new decentralised organisational structure that will sharpen the focus on child protection in Queensland. This follows the appointment of our new Director-General, Dr Robin Sullivan, and the new Deputy Director-General, Norelle Deeth, who have both been an extremely valuable addition to the department. I am very pleased to announce that 46 child safety service centres and nine outreach offices will provide broader service coverage than ever before and make front-line child protection service delivery more immediate, more accessible and aligned with local communities' needs. Importantly, all centralised functions now aim to support regional service delivery outlets rather than the other way around and service centres have been designed so that enough staff and resources are available to meet the child protection needs of each particular community. Under the new structure, Queensland will be divided into seven zones—the northern zone, the far northern zone, the central zone, the Brisbane north and Sunshine Coast zone, the Logan and Brisbane west zone, and the Ipswich and western zone. We have purposely reduced the 11 regions of the former Department of Families to seven zones to reduce overheads and to ensure that key functional areas will exist at the closest service delivery point to the client. I also inform the House today that additional centres will be established in Townsville, Cairns, Rockhampton, the Sunshine Coast, Browns Plains, Ipswich, Toowoomba and on Brisbane's north side. Both Logan and the Gold Coast will each receive two extra service centres to deliver child safety services to the growing populations of those regions. They deserve those extra two centres, and they are going to get them. The changes taking place are not only structural but involve a fundamental shift in the culture, ethos and work practices of all staff. Some 248 transition, leadership and change facilitator workshops designed to bring about key organisational changes have been successfully completed. More than 2,300 staff from the former Department of Families completed the transition workshops over an eight- week time frame and are now ready to tackle the big job ahead. Awareness sessions have been delivered across the state to ensure that staff have an appreciation of the reasons for the significant changes being undertaken, including the major outcomes to be achieved. All of these initiatives will continue to be carefully developed and implemented over the coming months to ensure that they are successful in improving staff culture, morale, support and wellbeing, thus in turn producing better services for children, families and the communities of Queensland, particularly the most vulnerable kids and youngsters we have in Queensland. I thank all members of the House for their patience during this time of transition. This is a new era in child protection in our state, and I look forward to continuing to bring to light more developments in the near feature.

Vegetation Management Mr HOPPER: My question is to the Minister for Natural Resources, Mines and Energy. Mr Schwarten interjected. Mr HOPPER: Rob, if you answered a question properly you might get one, too. Mr SPEAKER: Order! Mr HOPPER: Minister, I refer to the numerous telephone hotlines this government has set up in relation to the new vegetation management legislation. Given that it is taking land-holders who call a department hotline seeking information about putting in an application for the tree clearing ballot up to six weeks to get a response, can the minister explain how long it will take his department to respond to calls made to his new 24-hour dob-in-a-farmer hotline? Mr ROBERTSON: The hotline that was established to assist to disseminate information and to assist land-holders with respect to the new vegetation management laws has received literally hundreds and hundreds of calls. It is the case that many of those queries are complex in nature. In fact, I am informed that the average length of time spent on each phone call is around about 45 minutes, such is the commitment by people in that call centre and officers of my department to provide full information to assist land-holders wherever possible. 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1757

I am also informed that in cases where a backlog of calls is received, that land-holders are informed that their call has been registered and that they will attempt to phone back within the shortest period of time. Part of the problem that has been faced by officers of my department in phoning back the land-holders is that often it is the case that there is no-one home and that— Opposition members interjected. Mr ROBERTSON: Sorry, I would have thought that the National Party would understand that land-holders actually spend a fair bit of time outside of their homes on the land. That is why we need to have in place—and we do have in place—a system of repeat phone calls back to assist land-holders.

SUSPENSION OF STANDING AND SESSIONAL ORDERS Hon. P.D. BEATTIE (Brisbane Central—ALP) (Premier and Minister for Trade) (11.31 a.m.), by leave, without notice: I move — That so much of standing and sessional orders be suspended to— (a) enable me to now move a motion without notice and allow that motion to be debated forthwith; and (b) enable the order of business to resume as matters of public interest to completion of the debate on the motion. Question—That the motion be agreed to—put; and the House divided— AYES, 57—Attwood, Barry, Barton, Beattie, Bligh, Boyle, Briskey, Choi, E.Clark, L.Clark, Cummins, E. Cunningham, English, Fenlon, Finn, Fraser, Hayward, Hoolihan, Jarratt, Keech, Lawlor, Lee, Livingstone, Lucas, Mackenroth, Male, McGrady, McNamara, Mickel, Molloy, Mulherin, Nelson-Carr, Nolan, Nuttall, O'Brien, Palaszczuk, Pearce, Pitt, Purcell, Reilly, Reynolds, N.Roberts, Robertson, Schwarten, Scott, Shine, Smith, Spence, Stone, Struthers, C.Sullivan, Wallace, Welford, Wells, Wilson. Tellers: T.Sullivan, Reeves NOES, 25—Copeland, Flegg, Foley, Hobbs, Horan, Johnson, Knuth, Langbroek, Lee Long, Lingard, McArdle, Menkens, Messenger, Pratt, Quinn, Rickuss, E.Roberts, Rowell, Seeney, Simpson, Springborg, Stuckey, Wellington. Tellers: Hopper, Malone Resolved in the affirmative.

ELECTRICITY SUPPLY Hon. P.D. BEATTIE (Brisbane Central—ALP) (Premier and Minister for Trade) (11.38 a.m.): I move— That the House commend the government on its forthright decision to commission an independent review of the Queensland electricity distribution network and the companies that operate the networks; Note the report of the independent panel, Electricity Distribution and Service Delivery for the 21st Century commissioned by the government; Endorse the government's commitment to implementing the 44 recommendations contained within the independent report, Electricity Distribution and Service Delivery for the 21st Century, and its decisive actions in response; and Endorse the government's action to improve network performance this summer by requiring Ergon and Energex to develop action plans Energex Strategic Plan for Summer 2004-05 and Ergon Energy Summer 2004-05 Preparations. I move that motion accordingly and I know that the Deputy Premier will second it. What the government has done is very simple. This issue is important. We have brought it on for debate in the parliament so that everyone who wants to have an opportunity to debate it can. I have no idea why the opposition sought to limit debate on this important issue, because this issue should be debated. We are happy to be open and accountable and to debate this issue head-on. We will not move away from our responsibility to be accountable to this parliament. Not only that, the motion that I moved allows time for matters of public interest later today. So parliament has not lost the important opportunity for matters of public interest. According to the opposition, the biggest issue at the moment is power. Let us debate it. Let us have it on the floor of the parliament so that everyone who wants to make a contribution can do so. Under my government, we will be open and accountable. We will not limit debate on crucial issues. Opposition members interjected. Mr BEATTIE: Let them squeal. Who voted against the motion to have an open debate on electricity? The opposition did! There is a clear difference between the opposition and us. I want power for the people Miss Simpson: We kept the power on. Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member for Maroochydore will cease interjecting now. Mr BEATTIE: There is a clear difference between the opposition and the government. I want to keep the power on for the people of Queensland; they want power for the National Party. That is what they want. There is no way in the world that we want to see people suffer. What the Leader of the Opposition and the opposition want is for the lights to go out so that they can take political advantage of it. We want to fix things to a position where, within human reason, the 1758 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004 power will stay on. We want the opposition and every member of this parliament to be part of the solution, not the problem. So let us deal with what we are doing. After weeks of serious static about electricity, today the government has laid out the facts. Earlier this morning I tabled in the House both the full report of the independent panel commissioned to review the distribution network and the summer storm prevention plans of both Energex and Ergon Energy. All members should be in no doubt about who commissioned the review. The government did. Who is totally committed to seeing full implementation of the report's 44 recommendations? The government is. Who is working to lift the quality of network performance and service delivery? The government is. Let us be really clear about this. We had an election. We won that election. But rather than sweep this under the carpet we commissioned an independent review, because we act in the public interest. We have taken that review and its recommendations on board. That review was to be done warts and all. That is exactly what we have done. We do not run away from problems; we fix them. We will continue to do that. While the review resulted from storms in late January 2004—prior to the election—the terms of reference deliberately required the panel to look at the performance of the two distribution companies, Energex and Ergon, their expenditure programs and their internal and external communication systems and processes. In other words, it was to look at the whole system—warts and all. Nothing was to be hidden or covered up. It was warts and all. The report gives us a blueprint for fixing the network and for Energex and Ergon to improve their planning and delivery of network services. So we are fixing this on behalf of the people of Queensland. The government agrees with the panel's finding that we should tighten up the way we regulate these corporations to ensure they focus on the most important issue—that is, the customers. Cabinet has agreed to the implementation of all 44 recommendations, nine of which relate directly to the government. One relates to the competition authority. The other 34 relate to Energex and Ergon. We accept the warts-and-all appraisal of the panel that the system needs fixing, and fix it we will. In summary, the panel made 44 recommendations for improving the reliability of electricity supply, which is what we all want; for strengthening the regulatory arrangements; for Energex and Ergon Energy to communicate better with the public; and for improving staffing levels within Energex and Ergon Energy. They were the crucial issues, and they are the ones we are moving to fix. The government knows that the upcoming storm season will be the real test of the effectiveness of the networks and their managers. Energex and Ergon know that, because the government has made it absolutely clear that that is what we want done. We required an urgent outline of Energex and Ergon's plans to prevent summer outages, and I have received and tabled those reports. What we have today is the beginning of the implementation of the solution. What we have in these two reports from Energex and Ergon, which I have tabled on behalf of the government, is the recipe for fixing this problem. Have we walked away from it? No. Have we moved to fix it? Yes. The beginning of the solution has been tabled in the House today. That is not the complete picture, but it is the beginning of the solution. In line with our robust style of overseeing the corporations, we have committed to independent audits of both of these plans before the storm season hits—before, not after. The independent audits will occur in November to ensure that preparations in the plan are well on track. I turn now to the key features of the summer storm preparation plans. Under the plans both Energex and Ergon have significantly increased their preventative maintenance programs, focusing on the worst performing areas of the past storm period. The plans also provide for improved emergency responses and improved communication with customers. Outages are inevitable in any system, particularly in a state such as Queensland that has cyclones and storms. We all know that the weather pattern in the world is changing to more extreme storm seasons. We recently saw a bit of that in Florida in the United States. Notwithstanding that, Energex and Ergon will be able to identify the problem and fix it quickly. That is what we want: we want it fixed quickly. And we want communication to those people who are waiting in an outage situation so that they know exactly what the position is and when power will be restored. That is what we want. Let us look again at the key elements of this plan. I mentioned some of them this morning, but I want to mention them again because we have a clear plan to fix this problem. There will be substantial increased capital expenditure to increase network capacity. Energex is investing $85 million in key distribution assets, including 23 new power transformers at zone and bulk supply substations, upgrades to ninety-two 11kVA feeders and 350 distribution transformer upgrades. Energex has purchased 12 large mobile generators. That is designed to provide short-term relief in heavy storm affected areas. That is commonsense. As well, Ergon is investing in additional capacity. By the beginning of this summer, capacity will be increased by about 10 per cent compared with last year's peak demand. As I mentioned before, priority programs in Wide Bay, Mackay and the eastern Darling Downs region will be completed prior to summer. That is the first part of the plan. The second part is a comprehensive program of preventative maintenance. Energex has also increased its vegetation management program in 2004-05 to $30 million. That is up from $22 million in 2003-04. It is targeting those areas worst affected by the January storms. So it has had a look at where 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1759 the storm has worst impacted and it is moving in each one of these stages to address those areas. So as much as is humanly possible we will provide protection for the community. The government has already announced that Energex is undertaking an $8.37 million special suburban sensitive area project that will target vegetation management maintenance and repair work in those areas worst affected by last year's storm activity and this year's storm activity. The worst areas are being targeted. This work will be in addition to Energex's rural version of the program covering North Maclean, Jimboomba, Palmwoods, Black Mountain and Gympie. Energex plans to trim vegetation around the entire urban network by September this year. That is what it is seeking to do in terms of trimming vegetation around the entire urban network. One does not need to be Einstein to know that that is next month. It has got off its butt and is out there doing it. At the same stage last year only about 30 per cent of the urban high voltage network had been trimmed in the preceding 12 months. Energex is undertaking extensive helicopter and car patrols to identify potential maintenance requirements, and Ergon is also targeting cyclone prone areas as part of its preparation for the summer storm season. Ergon will spend $6 million on protecting network infrastructure to key community facilities under its cyclone area reliability enhancement program. Both distributors are improving their internal and external communications to ensure improved customer responsiveness. We know this is a major problem. Both Stephen Robertson and Paul Lucas identified this as a problem, and that is why we are moving to fix it. There will be increased telephone response capacity, there will be enhanced internal processes to ensure more regular and accurate updates of outage information. One of the biggest difficulties in the storm season was that people did not know exactly what was happening. Both distributors are moving to fix it. This system is not quite ready yet but it will be by the storm season, let me assure the House. These measures will reduce the impact of the storms dramatically and, in the event of an outage, significantly improve customer responsiveness. No utility can prevent storms nor prevent some outages due to storm activity. We do not control acts of God but what we can do is respond to them. As the report says, as far as capital cities go, only Darwin gets more lightning strikes than Brisbane and its surrounding region. However, good preventative maintenance, particularly vegetation management before the storm season, will significantly reduce the impact of storms on the network. Preparing for summer is an immediate priority but it is only part of a raft of measures that the GOCs will implement to strengthen the network. This financial year Energex and Ergon will be significantly increasing their capital expenditure to $421 million and $506 million respectively. This is an increase in expenditure of approximately 36 per cent for both Energex and Ergon on last financial year. Apprentice numbers will also increase substantially with the apprenticeships increasing by 35 per cent for Energex and 15 per cent for Ergon. That is important. Apprenticeship numbers are important not just now but for the future. So apprentice numbers will also increase substantially, with apprenticeships increasing by 35 per cent for Energex and 15 per cent for Ergon. The government is fully committed to ensuring Queensland has a first-class network which will support its growth and prosperity into the 21st century. Further detail on the government's overall response to the report and the response to the network businesses will be provided in the future. The cabinet review committee which ticked off these documents yesterday and today will be considering a further submission, and more information will be released next week. As outlined in the recent budget and in the findings of the report, Energex and Ergon Energy are proposing significant increases in their capital and maintenance expenditure programs over the coming years to address the panel's recommendations and to ensure the future supply of reliable electricity to Queensland consumers. As noted, Energex is proposing to increase its capital expenditure from $307.3 million in 2003-04 to $421 million in 2004-05, which is a 37 per cent increase. This is mainly to meet increased customer demand. Reliability and refurbishment related works are also planned to increase significantly. Energex also intends spending $159 million this year on operating and maintenance expenditure, which is a 20 per cent increase. This will include a significant increase in its vegetation management expenditure to about $30 million—a significant proportion of which will be spent in the coming months to increase reliability of supply over summer. Ergon Energy is proposing to increase its capital expenditure from $372 million in 2003-04 to $506 million in 2004-05, which is a 36 per cent increase. This is mainly due to greater customer driven works and activity to renew assets. Ergon Energy also intends spending a further $188 million this year on operating and maintenance expenditure, which continues the strong increases in expenditure that it has made over the past three years. A sustained effort will be required over a number of years for Energex and Ergon to lift network reliability and service standards. As I have stated, the franchise retail electricity prices will not rise above the rate of the annual consumer price index to pay for this increase in expenditure. If there is a difference between what Energex and Ergon Energy earn from their franchise tariffs and what they need to spend on the system, it will be paid for by the government, and I have made that clear. Whatever money needs to be available will be made available. In terms of capital works programs 1760 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004 and operating and maintenance expenditure, the panel's report is absolutely clear on this issue. Page 202 of the report states— The Panel examined this matter and found the distributors' ability to spend on the networks was not affected by the payment of special dividends. The report goes on to unequivocally state— Both distributors have access to the funds they require. The chair of the independent panel has also confirmed in a letter to me on 5 August that, in terms of having the funds necessary to carry out their functions, such as maintenance of the network— The conclusion we reached was that the level of dividends paid to the State Government did not cause either of the distributors to be lacking in the funds necessary to carry out these functions. The key issue is whether the GOCs had enough money to fund necessary infrastructure. The government takes dividends from the businesses only after the businesses have funded their annual infrastructure investments and operations. The government's dividend policy, therefore, could not have impacted on the businesses' ability to fund new works. The government has never turned down a request from Energex or Ergon Energy for an equity injection. The government has always made it clear to all GOCs that, if they require additional funding for capital programs, such funding would be forthcoming by way of equity injection. This has been an implicit policy position of successive governments. Over the period from 2002-03 to 2007-08, the government has provided or will be providing around $1.8 billion in equity injections to government owned corporations precisely for this purpose, including Ergon Energy $200 million, CS Energy $260 million, Enertrade $410 million and Queensland Rail $742 million—very significant equity injections. Also, the Central Queensland Ports Authority will receive an injection of $112 million later this year. Other GOCs to receive equity funds from the government include Queensland Motorways Ltd, Queensland Investment Corporation and Mackay Port Authority. This information is provided to illustrate the point that the government does not just take dividends from GOCs but also puts money back into businesses where a genuine need exists. The GOCs retain substantial cash flows within their businesses. These cash flows retained by Energex and Ergon Energy totalled approximately $450 million in 2002-03. This cash was available for the businesses for the purpose of capital expenditure and maintenance costs. The details are there for all to see. The record speaks for itself. While others can chase their tails on empirical issues, the government is determined to remain focused on the main game, and that is reform of the distribution networks. Let me conclude my remarks by saying three things. The government, as a result of people power—people communicating with us after the storms—commissioned an independent review. That independent review was done after an election where we were returned with a handsome majority. But rather than simply sit on our laurels we got off our bum and took the initiative to commission an independent report. That is the first point. The second point is that we have indicated we will implement that report and the 44 recommendations. We have a very dishonest campaign from the opposition on this matter. It wants, on the one hand, to say that everything the Somerville report says is correct and attack us for it; yet when Somerville says in his report that the distribution of dividends, and in his subsequent letter to me, was not an issue the opposition does not want to accept that. It wants to pick and choose aspects of the report for its own political advantage. My concern is very simple: that we fix this system. What we have tabled today is the beginning of our program and Energex and Ergon's program to fix this matter. I know there will be opportunity for cheap politics and cheap stunts, which is why the opposition did not want this debate today because it did not want to hear the full story that we are prepared to tell. I say to the Leader of the Opposition: be careful because Queenslanders want power. They do not want National Party tricks to try to win National Party power, and that is the key difference. I will say it again. The key difference between the opposition and the government is very simple: the government wants power for the people of Queensland; the opposition wants power for the National Party. This is nothing more than crude politics at its worst. I have not sought to go through and detail the National Party's history in relation to power. I am simply saying that we have a situation here where we have a solution. Thirdly, what Queenslanders want is for both sides of politics to be part of the solution. I say to every member of parliament today that they have a choice. They can either support the government's resolution and be part of the solution to fix this problem or they can play cheap silly little politics for their own benefit—either for the National Party, the Liberal Party or some other purpose. I promised that we will fix it, and fix it we will. Hon. T.M. MACKENROTH (Chatsworth—ALP) (Deputy Premier, Treasurer and Minister for Sport) (12.00 p.m.): I second the motion moved by the Premier. At the outset can I say, in relation to the issue raised by the Leader of the Opposition as a point of privilege about Mr Wayne Myers, that I have an answer which was provided to the Courier-Mail in relation to the same question, which is that Ergon Energy has advised that for there to be a requirement to disclose on to the related party's standard there 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1761 needs to be transactions between Sirocco and Ergon Energy. Ergon Energy has advised me that there were no transactions between Sirocco and Ergon Energy in the 2001-02 financial year. Ergon Energy has advised that its 2002 annual report was done in accordance with the Corporations Act and the Queensland Audit Office audited the financial statements of Ergon Energy for that year and provided an unqualified statement. Of course, issues were raised about Wayne Myers. In fact, in the following year they included it, even though it did not need to be included, because they do not have a direct relationship with Ergon Energy. Much has been said and written about the issue of electricity in Queensland in recent weeks. Some of it has been correct and some of it has not. I would like to take this opportunity to put on record some of the facts. First of all, why was this independent inquiry established? There have been very few significant long-term power outages in Queensland in the past six years. However, hot weather and a series of storms in late January and mid-February resulted in high power outages throughout the state, especially in south-east Queensland. Storms always have the potential to cause blackouts through fallen trees and high winds, but these storms came one after another and, despite the wonderful efforts of ground repair crews, there was little chance to fix the damage before the next storm hit. Nevertheless, despite these unusual circumstances, we were concerned by the sheer number of outages and their impact on the networks. I discussed it with the Premier and the Minister for Energy, and we wanted to get to the bottom of the problem to try to prevent it from happening again. That is why we established an independent panel to review the performance of our electricity distribution networks. The panel is chaired by Darryl Somerville from PricewaterhouseCoopers and included industry experts Steve Blanch and Jack Camp. Over a four-month period the panel studied the networks and consulted extensively with all of the key stakeholders, including relevant unions, the energy sector, regional electricity councils and consumer groups. Their resulting report, Electricity distribution and service delivery for the 21st century, identified a number of underlying problems in the management of the networks, including a lack of service standards, a lack of expenditure over a long period, internal processes and systems that needed to be improved, and a need to increase resources to key areas including maintenance and capital works. It contained a total of 44 recommendations to help fix these problems, including nine to be addressed by government, 34 to be addressed by Energex and Ergon, and one to be addressed by the Queensland Competition Authority. The opposition has accused us of hiding or ignoring the problems. If this is the case, why did we set up the independent panel? We wanted a warts and all look to see if there were any problems, and that is what we got. We are now committed to fixing the problems that have been found. Let us look at some of the issues related to the report that have been raised in recent weeks. The opposition has attacked the government, blaming our dividend policy for GOCs as the cause of the problem. What did the independent report find? In identifying the problems with the management of electricity networks, it indicated that the government's policy on dividends was not at fault. On page six it stated that the distributors had ample availability of funds, and the decision to spend funds resided with the management of the business. In addition, the chairman of the independent panel, Mr Darryl Somerville, has publicly stated in a letter on August 5 that— As part of the review undertaken by the electricity distribution and service delivery independent panel, we examined the subject of the availability of funds necessary for Energex and Ergon Energy to carry out their functions such as maintenance of the networks. The conclusion we reached was that the level of dividends paid to the state government did not cause either of the distributors to be lacking in the funds necessary to carry out these functions. Despite this clear statement, the opposition has criticised our dividend policy and made much of a series of letters back and forth between the government and GOCs when we introduced this policy back in 1999. In these letters there is argy-bargy back and forth on how much should be paid in dividends. There is nothing secretive or unusual about this. At the time many GOCs had little debt and lazy balance sheets. That is a statement of Mrs Joan Sheldon, the Treasurer at the time. We wanted to move away from that approach to one much closer to the commercial world, where the GOCs carried an appropriate level of debt for their businesses and faced incentives to make investment decisions on strong commercial grounds. In addition, some of the GOCs wanted to invest money in projects outside their core business, including projects outside Queensland, and we believed that money could be better spent on other services for Queenslanders. For example, Energex wanted to spend money on new IT systems for the proposed deregulated market. The government had made no decision to deregulate the domestic market at that stage and, in fact, never did because consumers in regional and rural areas would have faced higher prices. So it would have been a complete waste of money to invest millions of dollars into an IT system that was and is still not needed. By not letting GOCs invest in projects outside their core business that did not stack up, we prevented a repeat of disasters like the Austa Energy investment in a power station in China. This dud investment, allowed by the Borbidge government, ended up costing taxpayers more than $1.7 million. We believe that if government owned corporations make a profit it makes sense for that money to be returned to the taxpayers because they are the shareholders. 1762 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004

As the representative of the owners—the taxpayers—it is the government who is best placed to decide on the allocation of those funds to areas of need and priority. Our dividend policy varies from year to year and on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes we ask for 95 per cent and sometimes we ask for less. For example, this year SunWater are paying us only 40 per cent. I know I have stated, and I will say it again, that I believe that the government's policy of 95 per cent is sustainable and that in fact that money is paid after GOCs decide on their maintenance and their capital budgets—after all of those decisions are made. Can I say that in relation to the 2004-05 financial year, because of the stronger financial position that we are in we have budgeted for an average 80 per cent dividend payout ratio across all GOCs. However, it is important to note that no matter what the ratio, any money paid to the government is only after all expenditure, including maintenance and interest payments, have been made by the respective organisations. If GOCs require additional money for any unforeseen projects or large new investments and they can demonstrate that the project is a sound one, we provide it to them through measures such as equity injections. Over the period from 2002-03 to 2007-08 we will be injecting more than $1.8 billion in new equity into our GOCs. This includes $870 million to energy GOCs for various projects aimed at expanding the state's network, increasing capacity and maintaining reliability. This injection of funds is contributing to the record $15.5 billion six-year capital program for government owned corporations we outlined in the state budget this year. These funding injections eclipse by over $1 billion any money that we have taken out through equity withdrawals. In the case of Energex and Ergon any legitimate request for extra money for upgrades or expansion of the network has been approved. For example, this year we gave $200 million to Ergon for an upgrade to their network. At the same time we expect they will pay only a dividend of some $89 million for 2003-04. In the case of Energex, they actually paid off debt last year of $117 million. In other words, after they had allocated money to network operations and maintenance, as well as capital works, they still had sufficient funds to pay down their debt, not raise new debt and meet our dividend requirements. In addition, both Energex and Ergon have strong credit ratings; AA for Energex and AA+ for Ergon. If we were taking too much money from them in dividends how could that possibly be? Compare this to the previous Borbidge government. In 1997-98 it took a whopping $850 million in one hit out of the electricity government owned corporations. This included $314 million from the South East Queensland Electricity Corporation, now Energex, and $155 million out of the former regional distribution that subsequently formed Ergon. You know what they put back in? Nothing—not one cent! Opposition members should cringe in shame at their hypocrisy. Perhaps the last word on this issue should be left to Mr Springborg who last week on ABC Radio, when talking about the previous Borbidge government stated— We were taking dividends at a level of around 90 per cent, okay, and I've always said yes, government can demand profits from public owned companies and so they should. In recent weeks the government has also been attacked on board appointments to GOCs. Once again the independent panel made no findings, negative or otherwise, on board members. In fact, the chair of the panel stated that he believed no-one should be dismissed as a result of the findings of the report. Yet the opposition and others have undertaken an unwarranted character assassination of many of these qualified and professional people in recent weeks. It is true that anyone can make recommendations on board members, but ultimately it is the government of the day that makes these decisions. The government tries to find the right mix of people with experience in areas such as business, industry and local government. They are all qualified and professional people. A cursory glance across our boards will reveal a host of talented lawyers, accountants, stockbrokers, union officials and business people. However, I can understand people's concerns when they read in the media a representative of the Australian Institute of Company Directors criticising a number of directors for not undertaking their training courses. However, what many people would not have read is a subsequent letter from the president of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. It read in part— The Australian Institute of Company Directors would like to offer you an explanation, and a sincere apology, for the comments by our Queensland staff that appeared in the article entitled Energy Officials Short Circuit Training in the Courier-Mail on Wednesday 4th August We would like to categorically state that the AICD has no view on the selection process, criteria or skills of directors appointed to government owned corporation boards, either in Queensland or any other state. Likewise the AICD is not in the position to judge the competency of any director, sitting on government owned corporation boards, who may or may not have attended education courses delivered by the AICD. While the AICD recommends its course to all directors to assist them in carrying out their duties, we fully recognise that directors can obtain the necessary qualifications and expertise from a variety of sources. So if we assume their education and experience is not the problem, the major criticism of these people appears to be that they are supposedly mates of mine or mates of Labor. Some may have Labor Party affiliations and some may have National Party or Liberal Party affiliations. I do not know. They are 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1763 appointed for their ability to do the work and not for the way they vote. This is reflected in the fact that six of the 11 people I re-appointed to boards—which was raised in the Courier-Mail—in 2001 were original appointees of the Borbidge government. They were claimed to be my mates. In fact, of the 30 appointments made in 2001, I selected only four new members. Two of these people I had never met before, but they came to me on recommendation by another ministerial office. Two out of 30 is a funny way to stack boards with people I know. I have never appointed any new person to the board of Energex and only two new people to the board of Ergon. However, not surprisingly, cronyism was an art form perfected by the members opposite. Surely Mr Springborg has not forgotten some of the people that the Borbidge government in which he was a minister stacked on the boards, including Beryce Nelson, Martin Tenni, Ian Prentice, Ray Braithwaite and Sally-Anne Atkinson. No need to bother which way they voted. An opposition member: Did the lights go out? Mr MACKENROTH: It did go out. Yes, it did. Mr SPEAKER: Order! Mr MACKENROTH: I think the then minister referred to them as brownouts. They represented the Liberal and National Party at federal, state or local level. Let us look at another issue raised in recent days. High voltage transmission lines were not identified as an issue in the report of the independent panel. Nevertheless, it was recently claimed in the media that a Powerlink report revealed Queensland faced hundreds of millions of dollars to improve the high voltage electricity network. The report was not a secret; it was actually on the Powerlink web site. The purpose of the annual planning report 2004 was to look forward up to 10 years and identify what upgrades to the high voltage network need to be undertaken as the load grows. The upgrades are identified well in advance so there is plenty of time to build them. Powerlink has invested $1 billion in developing the grid over the past five years and expects to invest another $1 billion over the next five years. The Somerville report has actually recommended Energex and Ergon be required to issue similar reports each year. It is simply good planning. After this report Mr Springborg started chasing his tail again and claimed that the state government does not have sufficient generating capacity to meet current demand and planned outages. The reality is that Queensland has the capacity to generate 10,000 megawatts of power each day, more than enough to meet the average 6,500 megawatts we consume each day. I wish Mr Springborg had at least taken time to read the report. If he had he may have learnt the difference between power generation and the distribution system used to deliver that power. But I am not surprised. The information the opposition has used to attack us we gave them in the first place through the FOI process. Most of it, especially in the area of dividends, comes from FOIs in 1999 and 2000. In the opposition's latest FOI application this year we gave it more than 200 documents on special dividends. When it actually asked us for it, it asked for information on special dividends to government rather than from government. We contacted the opposition and gave it the opportunity to correct its application so that it could get the information. If we wanted to, we could have simply provided it, under the application it made, with nothing. I think it is time we move forward. Dividends or special dividends are not the issue nor are the board or board appointments. The independent panel has made its findings and it is our job to make sure the problems it has identified are fixed. That is what we as a government are going to do. Mr SPRINGBORG (Southern Downs—NPA) (Leader of the Opposition) (12.20 p.m.): I move an amendment to the motion— That all words after "that" be deleted and be replaced by the following— this House • notes the recent Somerville report that outlines the disastrous state of the electricity distribution network in Queensland • condemns the mismanagement of the electricity industry in Queensland by the Beattie government • calls on the government to implement urgent action to rectify the deficiencies in the distribution network, communications systems and management of the system • calls on the government to cease taking dividends from the electricity GOCs so that they can invest in appropriate equipment systems and routine maintenance • demands that the government clean out the existing failed boards that have been compromised by the appointment of Labor cronies • set a time line by which the power distribution system will be restored to a safe and reliable state in Queensland. What we have seen from this government today is nothing but a stunt. This government is haemorrhaging on the issue of electricity in Queensland. It deserves to be haemorrhaging on the issue of electricity in Queensland because it caused this problem. What we saw from Mr Beattie and his Labor ministers in this place this morning was an embarrassing performance. It is no wonder that they had to 1764 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004 come up with this stunt motion in order to shift the opportunity for the opposition to further expose the range of government mismanagement to a later media hour today. Let us look at some of the issues exposed in this parliament this morning. Let us look at what was exposed by the Minister for Employment when we asked a question regarding the payment of directors' fees or meeting fees to Labor Party cronies—union hacks. He let the cat out of the bag. It is well and truly gone now. What he got up and said was that these fees, which its Labor Party union mates who sit on these boards or other entities are paid, are paid back to the union movement. They do not get them personally; they go straight into union funds. Do you know what that equates to? That equates to a Labor Party money laundering exercise in Queensland. That is what it is. You are putting your union mates on those boards. They are paid over $50,000 a year. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms Male): Order! The Leader of the Opposition will direct his comments through the chair. Mr SPRINGBORG: Madam Deputy Speaker, what that equates to is a state government sponsored money laundering exercise for the Labor Party—make no mistake. Mr Barton let the cat out of the bag this morning. Make no mistake about that either. What he said this morning is that, if a union official in Queensland sits on one of these boards and gets directors' fees or meeting fees, they go straight back into the union movement. Do members know where they go? They go straight to the Labor Party. Mr BARTON: I rise to a point of order. This is a matter between the person who is put onto those boards and their employer. They are using their employers' time to be on boards on behalf of this government. That is a matter between them and their employer. That is on exactly the same basis as senior public servants. I take offence that it is considered to be a money laundering exercise on my behalf. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order. Mr SPRINGBORG: We in Queensland, inside and outside this parliament, know full well that the Labor Party benefits from the union movement to the tune of at least $3 million in an electoral term. It benefits enormously. What this government has done now is set up a sophisticated, yet fairly basic, network where it put its mates and its cronies on these boards. It puts union officials on these boards knowing full well that it can channel taxpayers' money to the Labor Party. That is what we heard this morning. That was the admission in this place by Mr Barton. What we see is a government in crisis—staggering from crisis to crisis to crisis. This government does absolutely nothing in this state unless the blowtorch of public opinion is sitting firmly on its belly. It created this crisis. It created the child care crisis. It created a whole range of other crises in Queensland. Things it should have known about it simply ignored until it was exposed and then it went out and said, 'Mea culpa; I'm responsible, I will fix it.' It would be great if we had a government in Queensland that actually tried to avoid crises rather than crash into crises. That is what we have got from this government. What we have now seen is a spiral downwards. For this government to fix this self-created electricity crisis in this state it is going to have to create some more crises because it has so pilfered the reserves and dividends from the power companies. It will now have to take from other areas like education, health and welfare to be able to fund the failing electricity system in Queensland. It will create a crisis in order to fix a crisis. The crisis around the corner in Queensland is going to be water. Once this is over and done with, if it is ever over and done with, water will be around the corner. This government continues to ignore the fundamental utilities that preserve and enhance the lifestyle of Queensland. Whether it is our roads, whether it is our public transport, whether it is our electricity or whether it is our water, this government has set about a program of neglect in this state for just over six years. We have a government that no longer deserves to govern. It was warned about this in 1999 by the then chairman of Energex, board members and Powerlink. The Under Treasurer wrote to the then Treasurer and said that these are the concerns that exist. The concern is that if the government keeps taking the dividends at the rate that it is taking them then upgrades, refurbishment and maintenance are going to be compromised and that will compromise the level of service which Queenslanders can justifiably expect from their electricity distributors. That came from the heart of Mr Mackenroth's department to the then Treasurer. As I said in this place this morning, this crisis was predictable. It was actually predicted in 1999. Therefore, this crisis was avoidable. Therefore, this crisis was deliberately inflicted upon the people of Queensland by this government. It knew that it was around the corner. It had been warned. It ignored those warnings and it crashed headlong into this crisis. Then five years down the track when it was exposed, after all those warnings, we now have Mr Beattie going out putting on his terribly upset and sorry face and saying, ‘I'm going to fix it.' That is not good enough. This government should not be let off the hook. 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1765

When the crisis peaked earlier this year with the storms we had the Premier blaming it on the flying foxes and possums—he blamed it on furry animals—and cars. On the weekend he blamed it on the cockroaches. That is what he did. Who is he going to blame it on now? Is he going to blame it on the man from Mars? He is the person who caused this crisis. He caused this crisis because he raided dividends and ignored the warning signals. What we got from his Minister for Energy, little 'Sir Echo', was a babbling performance on the weekend in the Courier-Mail. He stood up in this place this morning and said at the fourth paragraph of his ministerial statement— Fact: on Friday night Queensland was not importing power from New South Wales at the time .. He continued— Queensland is a net exporter of power into the national electricity market via the New South Wales interconnector. It is now on the public record. What did Mr Robertson, the Energy Minister, say on Friday night when he was contacted by the newspaper while not being able to watch his Arnold Schwarzenegger movie because the power was out? He said, 'Ninety per cent of the time we produce electricity that is pumped into New South Wales.' What did he say in the next paragraph? He said, 'This is one of the few times we are importing electricity from interstate.' They were his own words. He has not got a clue what is going on. Mr ROBERTSON: I rise to a point of order. That quote was taken on the basis of preliminary advice that I received during the blackouts that occurred on Friday night which I subsequently corrected the next day when I received a full report. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms Male): Order! There is no point of order. Mr SPRINGBORG: The next day when he got the power bosses together as part of his little stunt to give them the dressing down—he put on his aggressive 'I'm not very happy’ face and ‘my patience is wearing very thin'—they had a chance to concoct their story. That is what he said; that is what he is saying now. Queenslanders know a pork pie when they hear one, and they are getting a lot from this government. They are getting a lot from this government and they are getting a lot from you. This morning we saw the Treasurer's hand well and truly along your back and manipulating your mouth with regard to the dividend taking. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition will direct his comments through the chair. Mr SPRINGBORG: Madam Deputy Speaker, the minister knows full well the truth of this matter. A couple of weeks ago when we raised our concern over the maintenance scheduling in the state of Queensland with regard to the number of power stations or units that were offline due to routine maintenance condensed within a three-month period—maybe it should be spread over a six-month period—and the fact that a number are lying idle because the spot price was not necessarily good enough to justify their running because it was not at a so-called economic level and because of the breakdowns, we said that if there was a grid failure somewhere or if there was a unit failure Queensland would face a blackout. But, no! What happened? Mr Robertson and Mr Beattie said, 'There's not a problem. We've got 30 per cent excess production over demand.' Maybe on paper that is the case if all units are up and running at the time. That is what they said. However, what we saw on the weekend put a real cloud over this government's management of the electricity industry. A switch going out 600 or 700 kilometres south of the Queensland border in the Hunter Valley blacked out 250,000 Queensland households right from the Gold Coast through to Cairns and out to the Darling Downs and all areas in between. That is what basically happened. It is beyond the pale to believe that we were generating so much electricity that it went down there and that is what basically caused the problem. As the minister said on Friday night, Queensland was actually importing at the time. He has since turned around and said that Queensland was exporting at the time. Let us also look at what the Premier said. On 3 August when we raised this issue—and it was echoed by the minister as well—the Premier said— If you do not have a national market, you do not have an interconnector. If you do not have that, you do not have backup. That is what the Premier said. The interconnector exists. Queensland is supposed to have surplus generating capacity—and on paper it does—but if the system fails in New South Wales Queenslanders are subjected to blackouts. Maybe if we did not have the interconnector on the weekend we would not have had blackouts. Mr Mackenroth interjected. Mr SPRINGBORG: I am not saying, Treasurer, that we should not have the interconnector. I am saying that there are a whole lot of problems with regard to the logic of your argument, and you know full well that that interconnector process started under the then Goss government. It is a part of the national electricity marketing program, but that does not mean that Queensland does not have an obligation to 1766 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004 run its electricity industry to the satisfaction of its own electricity consumers, and that is what the minister responsible for electricity in this state has not done. He has failed. He has failed, and he has failed very badly. He was running around stunned and shocked and mesmerized not having a clue what was going on during Friday night and now he has had time to concoct a story. We know the misery that has been caused for power consumers in Queensland by this government. We know the misery that this government caused Queenslanders last summer with regard to its mismanagement of the distribution network. People were stumbling around staircases with candles. There were situations where people had to throw out spoiled food. Nobody says that there are not going to be failures in a distribution network caused by a so-called act of God. But when a government has been complicit in worsening that problem because of its mismanagement and lack of investment, that is the problem. What did we have from Mr Beattie earlier this year? The Minister for Energy knows this, because the Premier went out there and spoke about the flying foxes, the cars and the possums. He said that that was where the problem was. Do members know what the Somerville report said? The Somerville report said that as a proportion of outages the actual effect of those acts of God had diminished. Rather, it was due to a lack of maintenance and refurbishment that we had the problem. If I remember rightly off the top of my head, some 57 per cent of the outages were due to that lack of maintenance. So the government caused those problems by its dividend raids. Now we have Mr Beattie and his ministers making Pinocchio jealous. That is what they are doing, because every time they open their mouths on this issue in this state they are fibbing. They are fibbing! They are fibbing, and the people of Queensland are paying for that. This morning we heard a whole lot of rot in here from the Premier when he stood up and said that he is the most accountable Premier that Queensland has ever seen leading the most accountable government that Queensland has ever seen— ad nauseum. Well, when one starts to scratch away at the surface one sees the level of that accountability, and I will have more to say about this subject in a little while. The opposition put in a freedom of information request in relation to the electricity industry in Queensland and its operation. We wanted copies of board minutes from Ergon and Energex and briefing notes that went backwards and forwards between those board directors and ministers and board chairmen. We wanted that. We asked for it. One would have thought that that was our right. But do members know what ‘Mr Accountability’ actually did? Do members know what ‘Mr Self- Anointed Accountability’—the only person in the world ever to preside over his own coronation and put the crown on—has actually done? Some 256 pages came back to us and 111 of those were blank. That is a great FOI release, isn't it? A fantastic FOI release! I will hold it up so members can see it. That is a great FOI release. There are 111 pages of that. Another 65 are partially blacked out. Included in those 256 pages were minutes of board meetings where the payment of special dividends was discussed. However, we do not know what they talked about. We subsequently know that on at least one of those occasions Mr Mackenroth was advised of the opposition of Ergon and Energex to the payment of a special dividend. We know that. We also know that in another meeting a chairman came up to him and said, 'Terry, have we got a deal for you. Here's a cool $150 million. Just slip it into your pocket.' But what was actually in there? The best defence that the Premier could come up with was that some of those pages were made available to the Auditor-General. Maybe some of them were, but why can't we see them? Which ones were made available to the Auditor-General? Maybe we should have access to the ones that were not made available to the Auditor-General as the opposition and maybe the people of Queensland should have access to those as well. This was a government cover-up. We know what the Auditor-General said with regard to those special dividends. We know what he said about that. He said last year in his report that they could be criminal—they could be against the law—but that is a matter for the courts to determine. Do members know who has the responsibility to take that particular legal action? The shareholders of the companies. Who are the shareholders of the companies? The two shareholding ministers—the Minister for Energy and the Treasurer. They are the ones who have the responsibility to pursue the legal action that could arise from the illegal taking of those dividends. Can members imagine them taking legal action against themselves? No way whatsoever! We have also heard enough from Mr Beattie about these boards. We know that these boards were not up to the job, or were they? They were up to doing the government's job. They were put there to do the government's bidding. They were put there to siphon off the dividends from Ergon and Energex and the power companies and put them into Mr Mackenroth's own coffers because at that stage he was suffering two budget deficits in a row and looking down the barrel of another one. We also know through FOI that the electricity industry in Queensland has $4.6 billion worth of debts. We also know that in the 2001-02 year the government took more than 95 per cent of Ergon's dividends equivalent. It made a profit that year of $107 million and in tax equivalents and dividends the government took $320 million—a dividend take ratio, according to the Productivity Commission, of 243 per cent, not 95 per cent. We have had enough of this Pinocchio dark state. It is about time they started to tell the truth. Time expired. 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1767

Mr SEENEY (Callide—NPA) (Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (12.40 p.m.): I rise to second the amendment that has been moved by the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Southern Downs. It is a measured response that this parliament should take to what is a very critical issue. There can scarcely be an issue more critical to the lives of every Queenslander than the safe and reliable supply of electricity. As the Premier said himself when he was Opposition Leader—when he sat over here in 1998 and berated the then Energy Minister, Tom Gilmore, about energy issues of the day—'If you can't run the power industry, then you can't govern Queensland.' They were the Premier's own words back in 1998 when he sat here as Opposition Leader and they are as true today as they were then. If you cannot run the electricity industry, then you cannot govern Queensland. This government has shown that it cannot run the electricity industry. Over the past six years, it has shown that it cannot run the electricity industry and the evidence is there for all to see. Today we see in the parliament a continuation of a political management strategy that has been put in place. As the details of the rundown of the electricity industry have been revealed, we have seen an emerging political management strategy. Before the election, when the electricity system was shown to be totally incapable of withstanding what was a normal Queensland summer, we had the first part of that strategy. We had the then minister, Mr Lucas, blaming everything from acts of God to possums to dew on the insulators—a whole range of nonsense statements to get the government past the election. Once we got past the election, we then had another political management strategy of appointing a committee to produce a report. But when the report was produced and was far from favourable from the government's point of view, we then saw that political management strategy ramped up. We all remember those couple of days after the release of that report when the Premier put on his stern, cross face, called in all of the leaders of the electricity corporation boards to give them a scolding and tell them that he expected better of them. It was all about blaming those people on the boards whom the government itself had appointed. The truth that every Queenslander knew at the time and every Queenslander has made very clear since then is that the buck stops with the government. The buck stops with Beattie. The buck stops with the Premier. The provision of electricity to Queenslanders is the responsibility of the government of the day. This government had that responsibility. It was able to exercise that responsibility through the GOC model and it did use those powers to direct the electricity industry into the shambles that it is today. This government did that in a number of ways. It did it by appointing people to the board to ensure that the board made the decisions that it wanted the electricity industry to make. The government appointed those boards to ensure that its policy of focusing the electricity industry on the provision of profit was the industry's main focus. That is the core issue that has caused the problems that we see today. Over the past five years, this government had two budget deficits in a row. This government was looking at its third budget deficit in a row. The only way in which it avoided that third budget deficit in a row was by pressuring the electricity corporations to produce profits that it could then take as dividends. The government did that in a totally mercenary way without any regard for the long-term future of the network. In fact, the government did that in the face of warnings that were sounded by a whole range of people who had a knowledge of the industry—in some instances from the members of the boards themselves. When those lines of influence fail to produce the result that the government wants, there is within the Government Owned Corporations Act the reserve powers for the ministers to direct the boards. By my count, those reserve powers have been used 10 times—10 times that I can find in the Government Gazette notices that the government has to publish each time it uses those reserve powers. It has used those reserve powers 10 times to force the boards to pay a level of dividends that they would not agree to under the normal negotiation process. Those Government Gazette notices have been signed by the Premier himself—the same man who went out there and said immediately after this report was released that he was cross with the directors of Energex and Ergon and that he expected better of them. The Premier and his ministers were the people who were directing the policy steps that had caused the problem, yet the Premier sought to blame those people. It was one of the most gutless, shameless and irresponsible attempts to shift blame that I have ever seen. It is somewhat gratifying that the Premier was not able to get away with shifting that blame from himself, his ministers and his government to the people who had been appointed to those boards. It is somewhat gratifying that I think it is clearly established now in the minds of the Queensland public that it is the state government that is responsible, it is the ministers who are responsible, and it is the Premier who is responsible for the shambles in which we see the electricity industry today. But if we had listened to the contributions in this House this morning, if we had listened to the Premier when he moved this motion that is before the House, if we had listened to the Deputy Premier when he seconded that motion, we would think that nobody was to blame. Both the mover and the seconder said that it is not the fault of the boards. In fact, nobody has been dismissed. There is no suggestion that anyone is going to be dismissed from the government. Both the Premier and the Deputy Premier said that it was not the fault of the government, it was not the fault of the government's dividend policy, and they misrepresented various quotes to try to reinforce that argument. But that begs the 1768 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004 question: why is Queensland facing an electricity crisis today? If what we are being told is the truth—and it would be the first time that it was the truth—then who is responsible? Why is Queensland facing an electricity crisis today if the contributions that we heard in this parliament this morning are anywhere near the mark? Obviously, those contributions are a continuation of the political management strategy that has been undertaken by this government from day one. You are more interested in managing the politics than you are in managing the electricity industry. You are more interested in managing the information, massaging the media and getting the right headlines than you are in ensuring that Queenslanders have a reliable supply of electricity. That is a hallmark of your government. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms Male): Order! I remind the member of standing order 104. He will address his comments through the chair. Mr SEENEY: It is a hallmark of this government that every time it is faced with an issue like this, the focus is on the rhetoric rather than on the reality. The focus is on managing the political fallout rather than on fixing the problem and holding to account those who are responsible for the problem. That is what has happened here. If we had listened to the Premier and the Treasurer, we would think that nobody is to blame and nobody is responsible or the problem is something that just occurred all of a sudden and that we should be grateful to the Premier for fixing it. I say to the Premier that he has a responsibility to fix it, because he and his government created this problem. The Premier and his government created the problem despite the warnings that they were given. The government was warned over and over about the dividend policy and the impact it was having on the ability of the corporations to fulfil their core responsibilities, but it persisted with that dividend policy simply to solve the political problem it was facing of a third budget deficit in a row. It persisted in focusing the electricity corporations on producing profits rather than on fulfilling their core role of providing an essential service to the people of Queensland. We saw the political defence reach quite ridiculous levels when the Treasurer suggested in this House and in the media that somehow or other it was the electricity corporations themselves that suggested they would pay these extra dividends and that they volunteered a dividend. I find that suggestion quite incredible. I find that suggestion almost unbelievable. If it is true—it would be one of the few things the Treasurer has said that is true—it raises some very basic questions about the way in which the chairmen of those corporations have discharged their duties. Given the extent of the problem those corporations faced, for the chairman of Energex to suggest that it was going to pay some extra dividends to the government to assist the Treasurer in avoiding the political fallout of a third budget deficit in a row raises some very fundamental questions about the way those duties were being discharged. It raises some very fundamental questions about whether those people have met all of their obligations under the various statutes that determine the way directors should discharge their responsibilities. The other major contributor to the problem Queensland faces at the moment is the way the electricity corporation boards have been appointed. It is interesting to look back over the history of the electricity industry since the Beattie government came to power. I know that the current minister, Minister Robertson, has had to wear some of the criticism over recent weeks. I quite genuinely feel a bit sorry for the minister for— Mr ROBERTSON: Madam Deputy Speaker, I rise to a point of order. I do not want the member to feel sorry for me. Mr SEENEY: I genuinely feel sorry for him because he has inherited this problem which is not of his making. The people who have held the position in the years since the Beattie government first came to power certainly need to bear some responsibility. They have avoided that responsibility simply because responsibility for the portfolio has now passed to the honourable member for Stretton and has been included in the Department of Natural Resources. Let us go back in history and look at what happened. When the Mines and Energy portfolio was first split up, the energy component went to Treasury. The mines component went to Natural Resources, but the energy component went to Treasury and became the Office of Energy within the Treasury Department. That should have rung alarm bells. If we look at some of the comments that were made both in this House and in the general debate at that time, we see that warnings were sounded by people who were concerned that the inclusion of the Office of Energy within the Treasury Department would lead to an unchecked raid on energy corporations for Treasury, because it was felt at the time that Treasury and the Treasurer had an inappropriate focus on achieving the most money they could from those energy corporations to meet their main focus, which was balancing the state's budget. In effect, as the years went on and the state's budget deteriorated under the administration of the current Treasurer and he was faced with the embarrassment of two budget deficits in a row, the pressure on the government owned corporations in the energy sector to try to correct that budget deficit situation and avoid a third budget deficit became extreme and there was no way those energy corporations could withstand that pressure. Then the Office of Energy was transferred from Treasury to the Department of Innovation and Information Economy and became the responsibility of Minister 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1769

Lucas, who was a very junior minister in the cabinet. He was appointed as the extra minister. A special spot was created for him to meet some sort of Labor factional deal that had been done. Mr Terry Sullivan: That is rubbish. Mr SEENEY: This extra portfolio of Innovation and Information Economy was created especially for him. They tacked energy on simply so he had something to do. Of course, he was totally ill-equipped for the job, because the portfolio of Energy is complex and incredibly important to the people of Queensland. The downhill slide continued from there. It is interesting to note as an aside that the two ministers who have been touted as replacements for the Premier have now presided over the two greatest disasters this government has seen. We have seen Minister Lucas preside over the collapse of the electricity industry—disaster No. 1—and we have seen Minister Bligh preside over the great disaster of the Department of Families. The two ministers who are touted as future Labor leaders have presided over the two greatest disasters. Mr Terry Sullivan: Rubbish! Mr SEENEY: I say to the Government Whip that there is hope for him yet. Given the performance of the two heirs apparent, there is hope for him yet. If we continue to trace the history of the Office of Energy, we see that after the last election it was put back with mines and now we have the Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy. Is it any wonder that the current minister was totally unprepared, totally ill-equipped and totally unable to handle the crisis when it burst upon him after the last election? Some of the comments my colleague the Leader of the Opposition referred to indicate full well the confusion the current minister experienced. I have to say that, while the fault is not his, the responsibility rests with his colleagues. This motion before the House, moved by the Premier and seconded by the Deputy Premier, should not be carried, on anybody's examination of a fair situation. This motion asks the House to commend the government. Given that Queenslanders are facing a crisis in the most essential of their essential services, it would be entirely inappropriate for this House to commend the government. I believe that the amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition is a much more measured response which this House should adopt. It sets out a response, it requires a time line for the response, it acknowledges that somebody needs to be held accountable and it sets out how that accountability should be enacted. It is just not acceptable that the government's response to the energy crisis is to come into this parliament and move a motion which basically commends it. Government members come into this House today and say, 'We acknowledge that we have got an energy crisis. We acknowledge that it is a big problem and we are going to fix it and you should pat us on the back for that.' They say that Queenslanders should pat them on the back for engineering the energy crisis in the first place and then saying that they are going to fix it! I do not think that is a resolution that would be acceptable to the vast majority of Queenslanders. It is a resolution that should not be acceptable to the members of this parliament. If members of this parliament are to fulfil the duties they have to represent their constituents in this place, they will support the motion as amended by the Leader of the Opposition, ensuring that this parliament makes sure the government meets its responsibilities to deliver to the people of Queensland one of the core responsibilities of government; that is, a reliable electricity system—an electricity system that focuses on delivering that essential service rather than focuses on providing a cash flow to a cash- strapped Treasurer every time he is faced with the political embarrassment of a budget deficit. That is what has happened in the past. If we put aside all of the media management this government has engaged in, that is what we are faced with. This parliament should support the amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition. Sitting suspended from 1.00 p.m. to 2.00 p.m. Hon. S. ROBERTSON (Stretton—ALP) (Minister for Natural Resources, Mines and Energy) (2.01 p.m.): I rise today to support the motion moved by the Premier and seconded by the Deputy Premier. If we were to reflect on the debate that we have listened to so far, particularly the contributions from the Opposition Leader and the Deputy Opposition Leader, when we strip away the bile, the personal insults, the slander and the nonsense, what we are left with is an appalling level of ignorance about how the electricity industry in this state works. As I said, when we strip away the bile, the insults, the personal slanders, the attacks on public servants, the attacks on board members and the attacks on government members by both the Leader of the Opposition and his deputy, what we are left with is an embarrassment. It is an embarrassment that has continued unrelentingly over the last three weeks since the independent review into the electricity networks was handed down. If we were to concentrate on one particular issue and reflect on the contribution of the Leader of the Opposition regarding what happened on Friday night, there could be no more graphic demonstration of his complete lack of knowledge and his gross hypocrisy about the national electricity market. This is the national electricity market that the Opposition Leader has contemplated walking away from. This is 1770 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004 the national electricity market that the former coalition government, along with former Labor governments, put in place. This is the national electricity market that is underpinned by the interconnector between Queensland and New South Wales. I would like to give the House an example because it is a relevant example. It was a time when Mr Springborg was a cabinet member. It was in February 1998. What happened under the coalition government was that four major generating units in Queensland went off line, reducing the capacity in this state by some 20 per cent. Mr Seeney: Tell the truth! Mr ROBERTSON: I will ask the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to be silent because he was not even in this place then. The Leader of the Opposition sat around the cabinet table at the time when four generating units went off, when Queensland lost 1,000 megawatts of power in February 1998. How long did it take them to restore power? Was it two hours? Was it 24 hours? Was it two days? No, Queenslanders suffered four days of blackouts as a result of four generating units going off line in February 1998—a week after the Leader of the Opposition made his ascendancy into cabinet. If we look at Hansard to see what the then responsible minister, Minister Gilmore, said as to what happened, it is this— Forced interruptions to the electricity supply to customers throughout Queensland occurred last week as a result of plant failures at four of the State's base load power stations. The failures resulted in a combined generation loss of more than 1,100 megawatts at a time when demand was very high due to the hot weather. In facing quite rightful criticism about the state of the generating industry in this state under coalition power, what did he say would be one of the saviours to our electricity generating network in Queensland? He referred to the coalition's interstate connector—that is, the transmission line going between Queensland and New South Wales. He said that, once that was in place, it would increase the electricity load into Queensland by about 500 megawatts, which is about 10 per cent of the total demand of 5,500 megawatts for Queensland. So here we have a coalition government back in 1998 of which Mr Springborg was a minister lauding the benefits of the interstate connector, lauding the benefits of the national electricity market. But what do we see six years on? Utter hypocrisy! The simple fact is that, if the interconnector had been in place when four generating units went out under the former coalition government, we would have been able to bring in energy from New South Wales to reduce the blackouts on Queenslanders. What happened on Friday night was the reverse. New South Wales's generating capacity collapsed by 30 per cent—some 2,700 megawatts collapsing in a matter of seconds. It was not the case that there was insufficient power being generated in Queensland. It was not the case, as we know from the letter I tabled in parliament this morning by Mr Gordon Jardine, the CEO of Powerlink, that there were generators down in Queensland. If Mr Springborg had one ounce of honesty, one ounce of understanding of the electricity industry in this state, then he would acknowledge that what happened on Friday night was that under the national electricity market the system had to be immediately stabilised. To stabilise it—and the transcript from Mr Gillmore in 1998 proves this—what needs to occur is load shedding to reduce demand to the level of available supply. What we saw over the next hour and a half or so on a national basis was the system brought back to full capacity. If Mr Springborg had his way, he would disconnect the interstate connector. He would take us out of that national electricity market so that should we see a repeat of what happened under the coalition government in 1998, where four generators or 20 per cent of generating capacity in Queensland went off line, he would put us back to day after day after day of load shedding. There can be no argument about this. This is rank hypocrisy by the Leader of the Opposition. He knows what the national electricity market is all about, or at least one would assume he would know. After all, he aspires to be the Premier of this state. But day after day he seeks to deliberately mislead the people of Queensland about what happened, to blame a lack of generating capacity and to blame units coming off line. Not only the report from Gordon Jardine, the CEO of Powerlink, but also the report from NEMMCO that was tabled by the Premier this morning indicates a completely different story. Despite the facts being provided to Mr Springborg, he continues with the fibs, he continues with the porkies, he continues with the spin, he continues with the personal insults against public servants and he continues with the nonsense that we have come to expect from the National Party. It is just like when he tries to spin his lines about the dividends that are taken from electricity corporations. In the same debate, after four generating units came off line, reducing Queensland's capacity by 20 per cent and resulting in four days of blackouts in 1998 when Mr Springborg was a cabinet minister, the then Deputy Premier and Treasurer Joan Sheldon, when criticised about the amount of money taken out by the coalition in dividends, said this—and I quote Hansard—in criticising what Labor had been saying—

... lies which include their failure to recognise that the $850m taken from the industry by the coalition Government was used to boost hospital funding by $340m, provide $96m for busways and high-occupancy vehicle lanes on the Pacific Motorway, deliver 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1771 more than $60m towards the expansion of our prison system, $26m towards the airconditioning of schools, and various other sums for training, roads, water and police. That was a statement in March 1998 by the then Deputy Premier and Treasurer in the coalition government of which Mr Springborg was a minister. He comes in here and he talks in the media about the dangers inherent in using dividends in this way, yet his own government, which he was a part of, did exactly that. The then Treasurer actually detailed where that $850 million that they took out of the electricity industry went to when they were in power. They used the electricity industry to fund roads, they used the electricity industry to fund hospitals, they used the electricity industry to fund police and a range of other matters. The hypocrisy spoken by the Leader of the Opposition knows no bounds. As I said, instead of the one and a half to two hours of blackouts that we experienced on Friday night, Mr Springborg would take us back to the past—back to 1998—before the interstate connector was up and running, before the national electricity market was up and running and give us not one day, not two days, not three days but four days of continuous blackouts. That demonstrates the policy, the position and where the Leader of the Opposition wants to take Queensland should he come into office in this state. It again underscores the rank hypocrisy of every word that the opposition leader speaks because when that happened he was a minister in the then coalition government. He should know better. No wonder his nose has grown so fast over the past number of weeks! Not only he could lie straight in bed; not only he could for one moment convince himself that what he was saying was, in fact, the truth. I was more than happy to respond to the contribution by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, but given again his abject failure to say anything constructive or anything worthwhile beyond the bile, beyond the insult or beyond the personal attacks, I am left with absolutely nothing to respond to. When the Premier, the Treasurer and I decided to establish the independent review into Queensland's electricity distribution network, we knew there would be pain for the government. Even though many of the systemic weaknesses identified by the review panel had their beginnings more than a decade ago under successive Labor and coalition governments, we did not shirk our responsibilities. The Beattie government is committed to ensuring Queensland has an electricity distribution network that meets current needs and is capable of catering for the future power demands of a growing state, a growing economy and a growing population. We want Queenslanders to have a 21st century electricity network, a network Queenslanders can be confident will continue to have the capacity to supply them with affordable, reliable power in the future. That is why we asked for a warts and all report into the current state of the network and its reliability, operational expenses and systems. We will implement all 44 recommendations of the independent review panel because we are committed to fixing the networks. As minister I will continue to monitor Energex and Ergon Energy closely every day to ensure that they complete the work necessary to upgrade and improve the distribution network. The Queensland electricity network faces a number of challenges. Our electricity distribution network is among the largest in the world. It is also located in the most natural disaster prone state in Australia, where violent storms, cyclones, bushfires and other severe weather events are common. There is no electricity network in the world that is immune to damage caused by severe weather events. Our network is also catering for rocketing demand, including a 12 per cent increase in peak demand since the beginning of 2003 and a 40 per cent increase in peak demand since 1999-2000. The encouraging news is that Queensland is generating more than sufficient electricity to meet these challenges and take advantage of economic opportunities for years to come. The generation of electricity is not the issue. I want to make this point very clear. The opposition continues to peddle a lot of misinformation suggesting our current electricity problems are a result of a lack of generating capacity. The reality is that every day Queensland continues to generate more power than we need. Our political opponents know this to be true; it just does not suit their political purposes to say so. Queensland has a current capacity to generate some 10,000 megawatts of electricity every day. Even after meeting daily peak electricity demand we still have an average of 28 per cent of the power we generate spare and available, which is contrasted with what it was under the coalition government, when the margin was only 18 per cent. It was, in fact, acknowledged by the then Minister Gilmore that that did not meet world standards. Yet what is our spare capacity now? Twenty-eight per cent! Yet we heard nonsense from the Leader of the Opposition that when planned maintenance was to take place on our generators, all of a sudden we were plunging Queensland into a crisis. Again, any understanding of the electricity industry in this state knows that at this time of year there is less demand for electricity than at any other time in the year. April, May, August and September are the four months when energy demand is at its lowest in Queensland. Responsible generators use that quieter time for maintenance. To peddle the nonsense that the Leader of the Opposition was peddling is irresponsible. What would he have us do? Take generating units off for maintenance in the middle of summer? Would he take generating units off for maintenance in the middle of winter, when energy consumption is at its highest in Queensland? Of course not! Yet he peddles the mistruths, he peddles the hypocrisy and he peddles the fibs continually to generate a crisis that never existed. This maintenance schedule takes place year in 1772 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004 year out. Just as it occurs under us, it occurred under the former coalition government. Why? As I said, because it is at this time of year that energy demand is at its lowest. Returning to the capacity of the generating system in this state—during July, Queensland power stations generated an average of 8,844 megawatts of power each day, but Queenslanders only used a peak demand average of 6,658 megawatts a day during July. That means at the time that Mr Springborg was running around with this nonsense we had an average of 2,186 megawatts, or 25 per cent of what we generated, spare and available. Based on current forecast demand Queensland will have sufficient reserves until 2010 and sufficient supply to meet demand beyond that date as a result of announcements such as the construction of the new Kogan Creek power station to come on line round about 2007-08. This strong position has been confirmed in a recent report by the National Electricity Market Management Company, or NEMMCO, and the report highlights Queensland's strong growth and gives recognition to the level of recent investment in the Queensland energy sector which places the state in a very strong position to meet continuing growth and demand. Queensland's enviable position is a direct result of the government's priority to foster a competitive energy environment in wholesale electricity which delivers real benefits to Queenslanders and which provides an important stimulus for investment across the state. Of the $6.3 billion being committed to new generation investment in the national electricity market, $4.7 billion has been invested in Queensland. Since 1998 Queensland has also had the greatest level of transmission investment with approximately $1.3 billion of the total $4.6 billion that has been invested in transmission assets in the national electricity market since that time. I would urge all members to reject the amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition; it is nothing more than a continuation of the rank hypocrisy that the National Party has demonstrated from day one. Let the lesson of 1998 inform us all as to why we do not want to go back to the dark days of the former National Party government. Mr QUINN (Robina—Lib) (2.21 p.m.): At the outset let me place on record my thanks to Darryl Somerville and his review panel team for its comprehensive report on the electrical distribution system in Queensland. It is one that will stand this state in good stead over the next 10 or 15 years. We support the recommendations and findings of that report. I will comment on the recommendations and findings in a moment. We want to see this issue fixed and fixed as quickly as possible because, as the report makes quite plain, if you are going to have a modern, expanding, dynamic economy it depends upon an efficient and reliable electrical distribution system—that is one of the cornerstones. Without that you bring into shadow your economic credentials in terms of a progressive state. Much has been said this morning—and the debate has gone backwards and forwards—about the dividends, both special and annual. Anyone reading the report will see where the problem lies in terms of the dividends. On page 8, for instance, it makes mention of special dividends and it says that both these GOCs have a very strong credit rating and are able to borrow sufficient capital if they wish to invest more. According to this report the issue of special dividends does not come into play. That is repeated on page 202. I accept that. Both these GOCs have strong balance sheets; they are able to go and borrow money should they wish to. I do not personally agree with the fact that the government demands special dividends—I think it has an impact—but I accept the findings of the report where it says they were not contributing to this particular problem. So we can put the issue of special dividends to one side. The problem lies in the ongoing annual dividends. On page 7 where it is headed 'The central issue' it talks about maintenance capital and those sorts of things. Over on page 8 in terms of Ergon it acknowledges Ergon Energy had five or six disparate distribution systems to bring together. They were poorly maintained. It has already taken five years for a proper assessment to be made of the networks and the remedial work to be undertaken. It says 'In the panel's view this has taken too long.' They have excused Ergon because of the ramshackle system they inherited and their attempts to come to grips with it and to upgrade it into some sort of modern system. In the next paragraph down— In the case of Energex, it is the Panel's view that this position has been reached because there has been too much focus over a considerable period on producing an improved financial result. What Energex has done, with the approval of the board, carried out by the CEO, ticked off by the shareholding ministers, is to focus on the bottom line: generate as much profit as it can. What is the reason? Ninety-five per cent of that profit goes to the government. There has been a culture within Energex of producing as high amount of money as it can in terms of annual dividends for the government. Who appoints the boards in relation to Energex in particular? It is the shareholding ministers and the Treasurer in particular who appoints the board. That is the problem with Energex. It is not the special dividend, it is the ongoing annual dividend that is being taken out. No-one opposite was game to admit that this morning. Ministers opposite fudged it and used words to dance around the central issue. The central issue is the 95 per cent of the after-tax profits. That is the central issue here. Members opposite cannot dodge it. 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1773

It comes back to the government's grab on the after-tax profits from the GOCs and it is detailed quite clearly in the Somerville report. For those people who come into the House on the other side and stand up and say, 'This report exonerates the government, there is nothing for it to worry about', you are wrong. There is everything for the government to worry about and it is contained within the report. It is not the special dividends, it is the ongoing annual dividends. Let me get back to some of the other issues I wish to raise. As I said, the government appoints the boards, the boards appoint the CEOs, they set the policy parameters and they carry out the direction of the boards and, presumably in this case, are answerable to the shareholding minister. What we have here is a report that indicates that both these GOCs have been run down over a period of six or seven years. It highlights the fact that it has occurred within this government's tenure of office. It has not gone back 20 years. The Commonwealth government cannot be blamed on this occasion. No-one else can be found to blame. The blame lies squarely with the Beattie Labor government for the past six years and their performances. The government knew when it started to take out the 95 per cent of the after-tax profits that it was going to cause both these GOCs problems in terms of maintenance and provision of adequate capital for the expansion of the networks over the foreseeable future. How did it know? The boards told it. There is ample correspondence between the boards and the ministers to say that if you do this we will not be able to meet emergent needs in the future and will not be able to keep the maintenance up to provide a reliable service. There is no excuse for the ministers to come in here and say we did not know or it is someone else's fault. The ministers were told by the boards about the problem of extracting more than the required percentage of after-tax profit, ramping it up to 95 per cent. They were told. The central issue here today is not whether the special dividends come into play, the central issue here is one of accountability. We have got two major government owned corporations, the only electrical distribution network in the state, which are very heavily involved in economic performance that have been run into the ground over the past six years. The question is: who is responsible? Who did this? There is not an answer. There is a not a hand up. Over the past month or so, since the report has come down, there is not one person on the government's side who says, ‘I was involved in that. I am responsible for ticking off on the 95 per cent of the after-tax profits. I appointed the boards. We did this deliberately.' The government knew it was going to be deliberate. It knew that by taking the 95 per cent of the after-tax profits it would have this effect on the GOCs because the boards told it. They did it in the full knowledge that what they would do would lead to the inevitable result that we have here today. There is absolutely no excuse. Who is taking responsibility for this? There has to be someone. The Premier has put up his hand and said, ‘I'm responsible,' then he walks away. Any responsible Premier, any responsible government, would hold people to account. Who has been held to account here? Absolutely no-one! There is an accountability free zone in Queensland when it comes to who should be held to account for the state of these two GOCs. The Premier will not touch a board member and he will not touch a minister. No-one will be held to account. What sort of message does that send? It sends one to the ministers. They can do anything they like. They have done anything they like for the past six years. It does not matter how those ministers behave and the result of their behaviour because the Premier will cover up and protect them. We had the inquiry into child protection in Queensland. The government promised to fix the problem, but no-one was held to account. The hospital system in Queensland was in a desperate state in the run-up to the election. The Premier pretended nothing was wrong, but during the election campaign he promised to spend $5 million to fix the problem. We had winegate where people actually lied to police and the Premier covered up and protected them. Those people are still employed within the government. No-one in this government is ever held to account for their actions. They can do what they like and they get away with it. Every time the Premier gets on his feet and says that he is the most accountable Premier we have had in this state and this is the most accountable government he knows, he is trying to fudge it. If he was genuine he would not have to repeatedly say it. He has to repeat it in order to convince people because the evidence is not there. Let us have a look at some of the statements about the electricity system in Queensland. The ministers knew what was going on. The previous minister, Mr Lucas, knew what was going on. Yet over the past two years he has tried to reassure the people of Queensland that there was nothing wrong. I will refer to some quotes from the former minister and members will see how he looks like the electricity bunny in this place. He stated— ‘Queensland is well placed to meet forecast increases in electricity usage' ‘Queensland has adequate transmission, distribution and electricity generation' Let me be frank, Queensland has a strong track record in electricity investment to ensure that we have the right infrastructure and capacity to meet the state's needs' ‘I can't control storms or acts of God but I'm absolutely confident that Energex and Powerlink are on top of the situation' 1774 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004

‘While I can't control outages caused by summer storms or acts of God, I want to assure people that Queensland does not face blackouts because of increasing demand' ‘Queensland's electricity companies are on top of the power planning process to ensure that our electricity system can cope with the rising demand' All those are quotes from the minister in the run-up to the election. The ministers knew that the 95 per cent drain on the GOCs would put them in a precarious position in terms of ensuring reliability of supply. The minister said these things in order to try to reassure people in the run-up to the election that everything was right with these two GOCs. There were no standards again. We had all those misleading statements. He would have had to have known that something was wrong when the boards were mentioning their problems with their after-tax profits. There is no accountability here. No-one is held to account. The one person whose fingerprints run all over this and who has been there for a considerable period of time and has intimate knowledge of the correspondence with the GOCs, the boards and the government is the Treasurer. He is a shareholding minister. He is the minister in charge of the GOC legislation. He has admitted that he is the person who appoints the boards. He is the person who demands 95 per cent of the after-tax profits. He also demands the special dividends. He wanted that money to support his budget position. All the way through the Treasurer's fingerprints are over this. Yet he was in here this morning denying any culpability whatsoever. Of course the Premier was supporting him. There was no admission of culpability or responsibility from the government, despite what the report says. Queensland has had a poor record in the past couple of years in terms of reliability of supply. All sorts of excuses have been given by the government—acts of God, rogue possums, bats out of hell, wayward excavators, traffic accidents. The beauty from the Premier the other day when the report came down and he had a political problem was to blame national competition policy. More recently he blamed the national grid. The report makes it quite clear that the problem is in Queensland. The report makes it quite clear that there has been a deliberate drain on the after-tax profits of Energex. It has had to focus on providing as much money as it can to government to prop up its bottom line. The problem lies within the government itself. I will make a few comments about some solutions. I do not agree that one of the solutions is to put the boards of the GOCs under the government's wing, bring them closer to the government than ever before or make them part of our government departments. That is the wrong way to go. These are commercial entities. They ought to operate as commercial entities in a commercial environment. These GOCs have to have independent boards. They cannot have boards that do the government's bidding. It is one thing to appoint someone one knows to a board. That is not a problem so long as that person is qualified and brings to the board certain skills that enhance the board's performance and can keep the entity on track and can defend the independence of the entity if it is under attack or under question by the government of the day. The critical issue is the independent quality of the board. It is not who knows who who sits on the board. If one knows someone has overwhelming experience and would make a great board member, then that person ought to be able to contribute their expertise. There is no question about that. Many of the people sitting on the boards do not have that expertise. They are there to do the government's bidding. They are there to take the telephone call from the minister or the Treasurer and then focus on the financial performance of the organisation to remit to the government as much money as it can and put in jeopardy the reliability of the supply of electricity in this state. That is the central problem. That is why this government has got itself into a mess here. It knows it. It is trying to deflect as much blame as it can to everyone else. I have no problem with qualified people sitting on boards, but it is the independence that counts. We will not get that by bringing them back under the arm of government. At the end of the day, it is government that is responsible for this. It knew what it was doing six years ago when it embarked upon this process. It appointed friendly board members who were not willing to stand up for the boards and to make sure that adequate money was invested in maintenance and the long-term expansion of the system to cater for the growth and increased demand for electricity in this state. As much as the government, particularly the Premier and the Deputy Premier, try to weasel out of it, they are the people responsible. It is not good enough for the Premier to say, 'I'm responsible,' and then embark upon some other diversion to take the public attention away from its culpability. What we should have seen was a Premier strong enough to say, 'I'm responsible. My government will take action.' The first thing it should have done was to have some heads roll. People have no confidence in the Premier when he says, 'I want the people who made the problem to fix the problem.' That inspires no confidence. Members should go and talk to their constituents and see whether they agree that the way to fix the problem is to have the people who actually created the problem in the first place fix it. 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1775

That is what the government wants us to believe. That is what it wants the people of Queensland to swallow. That is what people will not swallow. When people make a mess of things and muck it up, they should go. The Premier has not got the courage to tell people to go. It is about time he did. He has not sacked one minister in the six years he has been Premier. Of all the disasters this government has had, the Premier has backfilled, covered up and protected. It is about time he started to act like a Premier. He has the biggest majority and he needs to hold his ministers to account. He needs to sets some examples. This is a government without standards. It is an accountability free zone. Until the Premier starts making examples of people, setting a standard, we will not get improved performance from the ministers and government. How many messes has this Premier promised to fix up over the six years? Every time he is caught out he says, 'I apologise. I have made a mess. My government has messed it up. I will fix it.' This time it cannot be allowed to be so. People have to take account of their actions. It is about time the Premier started to hold his own ministers to account. Hon. T. McGRADY (Mount Isa—ALP) (Minister for State Development and Innovation) (2.39 p.m.): I am delighted to participate in this debate on energy, an industry which is fundamental to not just domestic consumers but also the development of our state. It is quite amazing that the opposition is referring to a crisis in this industry, yet where was the crisis six months ago just prior to the recent state election? There were no issues raised by the coalition during the election campaign. There were no new plans unearthed by the coalition in the lead-up to the last election. There were no campaign themes about what it would do if it secured power at the ballot box. But what it has been doing in the last month or so is simply following the lead of the media. Nobody has got up in this chamber and made it clear that there was a problem in the electricity industry or there was a crisis in the electricity industry. What it has simply done is follow the lead of the media. There was no crisis six months ago, and there is no crisis today. As a former Minister for Energy, I have been somewhat— Miss Simpson: Oh, there's no problem! Mr McGRADY: I did not say that there was no problem. I said there was no crisis then and there is no crisis today. But as a former Minister for Energy, I have been somewhat surprised by some of the comments coming from the opposition in recent times, comments which demonstrate quite clearly to me that it still does not understand the electricity industry. This debate today is a debate which the opposition tried to run away from. It is a debate on the electricity industry which the opposition this morning voted against having. This is not a time to dwell on the past. It is a time and it is an opportunity to talk about the future, and that is what this motion before the parliament is all about. Having said that, it would be wrong to allow some of the comments being made in recent times to go unanswered and indeed unchallenged. After listening to the comments from members of the opposition, anybody could be forgiven for believing that when it was in office everything was in order and shipshape. But there are some of us here who have long memories. Can anybody ever forget the shameful campaign waged by the National Party in particular and its supporters when they fought against Eastlink? Then when it was elected, it developed a similar scheme. The only difference was that it changed the name from Eastlink to Westlink. That is very novel—from Eastlink to Westlink. But when it canned Eastlink, Queensland then had to enter into contracts to obtain peaking supplies from private companies for the Oakey, Yabulu and Mount Stuart power plants. They were the days when it put its own political power ahead of the power needs of this state. These were loss-making contracts. It is estimated that they have cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Mr Robertson: We're still paying for them. Mr McGRADY: Yes, which we are still paying today. Can anybody forget the disastrous outages of 1998 when the former Treasurer, Mrs Joan Sheldon, accused the energy unions of sabotaging the state's electricity supply? It was of course simply not the case. Can anybody forget that it was the coalition government which chose to rip $850 million in equity out of the state's electricity industry simply to balance the state's books? What are we doing? We are putting equity into our GOCs, including $870 million into our energy GOCs. That is what we are doing. And those opposite have the gall to talk about our government taking 95 per cent out of profits after the management of these businesses has made its core decisions on funding of maintenance and, of course, operations! Of course, can anybody here forget the plans which Mr Gilmore and Mrs Sheldon and Mr Borbidge had to sack about 2,000 people out of the Queensland electricity industry? If it had not been for us on this side of the House, that would have happened. Some 2,000 jobs would have disappeared. As I said earlier, some of us have long memories, and we know what those opposite tried to do. The reason I raise these issues today is not to attach blame but to simply prove the hypocrisy of the opposition in this chamber today—the hypocrisy of a government which Mr Springborg was a member of. Much has been said about the advice which the government owned corporations within the electricity industry have given to ministers and governments. We see the spectacle today of discredited people queuing up to tell their story to anybody who is prepared to listen. The reality is that in all the years I was Minister for Energy I had monthly meetings with the CEO and the chairmen of all the 1776 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004 electricity corporations and never once in those verbal discussions was the issue of lack of maintenance ever raised with me. I am not simply relying upon my own memory but relying on the memory of former staff members who sat in on those meetings and who confirmed these issues with me in recent days— staff members, as I said, who were present at all of those meetings. During my term as minister I did have a concern about the lack of maintenance, particularly in the generation side of the industry. As a result of these concerns, I commissioned Mr Ron McGuigan, ably assisted by Dick Williams of the then ETU, to investigate all aspects of maintenance in the generation side, and I believe that the recommendations that were forthcoming did much to improve the maintenance of the generation side of the industry. One of the major problems any minister had in the early days was to try to combat the culture which existed amongst very senior management of some of those authorities. Mr Robertson interjected. Mr McGRADY: That is right. Again, who could ever forget the instance where a former CEO was awarded an increase in their salary package of almost $100,000 a year without any reference at all to the minister of the day, which was totally unethical? Yet at the same time that these people were giving themselves these big pay rises, they were arguing with meter readers about an extra 25c an hour for the poor old blue-collar worker. That was the culture which existed in those days. I am sure it does not exist today, but in those days it certainly did. I have also read with interest some of the statements attributed to leaders of the Queensland electricity industry, statements relating to the normal argy-bargy which takes place during negotiations between Treasury and the corporations as to the amount of dividend they should pay. The opposition appears to be saying that if the government took a high level of dividend it would deprive the electricity corporations the ability to capacity build. What a nonsense! Current events prove it is a nonsense, for in recent times the Queensland electricity corporations have developed Callide C, Tarong North, Swanbank E and, of course, Kogan Creek. Admittedly, some of these projects do have some investment from the private sector. But one thing that has been forgotten in the whole of this debate was the recent Somerville independent report. It states quite clearly that the maintenance problems in both Energex and Ergon were in no way related to the policy of successive governments in taking dividends out of the industry. The other point is that these dividends were taken as they should have been. Like the shareholders of any other private company, the shareholders of these companies are entitled to a dividend. In this case, the shareholders just happen to be the people of Queensland. This money was not put into the pockets of the privileged, but it was spent on building schools, hospitals, roads, police stations and jails and on employing nurses and teachers. The list goes on. During my years as Energy Minister, I well recall putting massive pressure on the corporations to ensure that the maintenance was up to scratch. Members in this chamber today will recall the various inspections that we had of some of the facilities owned by both Ergon and Energex. Would the private sector be queuing up to invest in major projects in this state if it was concerned about the state of the electricity distribution system? I doubt it very much. It is our government that set up this independent report, it is our government that is committed to implementing the 44 recommendations and it is our government that will go a long way towards resolving major problems in this industry. Today I have sat here and I have listened to people talk about the composition of electricity boards. Time is a great healer. When the coalition took over from us, its intention was to disband all the membership of the boards and put their cronies in place. But the problem was—and certainly one member in the chamber would recall this—that there was a difference of opinion between one leading Liberal in the cabinet and the Premier. Neither would budge. So what did the coalition do? They left the situation as it was. But the members opposite come into this place and talk about cronyism. Can anybody remember what happened when the Labor government fell? The members opposite had a list of loyal, faithful public servants. One after the other they were sacked. One friend of McGrady—a man who had handed out Liberal how-to-vote cards in Mount Isa for 30 years—worked at the Department of Mines and Energy. He was on the hit list as a 'friend of McGrady'. What happened to him? He was sacked! The list goes on. Those members opposite tell me about cronyism in boards. What a joke! The situation that we have today is that our government set up an independent panel to examine the industry. That panel made 44 recommendations. We have brought this issue to the parliament today—to the highest decision-making body in this state—to be debated and acted upon. I think that that is a sign of a good, responsible, accountable government. The motion that is before this parliament today simply spells out what we want to do. I commend this motion to the parliament. I certainly hope that it is carried unanimously. Mr HOBBS (Warrego—NPA) (2.53 p.m.): It is quite clear to all Queenslanders that the electricity assets are reducing in reliability and capacity. Two previous ministers have spoken in this debate. I believe that the Minister for Natural Resources and Mines made a very poor contribution in this debate. All he wanted to do was talk about the past. The other previous minister said that he does not want to dwell on the past. That is a good point to make. He would not want to. The members opposite seem to 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1777 think that all of these problems occurred when we were in government for two and a half years. Before that the Goss government built nothing. When the Goss government took over, we went from having the cheapest power on mainland Australia to having about the second or third cheapest power in Australia simply because nothing was built. All we ended up having were these peak load power stations that cost a lot more money to run. That was the result of the Goss government. So the members opposite cannot say that we caused the problems in the two and a half years that we were in government. The minister also referred to Eastlink and Westlink. We were opposed to Eastlink because of where the site was. We were not opposed to Eastlink per se; we were opposed to where it was to be located. The electricity corridor still went in, but it was put in a much more suitable place that did not interfere with people's rights. It went through a lot of forestry land and it had no impact at all on the general community. So I think that we ought to try to be a little bit more reasonable in relation to that matter. The previous minister also said that he did not hear of any complaints. Obviously, he did not read my letters and certainly did not hear my statements in the parliament. I made a tongue-in-cheek comment in this place that even the magpies were frightened to land on the poles in south-west Queensland for fear of the poles falling over. I think that one pole actually fell over in a street in St George. I have to say that the field staff in that area where the problems are have been fantastic. I take my hat off to them. They work under enormous stress and on a crumbling system that desperately needs funding. The field staff are doing their best, but they just cannot keep up with the work. I have had many instances where the maintenance in that areas has not been done. The birds jump on the powerlines, the powerlines flop around and they arc out. That was just simply because the maintenance had not been done. In many other areas, such as down here, there are enormous problems in relation to vegetation on a lot of those powerlines. The maintenance is not being done. The new connections are very, very slow and very expensive. I have had many constituents talk to me about the fact that they want to put in power, for instance, about one pole away. It costs anything from $13,000, $15,000 to $20,000-odd to do that. That is totally ridiculous. The Somerville report points out the fact that the power companies are more interested in getting money out of what they have rather than putting in more capital works to expand the system. That is quite true. I can see it. The companies are discouraging new power consumers and they should not be doing that. They should want to have more consumers. Of course, we also have a changing environment. The previous minister said that we should not dwell on the past. But the days of the old Queenslander on stilts with open verandas has gone. These days, all the houses that are being built require airconditioning. An enormous change has occurred between the 1990s and now. There will be even more electricity demand as we go further into this millennium. We have to recognise that. Unfortunately, this government has built nothing: it has not built a road and it has not built a dam. If it was not for the national electricity grid, it would not have built the Millmerran or Kogan Creek power stations. As I said before, I believe that the Ergon field staff have been exceptionally good. One of the worst areas in the Western Downs for a substandard supply is a town called Glenmorgan. I have been complaining about this matter year after year after year. Glenmorgan is only a small community. It has a grain depot, a hotel, a few houses, a school and a shop. The hotel at Glenmorgan had brownouts and its motors burn out all the time. It is just so frustrating. Every time I go there, I ask them, 'How is the power going?' and I am told that it is the same. I have been on to everybody about this matter. It is the one area that we have not been able to fix. In many areas the Ergon people have been able to rectify the problem areas we identified. I thank them for that. This is one area they just have not been able to get to. Whether it is because the spur line is too long or too far I do not know. Whatever it is, that community out there has substandard power. It is unreasonable that they have to pay to have their motors repaired all the time. I will give some examples of the power outages in that region. The farmers also have a similar problem. The township of Mitchell has a high voltage powerline that bypasses the town, yet it cannot get access to power from that source. The power has been improved. A new transformer has been put in in the past year or so and the power in the town has certainly improved. Before that it was terrible. It was just shocking. It still is not fixed. The town cannot really expand. If it needs more power for any sort of future expansion, the capacity is not there. That will remain the case until we can get access to this other line. I see from the Ergon Energy summer storm preparation plans, the document tabled this morning by the Premier, that there is nothing relating to that particular area. Most of it relates to the eastern portion. I have here a number of letters. I would like to read a few extracts from them. I did submit quite a few of these and others to the inquiry. I want to give members of this parliament an example of what people have written to me about how they are finding their power supply. One letter states— We rely on power supply for pumping water from the bores on our properties to water our stock. The bores run on automatic switches, which are set to start the motors at 9pm, and switch off at 7am. Countless times there is a power failure during these 1778 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004 hours and the bores do not restart. It is then necessary to pump the bores during the day at which time the rates are a lot more costly. During the summer months a power failure occurs 2 out of 4 times the bore is started. This problem has put a lot of pressure on all concerned during the long, hot, dry months we have been having over the past drought infected years. We have had help in trying to get this matter fixed from the local ... Ergon Energy office but still the problem continues. I refer to a document which contains 92 pages. It is a collation of power failure reports from a fax machine on one person's property in the Meandarra region. It covers the period from November 2003 to 27 July 2004. There were 92 outages. That represents a power failure 5.75 times a month. That is how often power has gone out. There were outages on 27 July, 25 July, 21 July, 28 June, 22 June, 24 June, 26 June, 20 June, 19 June and 14 June. There were outages on 8 March and 6 March. On 5 March the power went out five times on the one day. There were two outages on 21 February and four outages on 22 February. On 24 February the power went out 10 times. I am picking dates randomly. There were outages on 18 February, 17 February, 16 February, 29 October, 26 October and 28 October. It goes on. There are families living with this all of the time. How would people like that to happen to their homes? It may be happening to people with families and babies. People may have a property or a business to run. Just think what happens to motors. All of the time people have to go back out and reprogram them. It is chaos. It gets worse than that. Three times on Christmas Day 2003 the power went out—at 1526, 1544 and 1841. It is quite extraordinary that we have a society in which the power is so bad that there is not even a reliable supply on Christmas Day. Mr Messenger: It is a Smart State! Mr HOBBS: It is a Smart State. I seek leave to table the document. Leave granted. Mr Lucas: You are not part of the Smart State—the 'smart alec' state. I am not referring to the member for Warrego. Mr HOBBS: I thought that was quite a good comment, but I will let it go by. Another letter I received states— Early January 2004 we suffered problems with our power supply rendering us unable to pump water (tripping brown out switches). Firstly we thought it was our submersible pump, however after pulling it up and down three times— by the way, you have to try to find a guy to come out of town to do all of this because more than likely he did not have the gear himself to do it— replacing the electric motor and wet end on the pump we engaged an electrician who verified that it was all in order (at considerable cost and inconvenience). After this the power supply must have returned to normal and all the equipment commenced working again and hasn't stopped since.

... Power outages and surges are on the increase and the duration lengthens, although we do have a generator to provide back-up supply, we cannot run all our appliances (e.g. cold room) and have had some items burn out. Another letter states— Recently we had an Electrician here to do a job and he put his volt meter on for a couple of hours and the highest our power supply went was to 215 volts! No wonder our motors etc burn out and we have brown/black outs all the time! It is not possible to set electric time clocks, our power seems to go off at least once every 24 hours so most of these clocks sit and blink at us all the time! Another letter states— It took Ergon Energy, eight months from the time of application for connection, to when we got supply of power. We believe this is an unreasonable time to have to wait. It sure is. It goes on— ... we had frequent communication with the ... Ergon manager. He was wanting to get the job done but was overloaded with repair work to be done to a schedule, and simply didn't have the manpower or equipment available to do new connections as well. We have no complaints with the way the local men worked, once they got here to do the job. We believe Ergon should employ more people so they can provide a better essential service. Another letter states— Power supply is interrupted briefly playing havoc with computers, clocks etc. This can happen several times a day. A U.P.S is mandatory for computers. Outages of duration often occur for no apparent reason—no close storms etc. This happened frequently this past summer. When outage is reported to faults & emergency ... staff often 'disbelieve' a fault has occurred & often require more than one consumer to report fault. This can be difficult on our line, as folk who only phone/fax type telephones cannot use the type of phone during the outage. I have read from a sample of letters that have been sent to me in relation to the power supply that we have in that area. I certainly encourage members opposite to think seriously about the situation we face. 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1779

We all want to go ahead from this point on. It is pointless going back many years to try to find who is at fault. The reality is that we now have to try to fix it. The government will not be able to fix it by robbing the energy corporations blind. It has to let them build up the resources to be able to do that. It cannot just keep taking the money out of them. Miss Simpson: You have to find how it went wrong, though. Otherwise you are not going to know when you are going to stuff up again. Mr HOBBS: That is true. The member for Maroochydore makes a very good point. The government has to recognise where it has gone wrong and not keep doing the same thing. It appears to me as if the government is hell-bent on continuing to rip as much money as it can out of the system. It is quite clear from the Auditor-General's report that what was done in relation to special dividends was very different from what the coalition did. What was done under the Labor government was basically bordering on illegal. This was mentioned by the Auditor-General. Those opposite cannot say one thing and mean another. They have to recognise where they went wrong and fix the damn thing. It is simple to fix; it will just take time. I urge members opposite to give consideration to the submission I put together in relation to my constituents, who have a very serious problem with electricity. Let us see if we cannot fix it for them. Hon. P.T. LUCAS (Lytton—ALP) (Minister for Transport and Main Roads) (3.09 p.m.): This is a doing government. The Somerville report and the action that the state government is taking are about doing something to make our electricity system even better. This report is a blueprint for the future of Queensland's electricity industry and it is a report commissioned by the Beattie Labor government to make sure that our electricity industry develops even better into the 21st century. It is important that we take action to improve our electricity industry even further. The Somerville report notes the actions that I undertook in December 2003 with respect to the concerns that I had over a significant period of time over Energex's call centres and their ability to communicate with residents experiencing power outages. That review formed the basis of the conclusions of this report when it came to the communications and call centre matters as a result of the Somerville report. There has been some reference in a newspaper, on a radio station and one of the television stations recently to a so-called uncovered document—a June 2003 document about emerging transmission network limitations. I always find it interesting when people think they uncover things, particularly when they were mentioned in the media I think on more than one occasion in 2003 but even more so when they are publicly available documents. People need to understand how the national electricity market works and how the national electricity code works. When you are required to do a major upgrade of your network, it is a monopoly asset. The national electricity code requires those who are contemplating that undertaking to undertake a three-stage process. The reason for that is with a monopoly asset you need to ensure the expenditure is justified because people have no choice with respect to paying for the cost of that asset. So the first thing that happened was in June 2003 a document was published by Energex and Powerlink with respect to the Brisbane CBD and surrounding areas called a statement of emerging network limitations. That is a standard document that is used in the national electricity market regardless of where people live—Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, wherever. When you need to undertake a major upgrade, you must go through that three-stage process. That document came out in June last year. The next stage is a document called an application notice. Here it is. Where did I get this secret document from? I printed it from the Internet this morning. I table that document. How did we find out about that? On 17 December 2003 when the document was available Energex and Powerlink issued a media release telling people about it. It was also reported in the media at the time. As I said, this is part of a three-stage process. The emerging network limitations report outlines what we will need to do in the future. The application notice lists the various options for us to undertake, and option A is our preferred option. What happens after that is we have our final report. Here it is. Again, this secret document I downloaded off the Internet this morning, and I table that as well. That was tabled on 20 February 2004 and says what the final outcome is for the Brisbane CBD and other reliability upgrades in that area. This is part of a standard process that was undertaken. People who suggest that there is something misleading or hidden about a process as transparent as that have to be joking. Even the member for Darling Downs would know that a similar process occurred for the Millmerran to Middle Ridge powerline. There was a statement of emerging network limitations, an application notice and a final report. That is the standard way that things happen in the national electricity market. Mr Reynolds interjected. Mr LUCAS: No, just on the Internet. I remind honourable members, when they look at the report either on the Internet or here, that it says— 1780 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004

DOCUMENT PURPOSE For the benefit of those not familiar with the National Electricity Code ... and the National Electricity Market ... ENERGEX and Powerlink offer the following clarifications on the purpose and intent of this document: 1. The document is produced in accordance with the NEC, which requires ENERGEX and Powerlink, as part of forward planning, to identify foreseeable FUTURE supply requirements in its network, well in advance of them becoming an operational problem.

... What this document does NOT mean:

... B. It does NOT mean that ENERGEX and Powerlink have been surprised, or that anything is 'out of the ordinary'. On the contrary, it is part of the normal, routine planning processes in the NEM. If members do not believe me, they can have a look on TransGrid or the Victorian distributors or other web sites throughout the national electricity market. I table those documents. Even Brisbane's Lord Mayor, Councillor Newman, in a letter written to the state government asked about the emerging network limitations document which was published on the Internet. He knew it was on the Internet. It is about time we had a bit of honesty and truth in this debate. The Energy Minister commented on this matter before in an objective assessment of Queensland's energy industry. That is, the 2004 national electricity market management companies' recently released statement of opportunities shows Queensland has reliable electricity supply until the summer of 2009-10. Assuming a scenario of extreme temperature conditions, the 2004 statement shows this level of reliability can be met in Queensland until the summer of 2009-10, in New South Wales until the summer of 2008-09, in Victoria and South Australia until the summer of 2004-05 and in Tasmania until beyond the outward period of 2013-14. They have significant hydroelectric power in Tasmania in excess of what they need. That is why they are building Basslink. That is what it says of the mainland states in the national electricity market. We have in extreme temperature conditions a level of reliability under NEMMCO which can be met in Queensland until the summer of 2009-10. I table that document. That is not a Queensland government document; that is an NEMMCO document. The Somerville report at page 71 indicated that Energex's system average interruption frequency index and system average interruption duration index performance from CBD feeders—that is, the duration and frequency of outages—'is very good in absolute terms when compared with other CBD distributors in the national electricity market'. We outperform on that basis in our CBD. What the report does show—and this is why we commissioned it—is that we need to do more in relation to our short rural feeders that are below the Australian average and in relation to a number of urban feeders as well, and this is about addressing those issues. The Somerville report also noted that Queensland's electricity prices are cheaper than those in South Australia and Victoria and only marginally more than New South Wales. I will talk a little bit about that in a minute because the member for Warrego talked about issues in his electorate, and I think it is very reasonable for us to address the issues of people in rural and remote Queensland. In January 2004 we saw the worst chain of storms in south-east Queensland's history in 18 years—not an individual storm but a chain of them. We also set a new record for electricity usage on 28 January at 7,732 megawatts—the third time a new record was set. There was no load shedding with 9,000 megawatts of capacity. Off the top of my head I think we hit record demand on six days over this summer period, and during most of those days we were still exporting electricity to New South Wales through our grid. During the second half of the last Beattie government we continued to work very strongly in the interests of our power industry and other consumers. For example, we took on Power Down Under— and the member opposite would be aware of that—to ensure that Darling Downs would get extra transmission at a time when people in the market were making submissions to the effect that the consumer should accept a higher level of supply risk instead. That is what the Victorian distributor submitted to the ACCC; that we should allow the lights to go off. That is a better way to run the market rather than building the Millmerran to Middle Ridge line. We faced threats of legal action to ensure Gold Coast transmission was adequate when it came to the Maudsland to Molendinar powerline. That is a major transmission supply to the Gold Coast. We advocated for Queensland's interest at a national level. We took on NEMMCO to stop it establishing four different regions. That is what they wanted to do at a national level—four different electricity regions in Queensland. That would have catastrophic effects for regional Queensland when it comes to the price of electricity. We established a national transmission planning process and got other states to agree to that. In repeated speeches—for example, the Australian resources and energy conference in July, the Australian energy utility conference also in July 2003 and the new energy regulations reform conference in Sydney on 9 December 2003—I, on behalf of Queensland, advocated the importance of transmission reform. We have spent more on transmission than any other network. Our grid is bigger than that of any other state. Queensland was out there saying, 'We want to remove the regulatory barriers to ensure that more is spent on transmission.' Queensland led the debate for that at a national level, and we had all 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1781 sorts of problems between South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria earlier on when they were trying to build interconnectivity and they were being frustrated by the self-interest of certain people in the corporate sector. That is something that Queensland fought at the forefront to beat. What else did we do? We oversaw the start of the $500 Townsville power station and gas delivery project by Enertrade, including the building of a gas pipeline from Moranbah to Townsville. That allows us to convert those two gas turbine power plants in Townsville. They were established by Minister Gilmore when the opposition had to desperately scramble to get more power after the Borbidge brownouts. Do members know what they were running? Jet A1—jet fuel at $30 a gigajoule. We are converting to the gas at $3. That is the difference between smart economics when it comes to running those assets. We lifted restrictions for people in the Torres Strait. There was no-one else in Queensland who had Ergon supplied power, except for the people in the Cook electorate, who were not allowed to have airconditioning. They were second-class citizens. A government member: Not as part of the state. Mr LUCAS: It was as if they were not part of the state; so we lifted that. The member for Warrego is not here now, but we opposed the federal government repeatedly on its push for full retail contestability, which would have meant the end to uniform tariffs and forced Queenslanders to pay more. In Longreach, instead of an average bill of $771 per annum it would have been $1,957. It is an article of faith in Queensland that we have a uniform tariff wherever people live—whether they live in Brisbane, Bamaga or Charleville—and that is something that has been a cornerstone. We have resisted the federal government in its push for full retail contestability—the mates of members opposite in the federal government, that is—so when we talk about the needs of people in rural and remote Queensland at least we know that this government has continued to support their having a uniform tariff for the power that they receive. Do members know what the difference would be? There is a cross- subsidy between the south-east corner and people in rural Queensland. People would get about $30 off their bill in Brisbane. People not just in remote Queensland, but people in Townsville and Cairns, would pay massively more. We are not about doing that, and we stared them down. I mentioned earlier the new transmission lines we commissioned—similar new plants such as Tarong North, Callide C, Millmerran and Sunnybank. The only merchant power station built in the national electricity market was Millmerran. The only one! Every other power station that was publicly owned in Australia of any size was privatised. The market actually built one. I should say that I noticed in the Courier-Mail a few weeks ago there was some discussion from the owners about the effect of Kogan Creek. It is ironic that that article was essentially a complaint about the price of electricity being a bit too low. They did not like it. It was a complaint about too much electricity, not 'not enough', but the fact is that Millmerran was built in Queensland and that is a vote of confidence in this state. Indeed, under the national electricity market $3.5 billion of the $5 billion invested was invested in Queensland. I refer to Somerville's statement that distributors and their ability to spend on networks was not affected by the payment of special dividends. As the Premier said earlier today, the government has never turned down a request from Energex or Ergon Energy for an equity injection. The government has always made it clear to all GOCs that if they require additional funding for capital programs such funding would be forthcoming by way of equity injection. Some of those that Somerville referred to included Ergon, CS Energy, Enertrade, Queensland Rail, Central Queensland Ports Authority, Queensland Motorways and the Mackay Port Authority, just to name a few. We had the member for Southern Downs recently remarking that Joh and the Nationals kept the lights on in Queensland. Obviously he has forgotten the Bjelke-Petersen government's complete inability to manage industrial relations and the months of unnecessary blackouts. Hear what the ETU say about what happened in those days—load shedding in the summer of 1984-85, which eventually saw a state of emergency declared. The member for Southern Downs was a part of the Borbidge government that allowed plant failures at four power stations. The member for Maroochydore and the member for Burnett made fools of themselves this morning when they interjected about 'at least we kept the power on'. Here it is. The headline states 'Power cut chaos worsens'. There were three successive days of power outages under the crowd opposite. The member opposite opposed the Millmerran to Middle Ridge powerline; that is what the member did. That is what happened in his electorate. When there was a chance to augment the power system, he opposed it. Miss Simpson: Do you agree with Tony McGrady's statement that there is no crisis? Mr LUCAS: At the same time— Mr Horan: No, he won't answer that one. Miss Simpson: Do you agree with Tony McGrady's statement that there is no crisis? Mr Horan: Let him speak. Do you agree? 1782 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004

Mr LUCAS: I would be happy to take interjections from someone who occasionally took them themselves. I will treat them in exactly the same way as they take interjections when I give them to them. If members want people to take interjections maybe they should actually take a few themselves. There were plant failures at Stanwell, Tarong, Swanbank and Gladstone on three consecutive days, 23 to 25 February 1998, when the Leader of the Opposition sat around the cabinet table. Worse than that, when he was not around the cabinet table before that he was on the mines and energy ministerial policy committee of the minister. He was intimately aware of those situations. This is what Tom Gilmore, energy minister, said at that time in Hansard— In February 1998, plant failures in four of the state's baseload power stations—Stanwell, Swanbank, Gladstone and Tarong— together with another unit in Gladstone being off line for maintenance, led to rotational shedding for the several days. Back to the incident last Friday evening—as a result of failure in New South Wales, it is regrettable but pales into insignificance with the track record of the Borbidge government in which the Leader of the Opposition was minister. But what was their solution? On 17 March 1998, Treasurer Joan Sheldon was forced to apologise to parliament when she made at a Liberal Party convention a statement, 'I've got any own private theory that it might have been a bit of sabotage in the electrical unions.' She blamed the unions for four units going down. She had to go into parliament that day and apologise. The member for Toowoomba South would remember it. She said— I am happy to apologise to the workers of Swanbank, Tarong, Stanwell and Callide power stations. She faced a censure in which she was humiliated by an amendment moved by her own Premier that— The House notes comments made in two ministerial statements earlier today by the Deputy Premier and Treasurer in relation to her withdrawing statements on the issue and her apologies to the workers involved. That was how they handled that issue—blame the union and having them back down with the most humiliating apology. How much further were they in control? They scrapped Eastlink and built Westlink at a significant delay to the connection to the grid at a cost of $100 million more. Some $100 million was wasted—went up in smoke—because they canned Eastlink. They built the emergency peaker power stations—two in Townsville and one in Oakey. I said before that the Townsville stations ran on jet A1 fuel. We are in the process of now converting them, with a negative net present value and tens of millions of dollars in power purchase agreements that we are now trying to deal with. What about the $850 million that Joan Sheldon described as 'lazy equity'? It gets worse than that because the opposition leader is very fond of quoting letters from past chairs of Energex with respect to the current dividend policy. I table a board memorandum from the South East Queensland Electricity Corporation Ltd dated 29 January 1998. It says— ... directors were concerned about the proposed direction as it stood and requested that the proposed direction be amended (i) to include a direction 'to borrow $100 million from Queensland Treasury Corporation'. They had been told to give an interest-free loan of $100 million. That was part of Joan Sheldon's $850 million. It was explained to them that there were two issues that were of concern to directors— Directors were of the opinion that the proposed direction to pay $100 million would be a valid direction (if signed)— Obviously they forgot to sign it— ... but, as the company did not have $100 million, it was considered that the direction should include a direction to borrow $100 million from Queensland Treasury Corporation... That was their government. That is a minute from the board of Energex when the opposition was in power. That is their indictment. When they want to get around quoting board minutes, they should start looking at what they did during their time there as well. Can I say ultimately that the member for Warrego and I agree on one point—this is not about focusing on the past; this is about doing something for the future. I have spoken about some of the strengths of our industry and also some of our shortcomings, but this report was commissioned by this government. This report was built on work that we had already done. The Queensland government fought very hard at a national level to get Queensland's model of transmission to defend the uniform tariff, to defend Queensland's interest in the national electricity market. Fundamentally, though, what the people of Queensland want us to do is act on the recommendations in there, and this is what this government will do. Mr WELLINGTON (Nicklin—Ind) (2.29 p.m.): I rise to speak to the motion and the amendments being moved by the Leader of the Opposition. At the very time this morning when the Premier moved the motion in this House of parliament, the power was out in parts of my electorate on the Sunshine Coast and neighbouring areas. People on the Sunshine Coast could not pump water to run the toilet or to run whatever they needed. They could not operate the computer; they had to sit there twiddling their thumbs waiting for someone to put the power back on on the Sunshine Coast. I do not know how many other areas in Queensland had power out this morning when the Premier was moving the motion. 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1783

The motion calls on this House to commend the government on its forthright decision to commission an independent review. I can assure the House that my constituents who did not have power this morning do not want me to come here and commend the government on its actions. I would have thought this was part and parcel of the normal government responsibility of managing these issues. I would not have thought the Premier would have had to come in here and move a motion calling on us to commend him, to congratulate him and all his ministers and his government for calling an investigation and coming up with some recommendations. Surely that is what government is about: responding and leading. What I am looking for is someone to say heads are going to roll. Heads should roll for this. Ever since I have been a member of parliament I have been speaking with ministers, with departmental staff, with representatives from Energex about the failure of this system. I quote a letter that I wrote to the Treasurer, Terry Mackenroth, on 11 April 2001— Dear Mr Mackenroth—re: Energy powerline maintenance in the Kenilworth area—I refer to the above and enclose herewith a copy of a letter I have recently received from my constituents who are concerned about Energex's maintenance programs in the Kenilworth area. My constituent has forwarded the attached letter to the network maintenance officer for Energex but I believe the situation should be brought to your attention. Yes, the Treasurer, Mr Mackenroth— Can your office please investigate this matter and advise me accordingly. Then on 7 December 2002 I asked a question on notice of the Deputy Premier, the Treasurer and Minister for Sport, Mr Mackenroth, and the question was— With reference to Energex management's changes in the method of operating on the Sunshine Coast, what assurance does he receive from Energex management that these changes will not lead to a reduction in services and who in Energex is accountable to the government for these decisions? This is the Treasurer's answer— There is no significant change proposed to the current method of working by Energex staff on the Sunshine Coast. Standards of service on the Sunshine Coast and elsewhere are thoroughly measured and monitored at various levels of the organisation and the company is committed to meeting customer service standards as set out in Energex's People Pact document and through People Pact guaranteed credits are paid to customers for non-compliance. Yes, the minister says guaranteed credit payments are paid to customers for non-compliance against customer service standards set out in the People Pact charter. What a disgrace! Then he says— There is no reduction in the company's commitment to these standards. He then goes on to say— The CEO and board are responsible to the shareholding ministers for performance as established in the annual statement of corporate intent which records the agreed performance targets. If heads should not roll, I do not know when we will ever ask them to roll. It seems it was only a few months ago when this parliament talked about a ministerial adviser who was sacked. For what? She was sacked for taking a bottle of wine onto an aeroplane. Here we have a crisis in Queensland, we have a motion calling on us to commend the government for its action in responding, and no-one has to go. I say that is not good enough. Someone should go. I do not care if it is the minister; someone should go. Certainly my constituents expect this government to lead by example. If it is good enough to sack a department staffer for taking a bottle of wine onto an aeroplane—something that, quite frankly, I thought was trivial—surely it is good enough to find someone to take some responsibility. But no, everyone is fine. Here is the jolly report. There is not even a criticism of anyone in there. No-one takes responsibility. They are all fine. They have all got their jobs; they all go home each fortnight with the salary; they pay their mortgage. But what happens to my constituents and the constituents throughout Queensland who have had to do without power, who have had to suffer loss and inconvenience? The boards simply go on. It is all rosy. In the last week I know the Premier has been in the media saying, 'Yes, I am responsible, I am responsible for what I know, I am responsible for what I do not know, I am responsible for everything', making a big joke about it. It is not a joking matter. I am certainly not going to come into this House and vote to commend the government for its actions because as far as I am concerned this is not about commending; this is about saying this government should make sure someone's head rolls. I certainly will be supporting the opposition's amendment. I use this example to ask a question of the Premier, the ministers, the cabinet and the government: if it takes the major blackout earlier this year to prompt this inquiry of this government owned corporation, what is happening with our other government owned corporations? The Premier is saying that up until the major blackout everything was rosy and there was nothing wrong. Quite frankly, from the evidence that we have heard here today things were wrong but the government did not want to listen. It waited until we had a major blackout before it thought, ‘Heck, we better do something about it.' My question is to the Premier: what is he doing about what is happening in all the other government owned corporations at the moment? I really wonder. I am not sure if the power has gone back on in my electorate on the Sunshine Coast and the surrounding areas, but I wonder if the government should consider providing some subsidy for people in Queensland to buy generators. 1784 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004

Maybe we have to consider that. I certainly will not be supporting this motion to commend the government on its forthright decision to commission an independent review. I certainly will be supporting the amendment because I believe heads should roll and it is high time the Premier said if it is good enough to sack a department staffer over taking a bottle of wine on an aeroplane it is jolly good enough to require someone else to take some responsibility for the terrible situation we have had with the supply of electricity in this state. Mr NEIL ROBERTS (Nudgee—ALP) (3.36 p.m.): I was quite amazed at the behaviour of the opposition this morning. On the way into parliament today I listened to the Leader of the Opposition saying how important this issue was, that this was going to be the big issue for debate in the parliament this week and that they would be taking the issue up to government and questioning government ministers about their accountability for the issues that have been identified in the electricity industry. So what did the government do first up this morning? We gave the opposition the opportunity to speak about this issue and what was their response? They opposed it. How serious is the opposition when they had the opportunity this morning and they opposed it? Mr HORAN: I rise to a point of order. We take offence to that. The motion was not put before the parliament. We had no idea what the motion was. Mr SPEAKER: There is no point of order. Mr NEIL ROBERTS: Anyone who did not expect a motion or an opportunity to debate this issue today does not deserve to be in this parliament. I am absolutely astounded that this opposition opposed an opportunity to debate this issue in this morning's parliament. That is on the record. No matter what they say that is what the facts of the matter are. The reality is they were not ready; that is why they did not want to debate it, despite all the rhetoric that the Opposition Leader put before the media this morning. I am very pleased to stand here and support the Beattie government's plans to fix the state's electricity distribution system. As the Premier outlined, the government will implement the 44 recommendations of the Somerville report and will also provide the money to do this. In recent weeks there has been a lot of misinformation and hysteria generated about this issue. Much of it is based on false premises and what can only be assumed to be deliberate attempts to distort the facts. I want to deal with a few of those issues in my contribution to this debate this afternoon. If we listen to the doomsayers in the Liberal and National parties one would believe or think that the electricity system is about to collapse. Amongst other things, they claim that there is not enough power to serve Queensland's electricity needs, that the distributors Energex and Ergon have not had enough money to properly maintain their networks and, astonishingly, that the GOC framework is responsible and the Opposition Leader has vowed to abolish it and return the industry to government departmental status if they are returned to government. All of those assertions are false and bear no resemblance to the facts. It is important to acknowledge that there are maintenance and capital development problems within the electricity distribution network. The Somerville report clearly reveals that fact. It is also important to note and acknowledge that it was this government which commissioned the report to discover the extent of these issues. We were concerned about the capacity of the distribution network to meet Queenslanders' needs and expectations as highlighted by the outages that occurred earlier this year in the summer storm season. The Somerville panel's report highlighted a number of shortcomings with the distribution sector but also provided a blueprint to fix those problems. The Premier and Deputy Premier have this morning outlined the steps that the government has already taken to put in place the money and the plans to address every issue raised in the Somerville report. The government has not attempted to hide from this issue or to sheet the blame home to anyone. Our response has been to put our heads down, find the solutions and start the work to implement them. As indicated earlier, the opposition, which compromises a de facto coalition of the Nationals and Liberals, has claimed that there is not enough power to serve Queensland's needs. What absolute garbage! As the minister and other speakers indicated this morning, Queensland generates more than enough power to supply both its own power requirements and some of the power requirements of New South Wales. The Somerville report says that there are sufficient electricity reserves for several years. The government has also recently announced the commencement of construction of the 750 megawatt Kogan Creek power station, which will add to this capacity. Queensland currently has a generation capacity of around 10,000 megawatts. The record peak demand set in February this year was 7,934 megawatts, far short of our current generating capacity. Once again the de facto coalition is wrong on this issue. The opposition has also claimed that the distributors, Energex and Ergon, have not had enough money to properly maintain their networks because of the policy of the government to extract dividends from the distributors each year. Once again, one only needs to go to the Somerville report to discover the dishonesty of this claim. The report clearly states as follows— The panel examined this matter and found the distributor's ability to spend on the networks was not affected by the payment of special dividends. 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1785

Additionally, in a letter to the Premier dated 5 August, the chair of the panel stated— ... the conclusion we reached was that the level of dividends paid to the State Government did not cause either of the distributors to be lacking in the funds necessary to carry out these (maintenance) functions. Both Energex and Ergon had the opportunity to spend what was required to properly maintain their networks. Both GOCs have continued to post profits year after year and some of that cash could have been appropriated into maintenance activities before final dividends were declared. The government does not direct the electricity authorities on how much they should spend on maintenance. That is a decision they make. There was ample cash flow within those businesses to undertake that maintenance if they choose to do it. Additionally, the Somerville report also said— Both distributors had investment grade credit ratings and therefore have strong capacities to raise debt in their own right. I want to reiterate a couple of points made by the member for Lytton, the Minister for Transport, because what he said is important in the context of this debate about dividends. The government only takes dividends from GOCs after they have funded their annual infrastructure investments and operations, including maintenance. They are the technical experts and they know, or should know, what is required. After they have made the decision about what maintenance expenditure they require and at the end of year after they declare a profit, that is what the government takes the dividend out of. It does not impact on a GOC's ability to maintain its own network. The government regularly makes equity injections into GOCs, whether in the electricity sector, the port sector or Queensland Rail. The evidence is on the record to demonstrate that. The government has never turned down a request for an equity injection from either Energex or Ergon. We have made clear to the GOCs that if they require additional funding for capital programs, such funding would be forthcoming by way of equity injection. This nonsense that the taking of 95 per cent or whatever percentage dividend is responsible for the maintenance decisions that are taken by Energex, Ergon, the ports, the railways is absolute nonsense and does not stand up to proper scrutiny which, unfortunately, is not occurring in the media coverage of this issue. The Nationals and Liberals are fond of quoting the elements of the report that they like—that is, where there are some deficiencies in the distribution network. They will not acknowledge the other areas that destroy the arguments they are running in the public arena. They cannot have it both ways. If they accept the integrity of the report, which the government does—and I have not heard anyone to date challenge the integrity of the report—then they must also accept the truthfulness of the other issues which undermine the very arguments they are putting in the public arena. The other astonishing proposal put forward by the National Party is that it will redepartmentalise the electricity industry. This is despite the fact that it was the National Party government, under minister Tom Gilmore in the Borbidge-Sheldon government, who set up the current power generation and electricity distribution system. It was put it in place when they were in government. Mr Shine: They are going back in time. Mr NEIL ROBERTS: They are going more than back in time. They are going back to a dark age which does not exist in modern economic thinking. I wonder what the Liberals would do with that proposition if they ever got back in government. We all know that for the Nationals to implement this policy they would have to form another coalition with the Liberals. It is interesting to look at what the Liberals' position was in 1998 when this happened. Back in 1998 the Liberals were fully supportive of the current GOC structure. In a press statement on 2 January 1998 the then Treasurer and shareholding minister, Joan Sheldon, said 'Queensland is leading the nation in electricity reforms' and 'our new corporations will be even more successful in a restructured marketplace'. Mr Springborg was not as effusive as Mrs Sheldon at the time but he did say during the debate in parliament on 27 August 1997 that the electricity distribution system his government was introducing was on a far more equitable and a more socially aware and socially conscious basis. Now he wants to junk the lot and go back to the 1980s. That is an amazing backflip. Mr Springborg wants to wind back the clock even further and forget all the reforms that he and his former government so passionately embraced and implemented when they were in government in 1996-97. It is voodoo economics which will not stand up to close scrutiny. I would like to see Mr Springborg table this proposal in a private member's bill. It would be interesting to listen to the debate and see the position the Liberals take on that issue. I want to say a few words about mandatory performance standards. The Somerville report appropriately identifies that such mandatory standards do not exist and the government acknowledges this omission and intends to fix it. However, implicit in some of the criticism of the government on this issue is the notion that the government has not given clear direction to the electricity industry on what it expects with respect to the assets which they have been entrusted to look after. Nothing could be further from the truth. 1786 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004

In fact, the government has set a very high standard for industry participants to aspire to. I want to quote section 42(b) of the Electricity Act which states that a distribution authority—that is, Energex or Ergon—must— ... operate, maintain (including repair and replace as necessary) and protect its supply network to ensure the adequate, economic, reliable and safe connection and supply of electricity to its customers. That is a pretty good standard and direction from the government about what it expects of its electricity authorities and the maintenance of the people's assets. However, that being said, we do acknowledge that more specific and transparent performance standards will need to be established. That is exactly what we will do. The government has taken an entirely different approach to this issue from both the National and Liberal parties. We are looking for a solution. They are looking for a scapegoat. Finger pointing and blame shifting serves only one purpose—that is, to divert attention away from our plans to fix the electricity distribution system. The Nationals and Liberals are hell-bent on getting people sacked as if it will miraculously cure all the industry's problems. It is not surprising that the Nationals and Liberals would take this approach, because when they were in government from 1996 to 1998 they sacked people at an alarming rate. Earlier in this debate the member for Mount Isa highlighted the hit list that the National Party, with the support of the Liberals, ruthlessly put in place after it was elected to government in 1996. It was sacking innocent people simply on the basis in some cases of a friendship with a particular minister. The Borbidge-Sheldon government during its term sacked four ministers. It sacked the parole board, a couple of DGs, including the Fire Commissioner, and also the QCORR chair. All of those sackings achieved very little and it was left to the Beattie government to try to fix up the mess and its legacy once we were returned to office. However, despite our different approaches, the Premier has put the boards and management of Energex and Ergon on notice that he wants the problems identified in the Somerville report to be fixed, and to be fixed quickly. The government has responded quickly to the Somerville report and has put in place an implementation plan which firstly requires Energex and Ergon to prepare summer preparedness plans, which the Premier tabled this morning. Additionally, we are going to establish an independent audit of these plans in November to make sure that they are being implemented. We will establish new mandatory service performance standards so that Queenslanders can measure the performance of their electricity supplier. Importantly, we will commit the necessary funds to support the provision of a safe and reliable electricity distribution system. This is a positive and constructive response which stands in stark contrast to the negative approach taken by the National and Liberal Parties, who pray every night for power failures. The government has a plan to provide a safe and reliable electricity distribution system. We will leave no stone unturned in ensuring that it is delivered. I support the Premier's motion. Mr HORAN (Toowoomba South—NPA) (3.51 p.m.): Today we have witnessed one of the most hypocritical stunts one could ever imagine but one that we have become used to with this Beattie Labor government. There has been an absolute failure by the Beattie Labor government to provide one of the essentials for Queenslanders—that is, reliable power. After all of this, the government wants us to commend it for the action it is taking to try to fix up the absolute mess that is there purely because the Labor government took its eye off the ball and purely because the Labor government appointed shareholding ministers who did not have the interest or the ability to ensure that the boards were delivering what they were supposed to be delivering. It is further complicated by the tangled web of appointments to these boards that occurred under the Labor government of Labor cronies and Labor mates and unionists rather than appointing people with engineering or electrical engineering experience or the highest levels of management and accountancy skills. This is symptomatic of the failures of the Beattie Labor government. It is symptomatic of a government that has been there too long and deserves to be tipped out. It is symptomatic of a government that has become arrogant with its massive majority. It is symptomatic of a government that is too concerned with propaganda, PR and everything else which took its eye off the ball. Therefore, the big issues like power have been neglected. This follows on from the absolute disgrace and the failure by this government to look after the children at risk in this state. For years and years we have ranted and raved about that issue in this parliament and eventually the media picked it up. As a result, this government was forced in shame to inject literally hundreds of millions into the care of those children in need—children in different categories of risk on the waiting lists just simply waiting for care, protection, assessment and some help. Rather, this government was spending hundreds of millions of dollars on PR, publicity stunts and the 900-plus people in the Premier's Department. It forgot about the children of this state who need care and protection, just like it has forgotten about the power system in this state. This morning the Premier and the member for Nudgee pulled the stunt of saying that we voted against debating the issue of power. Let us set the record straight. They moved for a notice of motion to be moved in this parliament. No-one on this side of the House—National, Liberal, Independent or One Nation—had any idea of what that motion was about. No-one was told. We were ready for the MPI debate, and an issue that was to be raised during the MPI debate was the issue of power. We were 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1787 ready to debate that during the MPI debate. We know what kinds of stunts the Premier pulls. It was just as likely that he was going to get up and move some sort of crocodile motion just to divert public attention away from the disaster that he has presided over for the past six years. So let us set the record straight. We are quite happy and prepared to debate this issue, but we will not fall for the stunts pulled by the Premier in moving any sort of motion. It is our right to vote against a motion when we have no idea of what that motion is going to be about when it is put to the parliament. Many people on the other side have spoken about the generating capacity and how there was sufficient generating capacity. The point they have missed about the mismanagement of this whole issue is the distribution system. One only has to look at what the Premier tabled today about how it is going to be fixed. A number of transformers, substations, transformer lines and so forth have to be put in place to try to get power to people who have been suffering these blackouts and brownouts for some six years. It is like building a big dam which has plenty of water but no reticulation lines or lines that are far too small which cannot get the water through. That is part of the problem that has occurred. That is an indication of the mismanagement that has occurred and the lack of planning. We all know how many people are coming over Queensland's borders and we know that the birthrate is increasing and therefore our population rate is increasing. There are an extra 80,000 people in south-east Queensland every year. One would think that the government and the shareholding minister would be on the ball. One would think that they would be demanding, 'What's the plan? What's going in? What's the infrastructure? Can we cope with it?' There have been many letters from members of parliament and there have been media stories about the blackouts and brownouts. One would have thought that they would be demanding some answers then. But, no, it is only when the crisis occurs that the government comes out with more of these apologies. The people of Queensland are sick up to their back teeth of apologies from this Premier. It just does not work anymore. They see it for the stunt that it is. The government cannot keep messing everything up. It cannot keep being unsuccessful and a failure at the basics of government and then come out over and over and over again and offer an apology. The Premier cannot keep saying, ’It is all my fault', and that his government is going to go out and fix it. One of the important things that we have to drive home and sheet home today in this parliament is that this government has failed. This government has failed in the provision of proper, functional electrical distribution in this state. There is a mess, and the mess has to be cleaned up. We will support the mess being cleaned up, but let us not avoid the mess. If we are not going to have this problem in future, then we have to work out why we have a mess of this proportion now. The government had to commission a report on this whole issue—the Somerville report—when it could have been listening to what was coming through the media and what was being said by members of parliament complaining about the brownouts occurring. The member for Warrego mentioned them in this debate. The member for Cunningham will tell members about all of the problems on the Darling Downs. There have been problems through all areas of Toowoomba over a period of time. There are problems all over the coast, the south-east corner, north Queensland and everywhere else. They are all there, and the lack of management and lack of functionality has brought this all about. There is a big responsibility on governments for a number of important things, and water and power are two of those. On both of those issues, this government is failing. I have heard members on the other side talk about the brownouts that occurred in the Borbidge era. I can tell them what happened when we came into government in the early months of 1996: we inherited a rust-bucket system. After years of the Goss government, maintenance had not occurred. There had not been one single power generating facility put in place. There was absolutely nothing. There were breakdowns in those great big convoluted boiler pipes through corrosion and so forth. It was an unbelievable problem. It was a rust-bucket status. The difficulty, of course, is that there is a five-year time line from starting to build a new power station until it is up and running. Therefore, we had to bring in immediate short-term facilities to generate power—projects like the one at Oakey and the one at Townsville which a member opposite slammed. Those power facilities had to be put in place because it was a matter of urgency and emergency to get short-term increased power. Even though it was expensive, there was not enough generating capacity because, once again, Labor had taken its eye off the ball and we were in a desperate situation.Yes, we had brownouts because of the rust-bucket state that some of those facilities were left in and because there was no other generating capacity that we could bring in whilst we closed down those units to repair them in very complicated and urgent circumstances. That is what we inherited. That always happens: we inherit a Labor mess and we have to fix it up. I turn now to how this whole crisis has come about. I have mentioned the boards. We need people with electrical engineering experience and people who can understand the needs of the industry on these boards. I do not think that we want people with strong Labor Party links or union links, like the Teachers Union delegate Grace Grace from the ACTU, on these boards. We want on these boards people who know and understand electrical distribution, who understand management, who understand project management and who understand the massive cost of putting in place this infrastructure. If anyone in this parliament or anyone in the public read the Courier-Mail article on Saturday, 31 July 1788 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004 about old Labor mates sharing power, they would know that that is one of the fundamental problems that exists in the management of the electrical industry in this state. That brings me to the issue of the dividends and particularly the special dividend. Members have said that the Somerville report said that the dividends had no real bearing on this crisis and that there was ample money to pay the dividends. Any average person could look at the situation and see that the electricity companies were desperately short of money to put in this whole plethora of transformers and substations that the Premier now says are urgently needed. Anyone could see that. The average bloke in the street could see that. We do not need some highfalutin report to tell us otherwise. Anyone with a bit of sense and logic would know that there was not enough money to put in place these important parts of the distribution system—either that or the companies did not know that they had to put in the distribution systems and, therefore, did not allocate the money. So there has been a major fault. How did that come about? There is no doubt that back-room pressure was put on some of these Labor apparatchiks who were on the boards to boost the budget for those two years of the last term of the government when there were massive budget deficits. I heard that the Treasurer and Deputy Premier was on radio saying that the chairman of one of the boards came to him with the idea of this special dividend. Can members imagine a chairman of a board coming along and saying, 'Look, I have found a way in which we can take more money out of our company and give to you'? Could members imagine a chairman saying that? The other point to raise is that those assets of that company had to be revalued and borrowings undertaken to make that special dividend payment to prop up the Mackenroth budget. I doubt that it is correct to do that because a director is not able to borrow to pay a dividend. How come this company had to revalue its assets and increase its debt levels to pay a special dividend to the government? A director of a private company would not be able to do that, because a director is just not allowed to borrow money in order to pay a dividend. I believe that we have to concentrate on the issue of the infrastructure that has not been put in place. It obviously has not been put in place because the money was not there. The electricity companies have been used as milking cows. Money has been siphoned off to the government. The members opposite can say what they like about the Somerville report; they can say that it did not have any effect. I disagree with that absolutely. We could use any logic we like. We can see by the Premier's statement, which was tabled in the parliament today, that there was a massive and emergency need for so much equipment. I will read out some of the equipment that has been listed: $85 million for distribution assets, including 23 new power transformers for zone and bulk supply substations and the upgrade of 92 11 kVA feeders and 350 distribution transformer upgrades. Why was that not done before? Because all the money had been hived off in a special dividend to the government! On top of that, Energex has purchased 12 large mobile generators to provide short-term relief in heavily storm- affected areas. We have even seen the charade of businesses in town being encouraged to put in generators and to connect their generators to the grid. That is how bad it is. It is almost a Third World situation in that the government is asking major businesses in Brisbane to hook their emergency generators up to the grid because the government of the day, through its electricity distribution companies, is not able to guarantee and provide enough power in those areas—not because it is necessarily a matter of not enough power being generated, but because the infrastructure, the distribution systems, the transformers and the substations are not in place to handle the load. The Somerville report spoke about a lack of service standards. So after six years of government, the service standards are not right. Obviously, the shareholding ministers were asleep at the wheel. The Somerville report spoke about the lack of expenditure. That backs up my argument that this special dividend and the other dividends being given to the government just did not leave enough money by which to put in place the transformers and so forth. One of the interesting things about this debate and one of the interesting things about the Beattie Labor government is that it is never anybody's fault. It is not the Premier's fault, it is not the Treasurer's fault, it is not Mr Lucas's fault, it is not Mr Robertson's fault, it is not Mr McGrady's fault and it is not the board's fault. It is no-one's fault. The member for Nicklin spoke about this matter. At the end of the day, who is responsible? Our leader talked about the need for ministerial responsibility. I remember that when Mr Barton was the Minister for Corrective Services he talked about wanting to have his hands on the levers when it came to Queensland corrections, which was one of those government owned corporations—Q Corr. He changed that government owned corporation back to a department because he wanted to have his hands on the levers. He wanted to take a bit of responsibility for it. We supported him in the parliament on that, because Queenslanders want to see someone who is responsible. At the end of the day, who is responsible for this mess? It is certainly the government. But ministers have just walked away scot-free. We saw that happen with the poor kids who were in need of care. Everyone said, 'It's not me, it's not the director-general, it's not the ethos in the department, we just need more money.' The government did not need more money; it needed a bit of talent and managerial ability at the top. That is what the government needed. 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1789

The amended motion that was moved by the opposition notes the report and it outlines the disastrous state of the electricity distribution network in Queensland, because that is what this report showed. We condemn the mismanagement of the electricity industry in Queensland by the Beattie government. A government that has failed this badly should be condemned. The members opposite should hang their heads in shame if they are not prepared to condemn themselves for their absolute failure. The amended motion calls on the government to implement urgent action to rectify deficiencies in the distribution network, in the communications system and in the management of the system. The amended motion further calls on the government to cease taking dividends from the electricity GOCs so that they can invest in the appropriate equipment and systems. I suggest that those dividends should be ceased until the system is fixed, until the system has reserve power, until the system is coping with growth and until the system is coping with the needs of those people who live in regional and rural areas of the state as well as the heavily populated areas of the state. The opposition's amended motion also asks that a time line be set for the distribution system to be restored to a safe and reliable state. The opposition has also demanded that the government clean out the existing failed boards that have been compromised by the appointment of Labor cronies. Today we heard that the money that Grace Grace receives for being on five separate boards goes straight back to the union movement and, no doubt, straight through the washing machine and into the Labor Party in the form of donations come election time. I ask members to look at the system and the way in which this Labor Party works the system. I have spoken before in this parliament about all the grants that the government gives out through the Department of State Development. The amount allocated for grants has been lifted from $3 million to some $84 million. Those people who receive grants are then put on the Labor Party's database and are asked for $1,500 to attend as an observer at Labor's annual conference, or to attend a Treasurer's breakfast. The government has given money to all of those people through its grants systems where it picks winners and losers. What a good income stream the government has developed to prop up its election campaigns. Here again we see taxpayers' money paid to a union official and then paid from that union official back to the union, and then paid back to the Labor Party. There is a tangled web behind all of this business with the boards, and the end result for the taxpayers of Queensland, sadly, has been that many of them have missed out on power at urgent times. People have had their freezers go off. Shops have seen goods spoiled. People in business have had all sorts of problems—water problems, pumping problems and so forth. In the couple of minutes remaining to me I will set out some interesting matters regarding the power blackout on Friday night. I have not concentrated much on that, because I think the problem was well and truly there before Friday night. Friday night was a major blackout and put everything back in the news again, but this crisis was there before Friday night. The people of this state and those who understand the distribution system, the national market and so on really wonder how people in Townsville and other areas of north Queensland could get cut out of power when something trips out down in the Hunter Valley. People in the southern end of the state might think it could happen to them, but people in the north of the state—half a continent away—lost their power as well. How ridiculous is that, when it was caused by something tripping out down in the Hunter Valley? No-one seems to know what happened. We heard from the managing director of the National Electricity Market Managing Company, NEMMCO, that power was flowing south over the border to New South Wales at the time of this incident. We have also heard from Powerlink that at the time of the blackout on Friday night we were actually importing power. No-one seems to know which way the power flow was going. Certainly that is another area that needs fixing up. I think it is about time we got to a system, even if it is a national system, whereby north Queensland is not affected by something tripping out down in the Hunter Valley. I will conclude by summarising this whole issue. It has been a disgrace and a mess. How could we commend the government, as it wants us to, for such an absolute and shocking mess? It is on the same scale as the neglect of children in care during the previous term of the Beattie Labor government. This mess has to be fixed. It will be fixed only when we isolate and identify where to lay the blame. There is no doubt that it is at the top, with the shareholding ministers. Mr COPELAND (Cunningham—NPA) (4.12 p.m.): Today we really have seen the sheer arrogance of the Labor government in Queensland. The scope of that arrogance is absolutely breathtaking. How can we be expected to stand up here and vote to commend the government for its complete mismanagement of the electrical distribution system in Queensland? It is unbelievable. What is more, the people of Queensland know that it is unbelievable. This government has been built on spin. It has been built on PR. It has been built on froth and bubble for over six years. The people of Queensland are seeing through it. They are seeing through it on this issue particularly, because there is no way this government can run from its responsibilities. There is no way this government can run from the situation it has caused. Time after time we have seen this government try to blame everyone from Noah to kingdom come for the problems that have beset it. It cannot run away from this particular issue. It cannot get away from the fact that the money has been ripped out of the system. It cannot get away from the fact that the maintenance has not been done. It cannot get away from the fact that it is the government that has caused it. 1790 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004

As the member for Toowoomba South just said, it is so ironic that, after six years of Goss Labor government, when the coalition came to power it had to try to fix an absolutely decrepit power system. In two years, with very difficult circumstances confronting it, it had to make some difficult choices. What happens? The Labor Party is re-elected in 1998 and six years later what do we see? We see another decrepit power system with all of the problems associated with it. The people of Queensland can see that; they know. In the time I have been in this parliament—three and a half years—a number of times people have come to me with problems with their power, with electricity outages. They are just about all due to maintenance and the failure to upgrade systems. They are just about all to do with the failure of this government to put in the required resources. That has happened right across my electorate—places like Broxburn, Pittsworth, Leyburn, Cambooya, Millmerran and even Toowoomba. Mr Deputy Speaker Shine, I know that in your electorate you have had exactly the same problems. There has been a complete failure to address those growth areas. There has been a complete failure to address the system where it already exists and to maintain it. Every person out there in the electorate knows that this is a problem that has been going on. For the Premier to stand up here and say that as a result of this report the government suddenly knows there is a problem is absolute rot, and the people of Queensland know that it is rot. It is about time the Premier actually took some responsibility for it and for the problem we have 'suddenly encountered', so he says. The motion moved by the Premier actually calls on us to commend him for implementing the forthright decision to commission an independent review of the Queensland electricity distribution network. We know that the only reason this government ever commissions a review is when the political blowtorch is on its belly. We know that the only reason any review panel has been put in place is to deflect the political spotlight from what are difficult issues. We saw it with the Shepherdson inquiry, we saw it with the children in care crisis and now we see it with the electricity crisis. It is to try to deflect the political spotlight from what are very difficult issues—to try to get them off the media agenda and the political agenda until people forget about them. But that is not going to happen this time. This time people actually know. This time the report has come back and said what everyone out there in the electorate has known—that the maintenance has not been done and that the network has been suffering for it. This morning we heard the Treasurer say that he wanted to move these GOCs into a more commercial operation. Some of the activities of these GOCs would be absolutely illegal in the commercial world, and the Auditor-General raised questions of illegality with regard to the raising of special dividends. The member for Toowoomba South also referred to this. The revaluing of a company's assets and borrowing against those assets to pay a special dividend—what has happened with these GOCs—in the commercial world is illegal. Those huge amounts of money that have been taken out of the GOCs, out of Ergon and Energex, have meant that they have not been able to fulfil their role correctly. They have not been able to conduct the maintenance they have been required to do. The Treasurer also described the advice he received from Ergon, Energex, Powerlink and even the Under Treasurer, saying that if this money was taken out there would be serious problems with the distribution network and that there would be serious ramifications for the maintenance programs of both Ergon and Energex and even Powerlink, as the ordinary political argy-bargy that goes on. Well, that argy-bargy has been proven to be exactly right. The advice he was given—that there were going to be maintenance problems—is absolutely correct. We are having to live with those problems now. This government has completely ignored the requirements of infrastructure in Queensland. It has ignored the requirements in high-growth areas. It has ignored the requirements in those areas in which infrastructure needs to be maintained. It has ignored the requirements for planning for the future. The electricity problems we are facing now are just the tip of the iceberg. We have seen it with transport infrastructure problems, with roads. We are going to see it with water. We have had water restrictions right around the state. We have not had a dam built in this state for years, and we are going to have to build one. Toowoomba is just one of those areas that will have to be looked at in relation to water. The government has completely taken its eye off the ball in terms of infrastructure, and it is like a case of deja vu from the Goss years. Absolutely nothing was done in those years in terms of infrastructure. Absolutely nothing has been done in the past six years in terms of infrastructure. We have to sit back and say, 'Is this typical of Labor governments?' If the Queensland experience is anything to go by, it certainly is. When the release of the Somerville report hit the news—I think it was on a Saturday morning— there was a major headline in the Courier-Mail. As one does on a Saturday morning, I read the headlines. I just happened to be in Pittsworth when I bought those papers. I was doing some shopping there. I went to one of the shops and met a shopkeeper who has been in continual contact with me in my role as local member because at least every month—usually every week—he has a power outage and loses his stock. It is something that has been going on continually. We just had to sit back and laugh. The Premier was quoted as saying, 'This is such a surprise. We didn't know things were this bad.' Anybody could have told him it was this bad. Every person in Pittsworth that day was just laughing at the government, because everyone in Pittsworth knew how bad it was. Everyone right around Queensland 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1791 knows how bad it is, because they have been living with it. That particular shopkeeper in Pittsworth knows what it is like. That is why the government's spin is not going to work on this occasion. That is why this stunt is so completely shallow and so completely void. It is like the motel owners in Toowoomba at the southern end of Ruthven Street, just opposite my electorate office, who came in and saw me because they had continual power outages. But it was not all of Toowoomba going out. They had people booking into their hotel and coming in for dinner but the power would go out. So they would go out onto the street and see that across Alderley Street the lights were still on. If that is not an indication that something is seriously wrong with all sorts of areas of the power system, then I do not know what is. The people in the electorate know how shallow this government is on this issue. They know that you cannot continually rip out money from these GOCs and they know that we should not be commending this government on creating the crisis that we are having to live through now. I support the amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition. We should absolutely condemn the government for its actions but we should also condemn it for such a shallow stunt as trying to commend itself. Dr FLEGG (Moggill—Lib) (4.20 p.m.): I rise to speak against the motion and in favour of the amendment that has been moved. It is an absolute nerve to move a motion to give yourself a pat on the back and to no doubt use your numbers to ram it through when you have faced such a line-up of damning evidence of your absolute incompetence and mismanagement of a major basic service infrastructure for the people of this state. I notice that the government is straining to find a few lines in the Somerville report to hang its hat on to defend itself. Government members should read the report. Even the minister this morning had not read the report. I notice he is conspicuous by his absence from the debate as well. It is an absolutely damning report—all 215 pages—of a system run into the ground by people who care only about profits and propping up their budget deficit. It does not even stop at the Somerville report. In January, when my electorate and everybody else's were sitting in darkness, when doctors were seeing their patients by candlelight, when trucks were taking spoiled food out of the shopping centres, the electorate was misled prior to the election, and I notice this morning the government is giving itself a pat on the back for its big majority. It would not have such a big majority if it told the truth; instead it said that there was nothing wrong with the electricity system and that it was just a freak storm. It misled the electorate. Then, when it could no longer say that nothing was wrong it denied there was a problem. But it got to the point where it could no longer say there was nothing wrong so the Premier came out and said, 'We didn't know; it's not our fault. There are no reporting systems in Energex and Ergon.' 'Nobody told us' was the cry—anything but accepting responsibility for what it did. Paper after paper, letter after letter, board member after board member queued up to say how they had urged the government to do something about this impending crisis since at least 1999. Mr Terry Sullivan: Did you talk to Joan Sheldon about this before you spoke? Dr FLEGG: Joan Sheldon was not in government in 1999. So the excuse that the government did not know does not stand up, either. What is the excuse for today? It is running out of them. Today it is blaming a government that was in office eight years ago. It is blaming a government that was in office for two years out of the last 16 years eight years ago. It should be ashamed of itself. Government members interjected. Dr FLEGG: It is full of excuses. I still hear them over there now. The government finds a few lines in Somerville that it quotes out of context—and make no mistake those lines are way out of context, and I will come to that in a minute—to try to say that somehow Somerville exonerates it for the absurd rate of dividends that it has ripped out of these GOCs. The Premier today had the temerity to say that its response is a forthright response. It is a ducking and weaving response. I have news for the government: it is not fooling anybody. The people who have put up with the blackouts, who are still putting up with the blackouts on a regular basis right across the state, know that the government does not deserve a pat on the back. Even if it has the numbers to ram a pat on the back for itself through the parliament, it means nothing because its record stands that it is responsible for what it has done. Mr Terry Sullivan: You can't quote anything from Somerville that says that about the ministers, and you know it. Dr FLEGG: I am going to quote it in a minute. The member has not read it either, I can see. The Premier's shameful stunt today in trying to give himself a pat on the back using his numbers is a pretty good effort, but it does not top the stunt that he pulled in my electorate of Moggill on 5 August. The Premier turned up wearing his little hard hat, gave the media 60 minutes notice and did not inform the member for Moggill at all that he was coming. I notice on his hard hat he has tattooed 'Peter Beattie, Premier', just in case for a photo opportunity he comes along to be filmed trimming some trees and they do not know who he is. The residents of Moggill, who had no warning that the Premier was turning up, 1792 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004 did not miss him. They said, 'Where were you when we had no power for days in January and your minister was telling us there was nothing wrong with the electricity system? You are here for the photo opportunity. You turn up for a secret photo opportunity because you cannot stand the criticism that you so justly deserve, and you did not show your face and you would not take the blame when the lights were out in January.' I will return to the big excuse for the day. The big excuse for the day is that Somerville says that the dividend policy did not affect the ability to invest in capital or maintenance. The government took that one right out of context, so let us put it in context. Page 8 of the Somerville report states— ... the Panel believes that the networks have not had sufficient expenditure outlayed on them to adequately maintain them and to meet increased demand from growth.

... In the case of ENERGEX it is the Panel's view that this position has been reached because there has been too much focus over a considerable period on producing an improved financial result. While expenditure has certainly been reduced, the Panel believes that this has been at the expense of the condition of the network. It is now operating at a utilisation of about 76%, whereas the prudent industry level is around 60% to 65%. The assets are stressed and this impacts on reliability. That puts the financial situation back in context, and that is the bit of Somerville the government will not quote. Mr Terry Sullivan: And who decided those levels? Not the minister. Dr FLEGG: Industry standard is what decided those levels. The member is not listening. No-one has questioned the ability to finance everything. It is just a fact that if you have a good credit rating you can borrow money whenever you like. It is not the ability to pay which the government is trying to pin on Somerville; it is the culture of extracting excessive dividends by setting the priorities of the organisation to make profits to fund the government's deficit. It is about the culture that the government engendered, not the credit rating of the company. Time and time again the GOCs have advised that 75 per cent is the maximum industry norm. Most Queenslanders out in the street know that you cannot rip the whole profit out of a company. Sound companies reinvest their profit in their business. It is an insult to the intelligence of Queenslanders to oversimplify the situation by saying, 'If it is profit, it is after the maintenance and everything else has been done.' Very basic accounting which seems to have escaped a lot of ministers on the other side is that profit is determined after depreciation. It is not determined after capital investment. What is lacking in these companies is capital investment, and capital investment comes from retaining profits. That is standard business. If any of those opposite had a share portfolio, they would not want companies which had 100 per cent of their profits ripped out as dividends with nothing left to invest in the capital of their business. Government members go on further. Those figures are fudged anyway, because an asset revaluation is done in order to rip even more out and reduce further the capital investment in the electricity network. Even the Auditor-General refers to the drawing out of profits by revaluing assets as unusual in terms of accepted accounting practice. That is accountancy speak for, 'You fudged the books. You manipulated the figures to show a profit that wasn't there so that you could rip it out to fund your deficit.' It is all about money. When it comes to supplying electricity to Queenslanders, the only thing the Beattie Labor government has cared about is how much it can rip out of it. Somerville is absolutely damning. Every one of the 215 pages is absolutely damning, and members cannot get away with trying to make it look like he has somehow excused the government. A dozen or so lines out of 215 pages do not excuse gross incompetence by a government that is ultimately responsible for the electricity supply in Queensland. Let us look at a few of the things Somerville says. Let us look at the state of the distribution network, because that is all the government would allow Somerville to look at. The electricity distribution network can be classified under two systems. One Somerville calls N and the other he calls N1. N is a basic system with no spare capacity in which, when anything goes wrong, the power fails to business, homes, traffic lights and everything else that uses power. Somerville says that the industry norm in electricity is that N is an unacceptable risk of failure of electricity supply. The accepted Australian industry practice according to Somerville is N1. An honourable member: N minus 1. Dr FLEGG: I refer the member to pages 93 and 94. It seems some ministers have a bit of trouble finding some of the comments in Somerville. The accepted Australian industry practice for bulk supply substations is N1. In Energex Somerville found that 69 per cent of the bulk supply substations do not meet the N1 accepted Australian standard, nor do 39 per cent of Ergon substations. Seven per cent of Energex's zone supply substations do not even meet the N standard. They do not even meet the basic standard of delivering power under normal circumstances when nothing is wrong. Seventy-nine per cent of Energex's zone supply substations do not meet the N1 standard. There have been no standards imposed. Eight per cent of the transformers are working beyond their use-by date. 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1793

Let us look at some further comments of Somerville on the distribution network. It states that the electricity distribution network has inadequate capacity and that the distribution network has had inadequate investment, especially in equipment for reliability. Transformers are regularly operating beyond their capacity. This system is not adequate now, let alone for the growth that we all know is occurring. Let us go on and look at maintenance. Somerville says that there is inadequate spending on maintenance. Energex abandoned its cross-arm inspections. There has been five years of increasing overhead failures and five years of increasing cross-arm failures, and the government does not even realise that the maintenance is inadequate. Somerville found that Ergon has a high level of preventative outages. Somerville found that the processes in Ergon and Energex are reactive. That would sound a bit familiar to members of this House. The government waits until there is a crisis before it wants to fix anything. Somerville found that the processes in the system were reactive and not strategic. He went further to say that not only were they reactive and not strategic; they were focused on short-term constraints. A short-term constraint is pumping more money out to balance your budget. Somerville said that at Energex reliability of supply was given half the weighting of financial outcomes when prioritising capital projects. The government would have us believe that the dividends have nothing to do with it. It should listen to what Somerville says. I will repeat it: Somerville says that at Energex reliability was given half the weighting of financial outcomes when prioritising capital projects. Page 169 of the Somerville report states Ergon has been left with so little resources that it cannot meet its projected capital program. The government is telling us about how these companies are awash with money after the special dividends. Government members should read the report, which they clearly have not. Page 169 states that Ergon has been left with so little resources that it cannot meet its proposed capital expenditure budget. Speaking of not having read the report, the Minister for Energy is not interested enough to be here for the debate. Nor is the Premier, who brought on the debate. A government member: Nor is the opposition leader. Dr FLEGG: We did not call the debate. Page 118 of Somerville— A government member interjected. Dr FLEGG: The Speaker does not recognise people when they are not in their seat. It is good to see the Treasurer in the chamber taking some interest, anyway. If members look at page 118—I refer the Energy Minister to it—they will see that Somerville found that the increase in expenditure Minister Lucas told us had been spent on maintenance when he tried to justify the failures in January was in fact spent on the CEO's office and on public relations. Members should look at page 118. They will find half a page on the subject. On Friday night 250,000 households experienced power loss in Queensland. That represents about three-quarters of a million people. We heard the same as we heard back in January: 'It is not our fault. The electricity generation failed in New South Wales.' There were more excuses. Seven hundred and fifty thousand Queenslanders were without power for hours. A reporter from the Sydney Telegraph phoned me and asked, 'Can you explain to me why when there is a generation failure in New South Wales streetlights are affected in New South Wales and 250,000 houses are blacked out for hours in Queensland?' This morning the Premier tabled the NEMMCO report. He managed to quote from it, but once again he selectively quoted from it. The problem with 250,000 houses blacked out in Queensland is not a generation failure in the Hunter Valley; it is a distribution failure in Queensland. Let us look at page 5 of the NEMMCO report. It states that the Queensland priority load-shedding schedule includes some domestic customers amongst the first loads to be shed. That decision is made locally. It is made very clear at paragraph 2.3 that that decision was made by the Queensland electricity distribution system. It goes on to state at page 7 that a number of operational issues arose in the Queensland region that require further attention. It is not news to anyone in Queensland that the operation of the distribution system here requires further investigation. Once again we are having it put over us that there is nothing wrong in Queensland, that this is somebody else's fault. There were restrictive terms of reference for Somerville. He looked only at the distribution. If he had looked at the reasons behind the problems at peak load—not all of these blackouts occur when there is a storm—he would have found that Energex, when it took over Allgas, managed to bury gas so that it is connected to virtually no new homes in Queensland and that Energex's and Ergon's tariff system is more than a decade behind those of southern states and New Zealand. If he had been able to look at retailing, he would have looked at the seven floors of salesmen in the Energex building alone that have, in effect, replaced maintenance workers. This morning, the Minister for Energy could not even answer a question about whose dividend policy he was following— the Treasurer's or the Premier's. He would like us to believe that he has the fix and that everything is all 1794 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004 right now. 'Do not talk about energy anymore; we can fix it.' The minister does not even know what the dividend policy is and if he does not know what the dividend policy is, how can these companies determine their investment priorities. Time expired. Mr MESSENGER (Burnett—NPA) (4.40 p.m.): I support the Nationals' amended motion and I reject the Labor government's flawed, self-serving and—quite frankly—offensive original motion. When it comes to the Labor Party, the lights are turned off and there is nobody at home. I welcome the opportunity to debate this vital issue. These blackouts have shown that the Premier and the Treasurer have been caught with their grubby little mitts in the power company till. They are only just discovering the meaning of the words preventative maintenance. In the power industry you cannot keep take, take, taking—profits, that is—without investing in proper preventative maintenance. About a week ago I had a conversation with the father of a young lad who works for Energex as a linesman. He claimed that power workers' lives are being placed at risk because of the political pressure on the power companies to hastily complete repairs that should have been carried out years ago. That political pressure comes from a desperate and arrogant Premier and Labor Party who are drunk on their own power. Workers are being forced to cut corners and to breach health and safety standards so that the power bosses can appease Mr Beattie's new-found will to fix the energy crisis. This gentleman said that it is not a matter of if, but when a worker's life will be lost. He holds Mr Beattie personally responsible for the safety of his son. I and my National Party colleagues also hold the Premier personally responsible. I asked this gentleman, this father, if he was prepared to go public with his concerns, but he was not. Unfortunately, this gentleman is not prepared to go public because he fears that his son will be vilified and bullied by a desperate Premier and a Labor Party who want to cover up for years of neglect. I want the Premier to give an undertaking that no power workers will be pressured into carrying out repairs that breach the power industry's health and safety standards. I listened with amusement and amazement to a desperate, arrogant Premier as he waved around all these so-called plans for a better electricity system—a clear way forward. The way forward for this arrogant and desperate Premier, is about as clear as mud and is lit by candles. No amount of pathetic excuses, lame media stunts, posing for the cameras, wearing a hard hat, and looking like a reject from the Village People will stop Queenslanders correctly laying the blame for these unnecessary and appalling blackouts squarely at the Premier's feet. The people of the Burnett are sick and tired of power blackouts caused by Premier Beattie's greed, arrogance and inaction. What about power blackouts in Buxton? Buxton, in the southern part of my electorate, does not need an act of God for the power to brown or black out; it needs only a high wind. Nothing fancy. No furry animals, no drop bears, no earthquakes, no trees throwing themselves over power lines—just a simple, plain old, high wind. In the north of the Burnett electorate, the coastal townships of Agnes Water and 1770 on the Discovery Coast are experiencing massive population growth of about 30 per cent. The normal population rests at around 2,500 to 3,000 souls and swells close to around 10,000 people during the peak Christmas holiday period. For the last three years, every time residents and visitors see a dark cloud over Miriam Vale, to the west and inland, they reach for the candles or the torches because bitter and painful experience has shown that they will more than likely lose their power. The growth of the Miriam Vale Shire and the 1770 and Agnes Water townships is being placed in jeopardy because of the Labor government's inability to provide a basic, essential service. This year, even the Easter bunny was left in the dark on the Discovery Coast. Residents in my electorate complained to me that a power blackout lasted for four hours and ruined Easter for the Agnes Water and 1770 townships and for visitors to the Discovery Coast. If my memory serves me correctly, it was lost for two hours on the Saturday night and two hours on the Sunday night. Tourists left in droves, appalled that basic standards of essential service delivery were not being met. Today I called on the Minister for Natural Resources, Mines and Energy, Mr Stephen Robertson, to fast-track plans to build an electricity substation at Agnes Water. The people and the businesses of the Discovery Coast deserve power now, not promises. All we have heard from the opposite side of this chamber for the last few hours is promises, promises, promises. 'We are gonna do this.' We should rename them 'the gonna's' because nothing happens. Ergon Energy has promised a substation for Agnes Water in two years' time. I want the minister to use some of the $1.3 billion profit that Ergon has given up to this Labor government over the last five years and urgently install a generator. We need a generator for back-up power during the peak Christmas period. We do not want blackouts. Just after Easter this year, Ergon Energy promised to construct a $15.5 million substation at Agnes Water in two years' time. That is great, but I do not trust the Labor Party and Mr Beattie to carry through with his promise. I hope it is not just a hollow piece of rhetoric designed to shut people up, which is how I described it when it first came out. We want power generators and we want them now. 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1795

Ergon Energy should be prepared to pay for any loss or damage caused by any future blackouts. Premier Beattie's blackouts have cost small business owners in my electorate tens of thousands of dollars. Funds should not be invested in fancy advertising and flash promotional campaigns for these government owned corporations, these GOCs, that seem to firewall the government from all the bad news. Of course, the minister will always be around to accept the good news. We want this money redirected to the businesses and to the people who have been smacked for six by Premier Beattie's power blackouts. Make no mistake, everyone in Queensland knows that the blame for these power blackouts lies directly at the feet of the Premier—the Premier with the million watt smile. That smile is dimming a little. Every time the power goes out this summer and small businesses lose their frozen goods, we can all say, through gritted teeth, 'Thank you very much, Mr Beattie, for the blackout.' Every time the lights go out and we reach for the candles and torches, all Queenslanders will be saying, 'Thank you very much, Mr Beattie'. Every time the power is lost and our families are forced to swelter in heatwave conditions because no airconditioners are running, we can all say, 'Thank you very much, Mr Beattie'. These power blackouts have happened because of diabolically poor planning on the government's behalf. This power problem has been with us for years. It is time for the government to take responsibility—right now. Those are a couple of words very foreign to members opposite. Take responsibility! Enough excuses. We do not want promises, we want power. Mr ROWELL (Hinchinbrook—NPA) (4.49 p.m.): In rising to speak in this debate I endorse the amendments moved by the Leader of the Opposition. Power is so critical to the state. Basically, if we do not have a reasonable surplus of power we will not attract business and industry. The cost of power is the other important issue that I want to raise. The major companies that we are trying to attract to Queensland, whether into north Queensland or the bottom of the state, will look for the most competitive place from which to operate. If they are a major user of power this issue will be quite critical. I will go back to the times of the Joh government—and I do not want to revisit that era particularly—to highlight that during that period of government a number of power stations were built. His government recognised the chicken and egg situation—that is, there had to be surplus power if we were going to attract industry. When the Goss government came to power the capacity was something like 28 per cent in excess of the needs of the time. It is very critical to understand that we can only sink to about 18 to 20 per cent because if a generator goes out or maintenance is not carried out on a set of generators we need reserves up our sleeve. We do not want to see what is happening at present with blackouts due to faults in the generating system. The distribution system really has to be maintained. I know quite a few of the blackouts are due to lack of maintenance of the system. During the mid-1990s it was absolutely essential for the government of the time to do something about cranking up some additional capacity. They cranked up Callide A and Collinsville. They were pretty spent stations at the time. It was critical that something was done about increasing the generating capacity within Queensland. Those two stations were brought back into the system. They are still operating fairly successfully at this time. The Goss government brought in the Government Owned Corporations Act, the GOC Act. Previously these businesses were run by the government and the ministers were responsible for the decisions that were made. If things went wrong they did not have somebody to fall back on. The responsibility was on the minister of the day. That is something that we are not seeing so much nowadays. We are seeing failures in the system so what we basically say is that there are government owned corporations running the operations so we will blame them for some of the problems and issues that are so detrimental to the future direction of this state. At present we are seeing new generators being developed. I believe all that is being done by private enterprises in Millmerran and Kogan Creek. They are using state-of-the-art generators. A problem we are having is that a lot of the older generators in this state are not as efficient as the modern ones. They use a lot of water. There are other problems associated with them. They do not have the capacity to extract carbon to the degree that the newer systems do. We will have to deal with this in time. The older generating systems are getting tired and warn out and they are not as efficient. We are losing capacity and we have to replace them. We have responsibilities for greenhouse gas emissions. We have to address that issue. It was interesting to note after the 1998 election, when the current Premier came into power, that he disbanded the six regional boards. Those boards actually had some ownership of the areas and the responsibility for providing power to all regions around Queensland. To my mind they worked quite well. We always had overlapping issues, but I believe they could have been addressed. There was a great deal of interest from the people on those boards to ensure the requirements and needs of the areas that they serviced were looked after adequately. What then happened? We had Energex take over south-east Queensland and Ergon virtually looking after the rest. It amazes me the amount of advertising of these two major corporations. They 1796 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004 almost have a monopoly in their own right. I know that there is the issue of contestability of power coming in from other parts of Australia and with the interconnector that is possible. Most people involved in the contestability market are aware that that is there. I do not think there is any great need to advertise to the degree that we see Ergon and Energex doing. We see great banners of advertising. Ergon and Energex are spending money on advertising that probably could be put into the maintenance of the system. They are at the lower end of the distribution system. They are the ones that service the homes and the businesses. A lack of maintenance is one of the problems that we have had over the last few years in particular. If we did away with this advertising, I am absolutely certain that a better situation would prevail. What they have done is provide a milch cow for the government under the auspices of funds for schools, roads, hospitals and so on. We are seeing foot bridges, millennium art centres and so on being built at the southern end of the state. It makes me wonder whether this money is being diverted into the things that the government professes it is being diverted into. If all the maintenance requirements and the demands of electricity GOCs were met there would not be a problem. There would not be the outages that we are seeing today. Power coming from other states is another issue. There are major failures within the distribution system itself. I believe that if there were more money diverted to the actual maintenance process we would not see anywhere near the number of outages we are seeing now. I know that money is being made available. Something like 95 per cent is being taken out for the government's requirements and use. That dividend is much higher than that I recall being taken out during the Borbidge government. While we can say that money is being set aside for maintenance there is a real squeeze on the electricity GOCs to say, 'Okay, we can do certain things. We will probably take some short cuts. There are things that we should be doing but we will leave them until a little later because the government is putting some pretty big demands on us.' The Auditor-General raised the issue of borrowings to pay the dividends. I refer to the Auditor- General's Report No. 7, 2002-03. I will read some sections of that because I think they are particularly relevant. I know others have mentioned it, but I have gone to the trouble of getting hold of it because it is very relevant. The report stated— During 2001-02, ENERGEX Limited paid a final dividend of $94.367m (2002-03: $96.319m proposed) to Treasury Department through its shareholding ministers. These dividends were based on 95 per cent of the 2000-01 and 2001-02 net profit for ordinary activities after income tax equivalent for the ENERGEX Group of companies which includes ENERGEX Limited, ENERGEX Retail Pty Ltd and Allgas Energy Ltd. In addition to these dividend payments, at a meeting on 30 July 2001, the ENERGEX Board resolved to pay a special dividend of $150m to the Shareholding Ministers in 2001-02. The special dividend was sourced from the Asset Revaluation Reserve, an unrealised capital gain that arose from the revaluation of assets, and was funded from additional borrowings by ENERGEX. Further comment on the payment of dividends for the Asset Revaluation Reserve follows later within this Report. I turn now to the next section of the report, because it deals with the payment of dividends for asset revaluation reserves. It states— The sourcing of special dividend payments from the Asset Revaluation Reserve is an unusual transaction in terms of generally accepted accounting principles, and in fact, the external accounting advice provided to ENERGEX by a private accounting firm stated that— This is a private accounting firm. This is not some government group. This is a group that is highly regarded in terms of its ability to look at business and the apportioning of dividends. I suppose Alan Bond would be very pleased with the way this was done, because this is the typical thing that he used to do. He would talk the asset up and bring it up to a point that was unrealistic. He would then go to a bank and say, 'This asset is worth X number of dollars,' when it was probably really worth half that. He would then say, 'I want to borrow against that.' This is basically what this is about— The payment of dividends from an asset revaluation reserve is an uncommon transaction. We have been unable to identify any Australian company which has made the payment of a dividend from an Asset Revaluation Reserve. The government was putting the screws on the GOC and basically saying, 'Listen, you guys. There's a way that you can go about improving the amount of money that we can get access to by boosting the value of the asset. Then you can go out there and borrow against us and pay us a dividend.' What a great way to run a business! I do not think that any business in this state would survive under that situation. Previous speakers in this debate have spoken about the Borbidge government. Yes, it did take money from the electricity authority, but it did not force the revaluation of the asset for that to occur. That is a very important issue. If there were reserves that could be used, they were used. During our two years in government there were umpteen number of things that needed to be fixed such as schools after the six years of the then Goss government being in power. Yes, there were problems with the generators at that time and there was a period where very little maintenance was done on them. Of course, as a result they failed. That is a typical example of what I am talking about. If we do not watch our assets and refurbish them and do things that are absolutely necessary for their longevity, then we will run into trouble. 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1797

We must acknowledge the response of those who are involved in the electricity industry in keeping the lights on. I know many people in the industry at all levels who work particularly hard to ensure that this industry survives, to ensure that we have electricity on a constant basis. They do a marvellous job. We see them out in storms and out in the rain ensuring that the electricity supply is put back on if there is a failure. I am not just talking about maintenance failures, because we are very much aware, as we have heard in this debate, that sometimes there are failures because of storms and so on. Of course, we need people who are prepared to go out at odd times of the day and night to keep the lights on, and they do an excellent job. I rang the electricity company the other night during the outage because people from the southern end of the electorate were very concerned as to why the outage had occurred. They had had one previously. They rang me and I said, 'I'll get through on the call centre line.' Well, what a damned experience that was! You push this button and you wait for 10 seconds and then suddenly the line drops out. It took me about 20 minutes to make contact with somebody. I did not want to use any privileged position or anything like that and I did not want to worry the guys who I normally deal with. I said, 'I'll do what everybody else in the state has to do if they have an outage,' and it was an absolute joke. It took a good 20 minutes for me to make contact with somebody. They said, 'We've got one hell of a problem. All of Townsville's out and we don't know when it's going to come back on.' Therefore, I had to ring the chap down at Black River and say, 'Sorry, I can't do much at this present time but I can understand the difficult position you're in. I can only hope that the power does come back on.' It did come on within about 20 minutes after that, which was great. I am very much aware of the difficulties. I have an operation at home and I want power constantly. To ensure that, I have put an 80 kVa generator in which would run probably a dozen houses. It was necessary to do that to ensure that my business operation continues. At the time I did it, the power outages were not near as bad as what has been forecast and what has happened in recent times, but I am very pleased that I did it. It cost some money, but at the end of the day people want security. They want to be sure that the power stays on if they are going to set up a business where power supply is critical. They really should not have to go to those lengths to ensure that there is some continuity in terms of power supplies at critical times. Unfortunately, I had no option but to spend a substantial amount of money to do that. It is pretty disappointing if the message I have to give to people throughout north Queensland is, ‘That's the best thing you can do, because the warnings are out there. Things might go belly up. If you want to make sure that you've got power, buy a generator.' The connection fees for the system are quite expensive because you have to ensure that when your generator comes on you are not feeding it into the main lines and so on. So it is an expensive process. There is also a problem developing in far-north Queensland with a group called Power to the People. That group of people is absolutely adamant that they do not want the 275,000 volt lines going through farmland and so on. They have protested very strongly about this issue. They have met with the Premier and ministers over a long period of time. They believe that there is adequate access through the World Heritage area, which the powerline goes through now. The line is cleared. We even proposed at the last election and the election before that we would put an over-canopy line into it. It does not have to be done all the way through, because many power towers go from hilltop to hilltop and therefore there only has to be a small section cleared to get them out through the ravines. As a result, there is no need to have an over-canopy line or those tall towers all the way through. It would have allowed revegetation underneath. It would have allowed the birds and the bees to fly across the open space that is there now and has been there for the last 50 years. But all of a sudden we are getting very pedantic about what we do in World Heritage areas. Many people in the region, particularly through El Arish and the Tully Valley and at the end of the airstrip at Tully, are very concerned about the prospects of this big high-powered powerline going through and over their properties and the dislocation in terms of aerial spraying and working harvesters around the damned things. So it is a major issue up there, and I am sure they are not going to let go of it too easily. I do not blame them, and I am right there with them, because there are some good options there that can be exercised but there seems to be a lack of will in terms of going through areas where very few people live and connecting it up with existing lines. I want to speak very quickly about north Queensland and the loss of power through long conductors. We experience that in my area. If we bring all the power up from the southern generators, we are probably going to lose 10 per cent or even 15 per cent or 12 per cent—whatever it is—by the time it gets to Cairns. Yes, there is a generator going in at Yabulu. It is going to run on coal bed methane gas. I do not know what the actual cost of that is, but it is one of those issues that is very important. We need more of it. Time expired. Miss SIMPSON (Maroochydore—NPA) (5.09 p.m.): I thought that we were in the Queensland parliament, but after listening to Premier Beattie and the Deputy Premier plus two former Labor electricity ministers, it seems that we are in never-never land where the government is never, never responsible, where there is never, never a crisis—particularly in the electricity industry, according to Tony McGrady—and where people should never, never ask what went wrong. Peter Beattie may think 1798 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004 that he is the Peter Pan of politics and that he does not have to grow up and take responsibility, but the great storyteller is losing his touch and is not even remotely believable. I note that Premier Beattie is not in the parliament at this moment. It is an insult for him to move this motion about the electricity industry in which he asks the parliament to pat him on the back for promising to fix what he broke. How arrogant can he get! Premier Beattie and his banter of useless Labor ministers say, 'Don't ask how the electricity crisis occurred. It just happened.' Hand on heart they say that what happened is not important to them, as long as they fix the problem. I ask them: how do they fix something in the long run if they do not know why it went wrong? How do they stop it happening again? When a train runs off the tracks we ask: what went wrong? Why did it go wrong? We do not just fix the train and ignore the fundamental flaws that caused the train wreck. No, not in Queensland under a Labor government. But it gets worse. I listened to the contribution of Tony McGrady, a former Minister for Energy. Apparently, he still does not think that there is an electricity crisis. He said in this parliament that it is not a crisis; it is a problem. Is it any wonder that the brains trust of the Beattie government—this Beattie government cabinet—has allowed the electricity infrastructure to run down to this extent? After six and a half years of government, they wreck the electricity distribution network and then say, 'Don't ask us how it happened. It just did.' Then they say, 'We're not after scapegoats.' That is because they are implicated. They refuse to make heads roll for the electricity crisis, because some of those heads just might speak from the political grave. For ages when there were power blackouts and load shedding, the ministers blamed acts of God, storms or cars hitting power poles. Now we know that when they stood up in this place and publicly made those claims, they were not telling the truth. This report shows that those claims were not honest, that in the majority of instances the outages were, in fact, due to a lack of maintenance and upgrading of the system. This is a cover-up and when anybody says, 'Don't ask us how it happened,' we know that there is more to be told. That is why this issue will not go away. The government will not fix the problems in the long term until the systemic flaws are addressed. But the people who are paying the price for this government's ineptitude are all of those people who, through their homes or through their businesses, are experiencing blackouts. Every time the power goes out, they should remember that the Beattie government pulled the plug due to its incompetence. Every time the power has gone out on the Sunshine Coast—and we have raised concerns about some areas where the power goes off continually and there seems to be no apparent reason for that as there have been no storms—the ministers have always come back and said, 'It was because of this or that,' but it was never to do with maintenance. We now know that they were not telling the truth. There have been areas where time and time again certain businesses have suffered power outages. Who is on the list for the power shedding when power shedding takes place is a very interesting question. The government says that hospitals and certain critical areas will be protected. Sure, we understand that, and that is right. But certain localities constantly bear the brunt of a lot of these outages. So there is more to be told as to the way in which the government manages the mess. Some people carry more of that burden upon their businesses and their lifestyles. The other day I was talking to one Sunshine Coast businessperson who told me that, due to the constant outages, they had ended up buying an electricity generator. That person could not afford to have so many staff not able to do their jobs because of a failure in the system. The Premier says that he is accountable. He talks about being accountable, but he does not demonstrate it terribly well. Previously, I heard one of the former ministers blaming the opposition for not revealing the extent of the electricity problem before the election. He obviously has not been reading Hansard or reading the press releases that we have released publicly. For some time we have been warning about the level of the take of government dividends—special dividends over and above the normal dividends—out of the electricity industry. Furthermore, in terms of getting information out of government owned corporations, I remind that minister and any members of the public to look at this government's track record when it comes to freedom of information. They would find that, obviously, in terms of government owned corporations, the provisions of FOI exempt certain matters because they are commercial-in-confidence. But we relied upon the shareholding minister to honestly tell the parliament when he or she was asked about the state of the electricity grid and they lied. They did not tell the truth in that fundamental place where it is their responsibility to tell the truth as the responsible minister. I turn to areas where there were not exemptions or fewer exemptions under freedom of information and we could ask for information from departments. In those cases, when the state opposition—the National Party—went after documentation from the department as to who knew what and where, out of 256 documents 111 were blanked out and 65 were partially blanked out. Yes, Mr Beattie is accountable. When we went after the documentation from his government about the electricity issue to find out what went wrong and who knew it—the chain of responsibility that it does not want to own up to—we received blank pages. But still Mr Beattie says, 'Don't ask us what went wrong.' 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1799

I turn to some of those telltale signs. As I said before, the government does not want to own up as to who is responsible, it does not want to own up to the systemic failures and why the system became so bad because of the number of Labor mates involved and the fact that the government has taken $2 billion worth of dividends out of the government owned power corporations. The government stacked the board with Labor cronies and now, just like Sergeant Schultz, it knows nothing. The government may think that it is funny, but those businesses on the Sunshine Coast and people throughout all of Queensland who will be left in the dark during another blackout owing to this Beattie government's incompetence will not be laughing. They will be saying, 'Blame Beattie,' because the Beattie government is responsible for ensuring that the current infrastructure is looked after and that future infrastructure needs are met. Infrastructure is a government responsibility, and it is mainly a state government responsibility. Electricity is completely a state government responsibility. Electricity is fundamentally important to people's daily lifestyles or in terms of running their businesses. People cannot live without a well- maintained, secure, competent, consistent electrical industry. It is incredible that, after six years of this government, it does not want to ask how the system went wrong. It is still trying to deflect blame. Yet when we look at the way in which the government has structured its infrastructure spending in this state, there is a telling story. In the last coalition budget, which was delivered six years ago, 28 per cent was spent on state infrastructure. After six years of Labor, only 20 per cent of its budget is spent on state infrastructure. We have seen that the infrastructure in a number of industries and in a number of critical areas has been run down and continues to drop. We have seen that occur in terms of the provision of water infrastructure, transport infrastructure, and the road networks. We also see it in terms of the electricity industry. It is time that this government did not just say that it is accountable. It has to act accountably and take some real responsibility, because it will not fix the problem by saying, 'Don't ask,' because we know what occurred. We know you cannot rip $2 billion worth of special dividends of up to 95 per cent out of this electricity industry. You cannot make entities take out loans against borrowings on their assets to pay off special dividends in a way that has never been experienced with government owned corporations before and then say that it is not the government's responsibility when there has been a failure to invest in that basic infrastructure. I support the National Party's amendment, and I condemn the government for wanting to congratulate itself for creating a crisis. Shame on all of these Labor Party members who are willing to be sycophantic to this government and fail to face up to their responsibility for what has occurred under the indecent majority that this government has—this government that still does not want to be held to account. Ms LEE LONG (Tablelands—ONP) (5.20 p.m.): We have an energy distribution system that the vaunted independent assessor says cannot cope. Somehow it has reached that stage even though, according to the Premier and the Treasurer, it has had all the money it needs. It seems that no-one on any of the boards is responsible for the entire distribution network falling so far behind its performance goals. And guess what? Not one minister in the past decade is responsible either! We are told that the greedy money grab raids that hooked 95 per cent of dividends out of those corporations and put it into government coffers made absolutely no difference because they came out of the net financial position. If that is true, if those raids made no difference, then one can only wonder why the Treasurer received letters from Energex arguing that stripping away this money would impact on repairs, maintenance and network growth. There are only two options: either the government-appointed boards were incompetent or the government itself was incompetent. If these cash grabs were not to blame and Ergon and Energex were, by implication, fully and properly funded, how did our power supply systems reach such a critical stage? Of course the answer is that the money grabs did have an impact. Of course this government jumped on what it saw as a cash cow and milked it dry. And what a fat cash cow it has turned out to be! In my electorate consumers can face bills of $20,000 and $30,000 just to get power put on, or at least a line put in to their properties. Yet their chances of getting reliable power is becoming increasingly risky. It is opportunistic in the extreme for the members opposite to go on as they are doing today about the independent report giving them a clean bill of health. Each and every time the power goes out, Queenslanders know the truth. As they sit in the dark facing a cold meal, missing out on the footy broadcast, the Olympics or their favourite shows, they know exactly who is running the state, they know exactly who has been raiding the power companies to prop up their budget figures, and they know exactly who has been in charge of appointing the relevant boards. They know exactly who is twisting and squirming under community anger that grows every time there is another blackout. According to members opposite, taking money out of the energy distributors to help the budget figures along was not the cause of the existing problems, but they have plenty to say about whose fault it is not. They have plenty to say about what did not cause it. Well, let them say who is responsible and 1800 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004 let them say exactly what the causes are, because among other things it is anathema to our Westminster system of democracy for no-one to be responsible. This is not a suddenly emerging crisis. For example, let us look at storm preparedness activities. Are we to believe that storms are a recent discovery? Are we to believe that being prepared is a new management concept recently discovered lurking in a desk in George Street? We are hearing primary school stuff here: ‘I didn't do it. Mr Nobody did—him and his mate, Terry Not-Me.' How do Mr Nobody and Terry Not-Me say they will fix it after being caught with their hands deep in the biscuit barrel? They reckon they will fix it by putting the biscuits back. Well done, Mr Nobody! What a clever plan for Terry Not-Me! The relevant ministers are doing the best they can to ride this out. Of course, to me that seems as if they will find some nice soft sand and stick their heads deep into it, which will leave their nether regions somewhat exposed. But perhaps they suppose that that is better than facing up to their responsibilities. On a wider issue, the concentration of generating capacity in the south is another looming issue. The development of the Tully/Millstream hydro-electric scheme has the potential to give this state another 500 megawatts of power without any pollution. It needs to be revisited. I am also left wondering just what state our other 19 government owned corporations are in. We know that port authorities have also been raided for cash. Indeed, they have even been asked to take out loans to provide extra pennies for consolidated revenue. This is how Labor defines fiscal responsibility. I think it is a definition that would have made Al Capone a happy man, and I support the amendment to the motion moved by the opposition. Mr MALONE (Mirani—NPA) (5.25 p.m.): It is a pleasure to rise in this very dubious debate. In the time that I have been in this parliament I have seen some pretty unusual things happen. Today takes the cake. We had the Premier making a hell of a blue about an issue that has been in the public arena for some time, and then he had the audacity to move a motion calling on his backbenchers to support a proposal that he should be congratulated for the way in which he has handled the issue. It really depreciates the parliament that we have to discuss this motion tonight while only one minister is in the chamber listening to the debate. I am sure that not much else will be contributed to the debate that has not already been said. Unfortunately, that is not the way in which this place operates. Of course, the unfortunate part about it is that there is a problem with our electricity system and nobody can deny that. No doubt the government will do whatever it can to fix that. Of that there is no doubt because of the public pressure that has been brought to bear. It is unfortunate that it has taken public pressure to make this happen. It is unfortunate that the Premier has created a situation whereby the parliament is spending hours on this debate. He is not even in the House, nor are his senior ministers, to oversee the debate and to get some sense out of the whole issue. The reality is that as we move into the future and things are fixed, there is a possibility that everybody will forget about it. That is really what this government is all about. The fact is that within the Queensland community the government has the responsibility for making this state work properly. As others have said, other issues have been raised such as child care, emergency services and hospitals, and the buck stops with the government on all of them. There is no doubt about that. If a supposition or proposal is made that the opposition did not raise a subject so therefore it is not important or, more importantly, if the opposition does seek information through freedom of information and this very accountable Premier hands back blank pages, that makes a mockery of this place. Of course, the fact is that after numerous hours of discussion and endless debate, we will have a division and the government will congratulate the Premier on his very forthright stand on how he is going to fix this issue in energy generation. I was absolutely disgusted the other day when the Premier said that it all goes back to when Joh Bjelke-Petersen sacked the SEQEB workers. I know that he has to grasp at straws sometimes, but surely going back to that period is pulling the wool over a number of people's eyes. The fact is that we hear a lot of noise from the other side. The unfortunate part about it is that none of it is really true. Unfortunately, when one looks for information under freedom of information, they will not give it out. They send out blank pages. How insulting is it for a supposedly open and accountable government to actually send out pages that are blank? I just cannot believe that. Anyway, that is the way it goes. As I have said before in the House, my electorate covers a very significant part of Queensland, from south of Shoalwater Bay to north of Mackay and out to Moranbah, Coppabella, Glendon and those places where huge amounts of power are used in the mining industry. We have very considerable problems in terms of delivery of power. We have builders in Mackay and surrounds who carry a generator with them to build a house. Quite often houses stand for months on end waiting for power to be connected to the houses. We have people who have paid to have a house built and who cannot move in simply because power has not been connected. We have subdivisions held up simply because Ergon cannot supply power. 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1801

We have a growing industry in the Mackay district in terms of secondary industry, in supplying services to the mines. Small businesses are starting up and requiring upgrades to the sheds or buildings they are occupying to enable them to put machinery in that enables them to service the equipment. Numerous times I have had calls to my office from people who have had to wait for up to six to eight months to have power upgraded so they can install the machinery. Just imagine what that is costing those companies and indeed the economy. When you talk to the people on the ground, the Ergon workers, they tell you that there are fewer of them, they are working harder, they are getting paid less and unfortunately they are not able to keep up with the existing demand. That issue has not just come about; it has been around for some time. The reality is that this government has not had its eye on the ball and suddenly the chickens have come home to roost. In response the Premier moves a stupid motion in this House for us to debate. I find it difficult to believe that we are in the current situation of debating this motion, as I have said before. It is impossible to comprehend that we have wasted so much time doing it. With those few words I commend the amendment that the National Party has moved to the motion and hope that we can get support from across the House to pass that amendment through the House. Mr CHRIS FOLEY (Maryborough—Ind) (5.31 p.m.): I rise to participate in the debate. Unfortunately, rule 101 of accounting states that if you rob Peter to pay Terry you end up with a mess. To me, the whole idea of government owned corporations is to create efficiencies so that not only can they eventually become self-funding but also they can generate profits that can be turned back in and flow through to better services to the taxpayers. That is what government owned corporations are all about. What government owned corporations do not exist to do is to generate profits for government coffers. At the end of the day, if all they do is rip money out of government owned corporations to prop up budgets they miss the whole point of what is happening. Personally I find it appalling for the government to pat itself on the back when most Queenslanders who have experienced the frustration of power outages would prefer a well-placed kick. Unlike some other members, however, I do support the government having an independent inquiry. I just hate the self-congratulation that comes with it. I remember as a small boy playing in the three stone seven Rugby League team at Wilston State School. I had a good day on the paddock, scored a number of tries and came home and told my dad. He said, 'Son, that was a great result but remember that self-praise is no recommendation,' and I would also recommend my father's wisdom to the people in this House. If we think the result in the power industry is a good thing, we should tell that to the people at Bauple who were without power for four days and in one case five days at a time. These people are in a very low socioeconomic situation. They are people who have tried to create efficiencies by buying well and in bulk at the supermarket and putting things in a deep freezer, only to have them spoil and the whole economics of it being brought down again. I remember one particular couple out at Bauple who had very severe health problems who really struggled in the heat with the power outages in this particular area as a result of storms. I remember one father desperate because he had a son who was an asthmatic who really needed to be on a nebuliser. I say again that I am supportive of an independent inquiry but very upset at the whole concept of self- congratulation at this particular time. I will be supporting the amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition for that reason. Mrs LIZ CUNNINGHAM (Gladstone—Ind) (5.34 p.m.): I also will be supporting the amendment as moved by the Leader of the Opposition in particular because of the concerns that have been expressed to me in my electorate in relation to the unreliability of power. In the electorate of Gladstone there are a lot of major industries and many of those have auxiliary backup power. However, a prolonged loss of electricity has very significant impacts on their viability. The major plants are required to keep liquor circulating throughout the system—whether that is benign liquor or the actual product being processed—to ensure that the entire plant does not go into a shutdown. If that occurs, it takes months and perhaps years for that process to be re-established because the agents set in all of the pipes. Reliability of supply is critical in my electorate to large business, but it is also critical to smaller business and private people's homes. Over the last 12 to 18 months there have been a number of incidents where electricity has been lost, particularly on the SWER lines. In all of the areas where the power has been considerably unreliable, people have lost private food stocks in freezers and small businesses have lost stock. The difficulty with that is that Ergon then requires the shop owner to prove that it was Ergon's fault, for want of a better way of expressing it. In the Boyne Valley there was a shopkeeper who lost a fan motor and therefore a freezer full of food. They had to keep bulk foods frozen because they were the only store in the Boyne Valley, for probably 80 kilometres, that was able to sell foodstuffs to the community. They lost that stock and are currently in the midst of trying to prove to Ergon that it was the power failure that caused the loss of product. 1802 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004

So there is a double whammy—unreliable electricity and, when that electricity fails, having to prove it was the electricity generator's fault. So for people in my electorate it has been particularly galling and frustrating. To support a motion as put forward by the Premier would, for most of them, be the ultimate insult. I welcome the independent inquiry. I believe that the Premier said there are 44 recommendations and the government is going to support the implementation of all of those recommendations. That is good. Some of those recommendations, however, point to long-term, even systemic, problems within the generating system. Some of these include a recommendation that Energex and Ergon Energy immediately boost their on-the-ground work force if they are to repair and maintain the electricity network. The Premier has recently welcomed, amidst some publicity, 37 new apprentices to the energy industry. Even with very good apprentices it is 18 months to two years before they have a base of information and knowledge and up to four years before they are qualified as electricians or in the area of technical expertise they have entered. So there will be some lead time before these particular apprentices are able to address the concerns that the community has. The report deals with a lot more staff than just electricians and the apprentices that have been taken on. I think everybody in this chamber would welcome increased apprentice levels. However, the fact that the numbers of staff have decreased over time—and this is on-the-ground staff—is not the fault of the community; it is directly the fault of both the shareholding ministers, although they do not have day-to-day involvement in the operation of the energy entities, and the entities themselves in allowing for their work force to over time be depleted so greatly. Some of the other recommendations included that the government require each business to prepare and submit an annual network management plan—similar to that currently required in New South Wales and by Powerlink under the code—which provides the basis for adequate capital and maintenance programs. I think it is stunning that that is not already happening. One of the basic management tools for a large enterprise is to be able to have a maintenance and capital program to ensure that it is not found wanting in one or more areas of operation. Yet from the recommendations it appears that such a fundamental tool has not been up to speed in these energy companies. One recommendation is that the government and Ergon Energy should agree performance targets for the long rural feeders, taking into account their unique nature. It is further recommended that Ergon Energy be required to develop a program to achieve this in a reasonable time frame. This requirement should be included in the regulatory framework. When those rural feeders go out they are usually out for a considerable period, which means that people over a large geographical area are affected. It is a natural consequence. It is very difficult to identify where the problem is when there is a large area through which the feeders run. Because of the nature of those feeders, it can be quite some time before the fault is identified. Then it has to be rectified and therefore the people affected are without power for a considerable period. I believe that Energex and Ergon were criticised for an excessive asset utilisation level. The independent group recommended that Energex should reduce its asset utilisation to a level consistent with good industry practice; that is, 60 to 65 per cent. It has been required to go above that because of a lack of capital to do upgrades, and it has been required to put in new sources in great measure because it has not had the money available to it. Ergon Energy is also required to bring its asset utilisation down to 50 to 55 per cent because of the nature of the area that Ergon services. Another recommendation is that Energex should establish a logical relationship between the inspection cycles for poles and the line hardware associated with each pole, including crossarms, to ensure that the line hardware is inspected at least as regularly as the poles. I can remember articles—it might have been in the Courier-Mail but also in the local media—that expressed concern about the integrity of poles servicing not only rural areas but also urban areas. The concern expressed was that quite a significant number of those poles were at risk of failure. The implications of that are significant not only in terms of outages but also in terms of community safety. The report recommends that Ergon Energy should develop and implement a strategy to reduce the incidence of protection system malfunctions which are contributing to reduced reliability and that Ergon Energy should reduce the three-year rolling average of in-service pole failures to a significantly lower level despite the fact that it is within statutory allowances at this time. It was stated that it should be an objective to eliminate in-service pole failures given the associated safety issues; and I have just referred to that. The report states that Energex should increase its planning resources in order to ensure that it has a full understanding of the state of the network for the purposes of capital expenditure. Both sides of politics have taken major capital from energy reserves. On the information that I have received, I believe that the Labor government has taken significantly more in terms of lump sum withdrawals, but I know that both sides—the conservatives and Labor—have made major withdrawals from the energy entities. However, the current government increased the payment of the 'level of profits' from, I believe, 75 per cent to 95 per cent, even though at the time that the directive was given or the request was made to the 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1803 energy companies the chairman of the board warned about the potential negative impacts. The information that was contained in the chairman's letter is coming to fruition. Then the government required the entities to borrow on their assets to give the proceeds of those borrowings to consolidated revenue and then required the entities—and remember, they get their income from all Queenslanders; that is, homes, businesses and industry—to service the interest and redemption on those loans. There are a lot of reasons why people in Queensland should be annoyed, frustrated and angry at the situation that has arisen and that has been identified by the independent panel. In my local area we are regularly in contact with Ergon in relation to the delays in having domestic and commercial power supplies connected. People who are looking forward to getting into their new homes are held up and waiting for up to nine months. The reasons that we are given is that there is a lack of technical people to do the connections. People are being brought in from the western area of Blackall to try to do catch-ups with new construction. That affects small to medium sized businesses which are required to make payments on their borrowings to allow for the construction of their business, but they cannot generate any income because those businesses cannot operate because of a lack of power availability. It has been stated often that there is a lack of physical resources. Again the government and the entities themselves, in terms of senior management, must take responsibility for that in terms of allowing their staff levels to reduce to the point where they cannot service what is a critical and strategic piece of infrastructure. Others have stood in this place today and talked about the blackouts that have occurred in their electorate. My electorate had a short blackout again today in the urban areas. It was interesting to read in the Courier-Mail that there is a 'hit list' of areas that are put on a rotational basis and lose power when shedding is required. I am sure people in those areas that lose power do not see that it is wise planning to have this rotational hit list. They would rather see that the resources were there to ensure that the power was reliable. I have had instances where people have rung up and said that they have been without power for four or five hours. When you ring up the emergency line—particularly if it is at night or on the weekend—you will be told that the power is down because of a storm. I do not know about a lot of the members in this House, but we have been in drought for about nine months. We had good rain in February and since then we have had nothing, so it is particularly galling to ring up and find out that the outages at Boyne Valley, Mount Larcom or Calliope are because of a storm—and the place is a dust bowl! When there is genuine storm activity I think that the community will accept that the power is vulnerable, but it is very, very annoying to be told that it is because of a storm when the area has not had a drop of rain for months. There have not only been just blackouts; there have been brownouts and voltage losses in a lot of areas. There is a lot of anger in the community. There is a lot of frustration in my electorate. Whilst the Premier is looking for commendation, it will not come forward in terms of my support for his motion at the forthcoming division because the people in my community would more readily support the issues that are covered in the opposition's amendment. On the basis of my electorate's frustration and concern about the reliability of power for health, comfort and quality of life, I will be supporting the amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition. Mrs STUCKEY (Currumbin—Lib) (5.48 p.m.): This government is predictably expedient when it comes to deflecting blame and highlighting inefficient practices of previous non-Labor governments in Queensland. It finds cause to criticise the federal government on a daily basis, yet this same government ducks and weaves when faced with an energy crisis it has brought upon itself. Considering the fact that the Beattie government has held power in this state since 1998—which allowed plenty of time to implement smart power supply strategies—it is a bit rich of the Premier and his ministers to point the finger in an accusing manner at the activities of another government over six years ago. This government has had ample opportunity to provide Queenslanders with a reliable and affordable power supply, but it has failed on countless occasions. Therefore, I find it most unhelpful to hear statements from the Treasurer, when seconding the motion by the Premier, criticising the Borbidge government. Earlier today the Treasurer implored all members of parliament to work together to fix our energy problem. What a pity he set such a negative tone for this debate. The Minister for Natural Resources, in speaking to this motion, demonstrated his lack of understanding of the anger and frustration felt by taxpaying Queenslanders who deserve a reliable power supply. The former Minister for Natural Resources, the member for Mount Isa, used his speaking allotment to vent his spleen and to avoid any responsibility for the state of our energy supply. Mr McGRADY: I rise on a point of order. I do not recall ever being the Minister for Natural Resources. Mrs STUCKEY: I withdraw that statement. Thank you. An honourable member interjected. Mrs STUCKEY: Yes, it has. This afternoon, the member for Mount Isa stood in this House and said that the coalition had made no reference to any problems or concerns in relation to the power 1804 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004 supply prior to the last state election. I have at least four coalition media releases, three presented by Bob Quinn and one presented by Lawrence Springborg, made prior to the last state election. I can supply even more. Another former minister, the member for Lytton, attempted to rationalise the situation by stating that last summer saw the greatest demand to date on Queensland's power supply. What is so surprising about that? After all, our population is growing rapidly and planning for the extra demand would not seem an unreasonable expectation—rather, a commonsense one. The Beattie government has held power in our sunshine state for the past six years. It is high time it held its finger on the power switch to keep the lights on in Queensland. I know that some government members will say that here is yet another non-government member having a whinge; yet another member who does not understand how our electricity system works. Knowing exactly how the system works is not my responsibility and nor is it the taxpayers' responsibility—it is yours and yours alone! The electorate of Currumbin suffers frequent blackouts: day and night, winter and summer, storm or no storm; from Coolangatta to Palm Beach; in the Currumbin and Tallebudgera valleys and in suburban Elanora. As no doubt was the case for many honourable members, the power supply to my house was interrupted last Friday evening. It was the fourth power failure in my area in three weeks and it came without any storm or warning, such as the dipping of lights. I am fortunate that I am able-bodied, that I do not have young children to feed and that I have a good supply of candles and torches at the ready for when we are pitched into darkness. Lack of proper lighting presents many dangerous and frightening situations for the elderly, the young and the disabled—not to mention its disruption to lifestyle, such as keeping appointments and the pursuit of leisure activities. As we lead more sophisticated lives which are dependent upon technology and electrical devices, we expect a first world country such as Australia to have basic services such as electricity available 24 hours a day. We hear much talk about plans for dealing with the storm activity that is expected again this summer. Whilst the formulation of strategies to protect and strengthen our power supply throughout summer is welcome, more needs to be done to cater for our growing population and the demands that will be placed upon our basic services. Constantly referring to power capacities of years gone by and saying that Queensland is now better prepared simply does not stack up when one talks to a hostile resident late at night who wants to know what their member will do to get the power back on. Spare a thought for the residents of Adina Avenue, Bilinga. Earlier this year they were under the threat of losing their homes to the eastern bypass suggested by the Premier. They also lost their power for a period of 28 hours. Despite calls to the Energex Loss of Supply line, these distressed people were told that there was no problem in their street. They were without power for an inexcusably lengthy period of time. Recent newspaper articles have revealed an alarming lack of responsibility and lack of action by this government in regard to warnings it received via correspondence from the former Energex chairman, Colin Popple, since 1999. In one of several pieces of correspondence, Mr Popple warned that the government's demand for 95 per cent of all profit would 'almost certainly negatively impact on the company'. He raised the concern that the power network would be unable to cope with future electricity demands unless more of the profits were held back for maintenance and network infrastructure. It would appear that the years of neglect of the power grids and the syphoning of profits has crippled our capacity to supply this basic service to the people of Queensland. I cannot support this motion by the Premier. It is just another example of evading the mess that this government has created. Mr LANGBROEK (Surfers Paradise—Lib) (5.54 p.m.): As the Liberal shadow minister for natural resources, I am pleased to rise to speak on the motion before the House. First and foremost, I would like to say that the Minister for State Development has outlined what this debate should not become. In the space of two sentences, he said, 'This is not a time to dwell on the past,' and then he proceeded to sink the boot into the opposition over what it did when it was in government, referring to power stations at Oakey. He was proud of the fact that he has a long memory on the issue. Apparently, he did this to unearth the hypocrisy of the opposition. If we really are here to focus on the future then such pettiness must be avoided. We must truly look at ways of fixing Queensland's power problems. Any focus on events that occurred in January and any other power outages should be used only as a guide as to the possible direction for the energy sector in Queensland. Similarly, any talk of the credentials of any director should be discussed only in instances of negligence and corruption, not as a method of cheap political point scoring. That has been no positive benefit for the people of Queensland. With regard to those directors and the boards they sit on, I find talk of cronyism in the Labor Party as irrelevant in the primary instance. We all know that Labor Party cronyism exists. However, the bottom line is not whether Labor cronies are on power boards. The question we must ask ourselves is: are those power boards keeping the power on in Queensland houses? The answer to this question was evident to many Queenslanders who spent great portions of their summer in darkness. Whoever is on 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1805 these boards, they are presiding over an energy sector that is failing Queenslanders. That is the bottom line of this debate. A friend of mine who worked on the election campaign in Brisbane was standing under an awning of a local shopping centre out of the pouring rain, outside a butchery, listening to the owner cursing about the $50,000 worth of spoiled meat he was throwing out. That butcher does not care about the political affiliation of board members—just that, whatever their persuasion, they do the right thing by Queenslanders. With this in mind, we realise that the central point of the debate is keeping the lights on in Queensland—what has gone wrong and how can we fix it. Here is a poignant quote from the Somerville report— The difficulty (with) building a network with the spare assets and capacity to be outage proof in peak times is that it is extremely expensive. This could not be clearer. This quote outlines that the basic premise for a quality and efficient energy system is money. We are not saying that the government should pump $60 billion into putting all powerlines underground, nor are we saying that the government should, in the words of the report, 'gold plate' the electrical network. Rather, we are asking the government to provide the expected basic standard of performance. The report clearly illustrates the standard of performance that should be expected by Queenslanders; that is, to provide a service which will almost certainly not fail as a result of causes of power outages. This is generally achieved by having spare assets and a degree of spare capacity in the system. In the case of failure or overloading of a particular asset, this allows the employment of alternative assets or the switching of load so that customers can be supplied via an alternative asset without noticeable interruption. It would be reprehensible for anyone to suggest that this is easily achieved. However, it would be more reprehensible not to achieve this standard simply because it is too difficult. We realise that there is a generally accepted standard and we realise that it takes a great deal of work to achieve that standard. We can safely say, based on its performance in achieving this standard, that the government has failed. In fact, on 6 August Mr Beattie said, ‘We,’ the government, ‘have failed.’ Mr Beattie is right. The government has failed to deliver to Queenslanders by not providing enough money for electrical infrastructure. Moreover, it has failed because not only did it deny the energy corporations money but also it stripped money out of their profits in the form of ongoing annual dividends. As a result, Queensland has to cope with infrastructure, a significant portion of which was built in the 1970s. Queensland has had to cope with an understaffed electrical sector. Despite the best efforts of the wonderful Energex and Ergon Energy staff, they are working with too poor a level of equipment and too few workmates. Poor infrastructure leads to a system more likely to falter under the strain of the elements and likely to falter in a more spectacular fashion under the strain of the elements we saw in January this year. Less staff means that when shoddy infrastructure goes down, despite the best efforts of staff, the outages are a great deal longer. This stripping of funds at a rate of 95 per cent of after-tax profits is completely unacceptable. No business in the private sector could run with such a low rate of reinvesting. My esteemed colleague the member for Robina pointed out that this was due to the profit gaining mentality of the government. Unfortunately, this government's mentality does not include putting that money back into infrastructure. Mr Beattie has claimed that the money that is being taken is the money of the people of Queensland and that there is nothing wrong with putting it into schools and hospitals. He is right in the fact that there is nothing wrong with putting money into hospitals and schools. There is something very wrong, however, with taking money out of the energy sector when the energy sector needs that money to expand. The Smart State Premier has shown no business smarts on this issue. On one hand we have him saying that we need to move this industry forward and on the other we have him saying that everything to do with dividends is fine because they are leaving enough money for maintenance. To move something forward one needs to leave money over and above maintenance in the account to start to do that expansion. That money is not there. It also baffles me that this has to be the way that the government operates. Here we have a government that is receiving more in GST revenue than any other state. In fact they are receiving more by a very long way over other states yet they still have to borrow money from one of the GOCs that is making money. Here we have a government that is the only government in Australia to raise taxes since the GST was introduced. If one is confused one is not alone. The situation is that the government that receives the most in GST revenue is the only government to raise taxes after the GST. Less sense still is the fact that it then goes and has to strip money out of a GOC making a great deal of money in order to prop up other commitments it cannot meet. All of this means that Energex and Ergon go under-funded. The 1806 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004 government has to act on this issue. It has to implement everything that is in the independent report. The Liberal Party endorses those recommendations. We have had a star-studded list of speakers from the government. The first five speakers were the Premier, his deputy and a wide variety of former ministers and the current Energy Minister. They have graced us with their presence. If they are the major players on the government side and they are the ones most concerned with this debate I would like to make two points. The Treasurer said that the report recommended that no-one stand down over this fiasco. He was proud of that. He was proud that no-one should have to stand down. I remind the Deputy Premier that if an employee has to say, ‘They did not make me stand down,’ it is a poor reflection on their performance that the sacking was even considered. The good employees are the ones who can say, ‘I was commended for my work today.’ This is what Queenslanders deserve. They do not deserve an energy ‘system and ministers who are worthy of condemnation for performing so badly that they need to say, ‘I was not made to stand down.' Secondly, the Queensland Government Owned Corporations Act requires Energex to carry out the objectives set out in the statement of corporate identity. Though it is set out in legislation, the current minister, Mr Robertson, still sticks to the argument that there were no standards in Energex. This was the reason the information given to the ministers was apparently incorrect. This, however, is contrary to the assertions of the Treasurer, who understands that this statement of corporate identity exists. Maybe the ministers should discuss this statement of corporate identity, outlining the objectives of Energex and Ergon, and implement it as a way of making these GOCs work more efficiently. Furthermore, maybe if the ministers and board members had read the product of the statutory requirement first then this mess may not have eventuated. Mrs PRATT (Nanango—Ind) (6.03 p.m.): In rising to speak in this debate, I have to say that I am totally amazed by the government's motion today and the contempt that Beattie is displaying towards the people of Queensland and their intelligence. Does this government really think the people are that stupid that they will commend this government for correcting a situation which is the responsibility of the government and should never have been let deteriorate to the extent it has? I also have to ask: what on earth is the point of continually harping back to the past? The past has no relevance to what is happening today except to outline to every single Queenslander that both sides of parliament have stuffed up—that is, the coalition whilst in government and Labor, which has been government for the past six years. This government knew there were problems. It stood up in this House and outlined what those problems were. It said that they were caused by the opposition. My only question is: why didn't the government correct the situation? Why did it not simply go out and correct the situation it knew existed? Why did it compound the situation? There is no use blaming others when it knew of the problem and did nothing. It had the ability and the power—excuse the pun—to fix it and did nothing. There is no doubt that the past casts a very long shadow. But currently that shadow is so dense that people in their communities are being plunged into total darkness. As we debate this motion, people are being reduced to living in Third World conditions or perhaps worse. People in Third World countries live daily without power and are prepared for using resources that do not require power. We as a society are totally unprepared to cope with a lack of electricity for any length of time. During the summer outages people in my electorate, as in every other electorate, resorted to using candles. They had to travel many miles to buy water to drink. They had no water because their pumps need electricity to operate. They could not shower and they lost hundreds of dollars worth of fridge contents or frozen foods. The losses did not stop there. They were left in total darkness and total ignorance because unfortunately many phones in the bush are fax phones and require power. They were totally out of communication with their neighbours. It was a frightening situation for them. It was a desperate situation for others who rely on phones and medical equipment to get through their days. We had two incidents during that time. We had one gentlemen with a heart condition and another one who was thought to be in a diabetic coma. Both were panicking because they had no way of receiving any help or knowing what the hell was happening out there. Is it necessary for people in households in rural areas or households in Queensland to actually have a generator in their shed for, what used to be, the relatively rare blackouts? Do we have to stockpile candles when we have been told that power is a reliable source of energy and that there is plenty of power to go around? Perhaps, as has been stated often, it is just that the infrastructure is not there. It amazes me that, to a degree, the Premier has trivialised the issue trying to negate debate by throwing the issue on the table and saying that he wants it debated right now. Is that perhaps to catch out members who want to talk on the issue but who are perhaps not prepared to do so? Unlike this 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1807 government, I and the people of Queensland who suffered under this industry's neglect do take the power shortages seriously. We do not appreciate stunts like this. The stunt is purely and simply a tactic by the Premier to protect his and the government's backsides. So the government should not for one minute try to kid the people that it is taking this seriously for any reason but self-preservation. We see the Premier coming out and saying, ‘Blame me. It is my fault. The buck stops with me. I am the Premier.' These are the lines often quoted in the papers and in media. The people do blame the Premier because he is at the helm, as they say. The Premier is counting on the people having very short memories. This government will not have to go to the people for another two and half years. The snake oil and the grin will not get the Premier off this one. ‘Pete the plunderer' has struck too often. He has plundered our forests, he has plundered our pockets with the ambulance levy and any other possible thing that this government could come up with. I would suggest that the government sit down, shut up and forget trying to justify the situation—just cop it sweet. They have failed and failed miserably. Let me tell members a little about the people that this government's lack of management has caused to suffer in what was one of the longest, hottest summers for many areas in my electorate. People could not pump water because the water on rural properties always has to go uphill and that needs electricity. Five-acre lots rely on electricity very heavily. Without water one cannot shower, wash up, bath, flush. They cannot phone out because the phones will not work. Most people had no way of knowing. They may as well have been in the holocaust or a bomb blast for all they knew. We were in extreme fire danger and many people had to light fires to get a hot meal. They would have been penalised if those fires got out of control. They will be penalised if they get out of control during the summer blackouts this year. Fires are a major issue as seen in the south-east corner recently. This is another area that the Beattie government will get a rap over the knuckles about. There will be fires. The fuel is building up all the time. I do not know if many people know this, but when trees are in severe drought they actually start to draw the moisture back into the trunk—the primary part of them—to survive whenever there is a drought or a fire. So they discard the leaves first and then they discard the outer twigs and the smaller branches. Instead of just getting the usual discarding of bark and rubbish that comes off our trees over the seasons, during drought times there is also this added fuel. It is a disaster waiting to happen. I pray to God—and I say it right here and now—that if a volunteer fire brigade person gets injured because the government has neglected this part of its responsibility then the government will need to duck and duck pretty fast because the blame will be laid squarely on it. As for the workers at Energex and other power companies, I have nothing but praise for them. They have been working overtime for a long time because of the staff shortages. They have been working extremely long hours to remedy a problem that is not of their making. To do so, they have to undertake long hours on the road away from their families—all simply to clean up this government's mess. Many working for the industry are afraid to talk. I have actually had them say to me on the side, 'We could do a lot more if we just had the money.' Many working for the industry are so afraid for their jobs that it is almost like they are afraid the axe is going to fall on them if they say anything out of place. That is the case in not just this industry but other industries as well. I have to ask in all honesty: how the hell do I come in here and support a motion that commends the government for its handling of the energy crisis which has engulfed this state? How do I support a motion which means that on an almost daily basis somewhere in my electorate my constituents are suffering because of the failure of electricity supply? I am not talking about storms. As the member for Gladstone said, we are in drought. We would be quite happy if the electricity supply was cut off because of a storm. We would not care one bit. Mount Mee is just out of town a little way—and this happens in other areas such as the Conondale Range and places that are a little more secluded—and it can lose power two or three times a day. It is not because of a fire. It is not because of winds. It just simply drops out. I have no idea why the government would expect anyone whose electorates suffer like they do to support such a motion. I believe some heads have to roll, and I do not believe it is the people who work at the companies. The Premier says that the buck stops with him. Well, it does, Mr Premier. But is he going to fall on his sword? I think not. Are any of the ministers going to be the fall guy? Not likely. They were reluctant to take any responsibility at the time of the outages, so I do not expect that they will have the intestinal fortitude to do so now. Nobody is prepared to take the blame, and what a surprise! One thing we on the land know is that if you take 95 per cent of the milk from a cow the calf will get sick and die. Nothing can survive on five per cent, and that is exactly what is happening to the energy industry. I have to ask also, as other members have done: what about the other GOCs? Are they in such bad condition? Will we ever know, or will there be a massive cover-up? Will correspondence come to the surface only after they, too, fall into total chaos? When the board members of Ergon and Energex sat 1808 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004 down and spent the time to write and tell the Treasurer that they needed more revenue for infrastructure maintenance, were they simply wasting their time? Were they filling in a few spare hours because they had nothing else to do? I do not think so. If the Premier thinks that they did, then perhaps he does need to fire them as well. No, they were informing the Premier and the Treasurer that there was a major problem about to erupt. It has been in the papers for a long time. In fact, I think I actually asked a question about it quite some considerable time ago. It might have even been in May. I was assured that everything was fine and nothing was wrong. I was assured that we had plenty of power and the infrastructure would cope, but that did not happen. We have all of these reports now saying that more workers have to be put in place. The Premier seems to have acted on that, and apprentices have been put in place. However, their true worth will not be known for another couple of years. We have Mr Robertson saying that the government expected any committee to take some time to solve the employment issues regarding this problem. The minister does not have the time. Summer is almost here and the axe is about to fall. Let us hope that it is not across the minister's neck, because the Beattie government should be looking for someone to take the rap. As I said before, I believe that the Premier has no intention of falling on his own sword. Queenslanders deserve a better government than this—a government that does not shut the gate until after the horse has bolted. It deserves ministers who accept not only the pay packet but also the responsibility. It deserves MPs who will represent their constituencies without fear or favour and not be just yes-men. Queensland deserves a government that will listen to the people and take time to understand the process of cause and effect. We have an industry in crisis. The cause is neglect and the plundering of the resources. The effect is very simple: we the people suffer. I cannot support the government's motion, but I wholeheartedly support the opposition's amendment. Miss ELISA ROBERTS (Gympie—Ind) (6.15 p.m.): The current controversy over the Beattie government's inability to ensure the adequate provision of electricity to Queenslanders is one more example of how this government is failing in its role as the major service provider for this state. This latest debacle has shown once again that this government places little value on truth, accountability and, most importantly, the needs of the people it pretends to care about. To think that any business could function adequately on only five per cent of its profits is not only unreasonable but also reprehensible. Many people within my electorate have suffered from power outages and lost vast amounts of income as a result. These people pay their electricity accounts and have a right to expect at the very least value for money. The appointment and reappointment of staff who have been at best substandard is appalling. When a board of directors is appointed it should not be rewarded for underachieving and incompetence by reappointment, as has been the case with those responsible for the failure of both Energex and Ergon. The Premier's continual 'sorries' and 'put the blame on me' are starting to wear a bit thin. For the Premier to claim that the whole debate over this fiasco is esoteric clearly underestimates the intelligence of the people of Queensland. It is not difficult to understand the fact of too-frequent power shortages and people being placed in positions against the advice of senior advisers but, most importantly, people understand when a company is forced to function on a shoestring at the whim of a government. The fact that Queensland's power boards cannot dispute the dividends paid to the government is a blatant abuse of power which is wielded by this government. Whilst I understand that Labor members and supporters are loyal to their party and biased, even the staunchest allies would have to admit that this latest blunder by this government is not acceptable and that those in the positions to prevent such a travesty are very much in the wrong this time. In reality, this whole situation could have been avoided had this government and the relevant stakeholders adhered to the statement of corporate identity which has been signed by ministers, all of whom remain members of the ministry today. In politics credibility is essential. This government has done nothing but perpetuate the negative perception surrounding the public's view of politicians. With people like this government running the state and its services into the ground, politicians will continue to be thought of with contempt. I just hope that the public will finally start to look at this government and it leader's performance and realise that the old saying 'actions speak louder than words' epitomises this government's achievements, or lack thereof, more and more each day. Mr McARDLE (Caloundra—Lib) (6.17 p.m.): The government is showing a disgraceful attitude towards the principles of this House by moving a motion of this nature in its current form and by this method. However, we are becoming used to these types of underhanded tactics and must accept them as the norm. The simple plain truths about this whole matter are twofold: firstly, this government has failed to plan for the future and, secondly, this government has forgotten its basic obligations to the people of Queensland. This is at least the third occasion on which this government has been derelict in its duty and has been found wanting and more importantly has cost the Queensland people significantly not just in monetary terms but also in concern and anxiety. Firstly, I refer to the debacle which led to the imposition of the ambulance levy, which leaves many people throughout the state having to pay three, four, five, six or many more levies on a yearly basis. Secondly, there is the disgrace with regard to the Department of Families and the manner in which it 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1809 neglected the children of this state who were so much in need of protection. Thirdly, there is now the power crisis—a crisis which loomed for the last two to three years for which this government took no action. There are significant other issues that are looming, and I fear that in time to come we will be debating a similar motion after a further crisis has arisen. I only hope that it does not incorporate the water supply of south-east Queensland. The real question in this whole exercise is: why has no planning been undertaken by this government? The Somerville report has found that we cannot meet the current demand, let alone future growth. Why has this government taken the attitude of, 'We'll fix it only when it goes wrong?’ This is a government running on crisis management and public relations. How smart is that? It is a simple reality that the government cannot bleed almost $1 billion out of Energex and Ergon and expect that there will be no consequences to their operations and services. It is a simple fallacy to believe that the power supply looks after itself or that the government deals with it only when a crisis arises. The government can hand out as many business grants and have all the overseas trade travel that it wants, but it cannot have industry, it cannot have investment and nor can the people of Queensland achieve even the simple basic things in life without a solid, reliable power supply. Unless the government was faced with this crisis, no planning would have happened. Why? Because it has lost sight of the basic obligations of any government. These obligations are, firstly, to protect what the people of Queensland have a right to expect, and that includes a reliable power supply; secondly, to plan to ensure that the power supply caters for the growing population and needs of this great state; and, thirdly, to invest in the future of a power supply so that no crisis occurs. This government has failed on all counts. This government no longer has its focus on the right of the people of Queensland to go about their daily lives. The government's focus is no longer on the mums and dads and children of this great state. The government cannot espouse a love of a state and its people without guaranteeing the basic elements that make up the day-to-day lives of the people of Queensland. What has happened is that large sums of money have been siphoned out of the GOCs and no money has been set aside to protect Queenslanders, their needs or the needs of the future. Here we are in August 2004 reviewing a 2004-05 summer upgrade document. Summer is a mere three months away. What planning? What foresight? The government's motion is a simple grab for headlines and a chance to smile and reuse the hoary old phrase, 'Don't worry, I'll fix it.' The answer is not to get into this appalling situation to begin with. If foresight, planning and a responsible attitude had been adopted, this motion would not have been needed and the people of Queensland, particularly the elderly, the ill and the very young, would not have needed to be concerned about getting through a very hot summer in the dark. All the signs were there, the warnings were there, but what was missing? The will to fix it! It seems that the government members are more concerned about protecting their privileged position than planning responsibly for the future. Through a lack of will, we face an uncertain future, and that is the fault of this government and no-one else. Certainly, it is not the fault of the industry workers who have worked tirelessly to help the people of Queensland. Of equal concern is that this government fails to show true leadership in taking action and holding people accountable for their actions or inactions. No-one has been held accountable for the Families Department disaster. We can be assured that no-one has been held accountable, nor will they be, for this further disgrace. This government wants this House to applaud its lengthy and growing number of mistakes. This House cannot do so and should not do so. I commend Mr Springborg's amended motion. Mrs MENKENS (Burdekin—NPA) (6.21 p.m.): It is with immense regret that I stand here in the House this afternoon to discuss the previous, the current and the impending problems of the Queensland electricity network. This network was once looked upon as being at the forefront of Queensland technology and capable of providing a reliable service to all Queenslanders. Unfortunately, due to government mismanagement and an ignorance of warning signs by the Beattie Labor government, Queensland is no longer guaranteed a reliable supply of power, as was evidenced on the weekend. Therefore, I am proud to stand here and support the opposition's amendment to the government's motion, clear in my mind that the electricity crisis being suffered by all Queenslanders could be the clearest indicator so far that the Beattie Labor government is not only unfit to govern this state but also, despite its large majority, does not possess the confidence of the Queensland voting public. Electricity has become an essential part of daily life, but nowhere more so than in north Queensland where my constituents rely on a guaranteed supply of electricity to conduct their daily lives. During summer when there is oppressive tropical heat, my constituents heavily utilise electricity for airconditioners and fans, as does industry, and agriculturalists use huge amounts of electricity to pump much-needed water. In the winter months, this trend does not change greatly with daily temperatures requiring all homes, office buildings and shopping centres to remain airconditioned to maintain comfort levels. Therefore, the requirement for electricity is immense. 1810 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004

On the weekend, like many other parts of the state, areas of my electorate in north Queensland were the victim of a number of power outages—some, I understand, lasting up to four hours. Without being trivial about a matter of incredible importance, it seems to me that one of the worst possible times that I can imagine losing power would be whilst an Olympic Games—a massive sporting event that takes place only once every four years—is being telecast. One would wonder how disappointed many of my constituents would have been when their power was interrupted on Saturday and an opportunity to view the games of the 28th Olympiad was lost. It is the little things that people take for granted. It is the little things that people notice missing when they live out each day. To suffer a power outage when there have been natural disasters is accepted. To suffer a power outage because the required maintenance was not carried out and to discover that their own elected government was as much in the dark about this issue as they were in their own house made people angry. I hear from a lot of angry people in my electorate. They are the individuals who elected me in February to bring to this chamber in Brisbane their voice, which had previously not been heard. They are the people of Giru and Cungulla, which are two small residential communities located between Ayr and Townsville, who are fed up to the eyeballs with losing their power supply. They are annoyed when they wake up in the morning and are not able to have hot showers, toast their bread or boil their water. These people feel that this government caters for the big end of town and that it does not care about the little people in the regions. After various discussions with Ergon Energy and Powerlink about the problems encountered by these two townships, I was informed that new power cables and replacement transformers were in sight for these areas and that the future reliability of electricity in the region was to be addressed. I sincerely hope that the much-needed infrastructure here in the south will not be at the expense of the infrastructure requirements of north Queensland. Electricity reliability is a problem that has existed for far longer than this year's release of the Electricity distribution and service delivery for the 21st century report. In its report, Powerlink stated that since late 2000 electricity demand in north and far-north Queensland has exceeded the transfer capacity of the Queensland power network during high demand periods and during these times the network has had to rely upon local generators to help meet customer electricity demand requirements and also maintain the transmission network in a secure operating state. In fact, routine planning studies undertaken by Powerlink have identified that sufficient supply capacity will not be available to reliably meet forecast electricity demand in north and far-north Queensland until the summer of 2008-09 and stress that without government corrective action widespread interruption to customer supply may be required during high summer demand periods from late 2008 onwards to ensure that the transmission network remains simply in a secure operating state. Another issue relating to electricity is the quality of power. Certainly, in the Burdekin area where I live, which is a rural farming area, the quality of power is very poor. For instance, one cannot run a business computer without a UPS—an uninterrupted power supply. These retail at a cost of about $800 to $1,000. I can relate the story of a businessperson who installed a new computer system for Gold Lotto. When this person mentioned to the Brisbane office that he needed a UPS, the office queried the need for that. The Brisbane office said that it was not a normal, routine installation with their system. The computer system was installed in the area and within a week or more the computer was in difficulties. However, it is now working as it now has an uninterrupted power supply, or a UPS. I refer also to the Bowen River rodeo and camp draft weekend, which has been going for many years. It is attended by a lot of people. There is entertainment and live bands at that event. However, there is no way that a live band can play in that area without using a separate generator to supply the power. In the past, very expensive equipment has been damaged. Power delivery to north Queensland has not been guaranteed for a long time but, as my colleagues have said clearly over and over, the Beattie government was not prepared to listen to the industry stakeholders when it could extract millions of dollars to save its budget shortfalls every year. However, at this point I would like to concur with the sentiments of many other members who spoke this afternoon in praise of the hardworking employees and staff of Ergon. Ergon line workers will go out in all types of inclement and at all hours to repair rural outages. Sitting suspended from 6.30 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. Mrs MENKENS: I have the utmost respect for the Ergon line workers and the employees, because their service is excellent. But that brings me to my most important point today, which is a point of accountability and leadership, two elements so far lacking in this energy crisis. Can the Premier and his deservedly under-siege Energy Minister provide a guarantee to the people of the north Queensland region that, following the extensive reform of the Queensland electricity network, our region will not be short-changed once again? One thing we can be sure of is that, as I speak of this crisis, the government is sitting over there thinking, 'Oh well, this is just one of those problems that will eventually be out of the headlines and we just have to ride out the storm.' However, the ladies and gentlemen who sit across from me flagrantly slander us, the National Party, for missing an opportunity to fix the problems in 1996 and 1997. This was 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1811 a limited period when we held office in a minority government and it was scrutinised by our opposition headed by the current Premier. I think other questions that have to be asked are: who has been responsible for overseeing this epidemic, and who is not willing to put his or her hand up and admit that they have been ignoring the warning signs? The people of Queensland deserve better. The people of Queensland deserve the guarantee of a reliable supply of electricity. The people of Queensland should have the right to be insured for an uncommon occurrence. Once upon a time power failures and food spoilage were uncommon occurrences. Now, insurance companies say that they may remove this component from policies or, at best, increase their premiums to reflect the normality of increased power shortages. Someone needs to be accountable and I implore those responsible to finally put up their hands and show some level of leadership—an element that has been lacking in this state since the election of the Beattie government in 1998. The people of Queensland deserve better than they are currently getting in terms of electricity. Mr KNUTH (Charters Towers—NPA) (7.32 p.m.): I rise to speak in support of the amendment put forward by the Leader of the Opposition. Firstly, I acknowledge the long hard hours put in by the dedicated Ergon Energy employees, many of whom I have had the great pleasure of dealing with since being elected as the member for Charters Towers. The Charters Towers electorate has had minor and major energy problems over the past few years. Personally, I have been extremely impressed by the ability of the staff of Ergon to deal with the problems to the best of their ability and with the limited resources available to them. The problems with the electricity supply in the electorate of Charters Towers relate to remoteness and the government's lack of interest in providing a quality essential service to the people of these communities. One example would be people in those communities who require respirator type equipment for medical conditions. Along with day-to-day concerns about their health, those people have to ensure that, should the electricity drop out, they have enough fuel on hand to run the generators that they have purchased to ensure that they continue to have a satisfactory quality of life until their electricity supply is turned on. Many times shopkeepers have had to throw out stock that has been thawed due to power outages. This involves the shopkeeper having to recover money for the damaged goods. Those people receive a service that is a lower standard than they pay for. Business owners, people with medical conditions and other residents in the rural areas of the Charters Towers electorate have had to be prepared for lengthy power outages for many years now. Now that the government has robbed Energex and delayed the upgrade of the Queensland electricity network, the people of the south-east corner have to tolerate substandard electricity supplies. Let us hope that they have the same ability to adapt as those in the bush. Many people in my electorate pay a guarantee over a period. In other words, they come to an agreement that they will use $1,000 worth of power per three months over a 10-year period. If they do not use the power, even if they use only $500 worth, they still have to pay $1,000. That is the guarantee. Unfortunately, although people pay the guarantee they cannot be guaranteed the power because quite often the power is out, and then comes the damage that the blackouts cause to machinery, fridges, freezers, computers—the list goes on. Towns in my electorate, such as Alpha, have a major difficulty with the power supply. The blackouts are constant. Residents maintain that they can set their clocks to them. The blackouts peak at Christmas time and during extremes in temperature. In the recent cold spate, Alpha residents had blackouts of up to 12 hours for three nights in a row. Their main power supply is in Barcaldine so, unless the cause of the outage is located quickly, residents wait for hours for the power to come back on. Businesses in those areas have been severely affected. Often they have no option but to close their shops, which angers locals. There are other towns that I would like to mention that recently had power problems and, if this debate had not been brought on by surprise, with a little research I would have been able to name the 32 towns in my electorate. Within the last couple of months the residents of Greenvale have suffered an outage due to a fault in an underground cable. Generators had to be provided for affected customers. Ravenswood had problems with the 66kV line feeder. At Aramac I have been advised that areas have been subjected to momentary outage. The energy crisis will not and cannot be resolved while the state government continues to insist that Ergon and Energex hand over profits to the government. The state government puts the blame for the electricity crisis at the feet of the Queensland power corporations. I cannot see how the government can blame anyone else while it robs the corporations and gives back a few crumbs to upgrade Queensland's entire electricity network. It is time that the government started being responsible, stopped robbing the corporations and ploughed back the funds into urgent upgrades and maintenance of the Queensland electricity network. I support the amendment put forward by the Leader of the Opposition. 1812 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004

Hon. P.D. BEATTIE (Brisbane Central—ALP) (Premier and Minister for Trade) (7.37 p.m.): At the outset I say that the opposition has not proven its case in relation to the amendment it moved. This was the opposition's opportunity to raise serious issues and to challenge the government on its handling of the problems relating to electrical supply. Instead of a rational debate, we got misstatements of fact, the rewriting of history, bluster and politically motivated innuendo. Most of the statements were simply full of hypocrisy. Let us take the amended motion from the Leader of the Opposition that calls for urgent action. I would ask the Opposition Leader to go back and check this morning's Hansard. In my ministerial statements I tabled two action plans from Energex and Ergon for this summer and I distributed them to every member in the chamber so that they had a chance to look at them before the debate took place. I make the point that those summer plans are to be independently audited in November. The Leader of the Opposition tried to suggest that this was not enough action. Let us look at what we did. We were the ones who called for the report, who set up the system and, when the report was brought down, who immediately released it publicly. There was no hiding of it. It was considered by cabinet. There was a full sign-off of all of the recommendations. We set up a high level director-general's committee to ensure that the implementation actually occurs. We did not ignore the problem. This took place prior to the election. I repeat: the storms were prior to the election. We had the election, which we won. Then, after the election, we set up this independent process. If we were about politics we could have ignored that, but we did not do that. We set up this independent process. We wanted a warts-and-all examination and that is what we got. Then we moved to implement the recommendations and we moved quickly to do that. What the parliament saw today was the first two plans—stage 1 of implementing the reforms to fix this problem. We have had the report for just over three weeks—three weeks on Monday since we released it publicly. Let me talk about how much politics is being played here. Even before my speech was finished the member for Maroochydore said that when the National Party was in power at least the lights stayed on. Minister Robertson and others have exposed how ridiculous and stupid that statement is. We all know what really happened when Queenslanders suffered four days of blackouts in 1998 under the National Party. The Opposition Leader went on to say, 'Perhaps if we didn't have the interconnector we would not have had the blackouts last Friday night.' He then denied it was the Borbidge government that built the interconnector. However, then Premier Borbidge was eager to claim credit in April 1998 when he said in a press release—and remember the Leader of the Opposition was a minister for 30 seconds in his government—'The better located interconnector to be built under the coalition will, like Eastlink, be able to import 500 megawatts from New South Wales but will be able to export'— Miss Simpson interjected. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms Male): Order! The member for Maroochydore has had her chance. Stop interjecting across the chamber. I will hear the Premier. Mr BEATTIE: Not only could they not win the argument; they are now trying to wreck the parliament. They should accept that I listened to them with some courtesy, and it would be very nice if they had some good manners as well. Christian charity is something you demonstrate every day in life, not just for convenience. Then Premier Borbidge said, 'The better located interconnector to be built under the coalition will, like Eastlink, be able to import 500 megawatts from New South Wales but will be able to export 1,000 megawatts south compared to Eastlink's 500 megawatts.' That is what Premier Borbidge said. Mr Springborg was in cabinet then but his Premier could at least see the value of a give- and-take relationship with other states in the national electricity market. The interconnector is an insurance policy, and we need it. It is an export line and we can earn money from it. It is a win-win for Queensland. As the NEMMCO report says, 'This load shedding helped arrest the decline in system frequency and was thus successful in preventing a system shutdown.' That is a system shutdown—a total failure. We have treated this debate seriously. I will go through every issue that has been raised and respond in detail so that everybody can see that we were willing not only to have an open debate tonight but also to take it seriously and respond to every aspect. That is our level of accountability and our commitment to being accountable to this parliament. Let us move on. The issue of power station maintenance was then raised. It was claimed we should have more generators running. Again, this is not an issue directly related to the Somerville report, which says that we have plenty of generation. The report of the National Electricity Market Management Company, NEMMCO, which I tabled today notes that within one minute of the incident some 390 megawatts of generation were supplied by Queensland. That was 390 megawatts of generation—almost twice as much as supplied by Victoria. This puts paid to claims that we have a current shortage of generation. Further, it is NEMMCO that signs off the schedule of maintenance by generators, not the government. The national market managers know the right time to schedule the maintenance. So we do not do it; NEMMCO does it. No- one who is serious about this debate can ignore the record capital works budgets by the government 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1813 over the last six years and the massive $6 billion capital works budget in the last budget brought down by the Treasurer. The 2004-05 budget sets up a six-year $15.5 billion capital program for government owned corporations. It is our commitment to capital infrastructure and building a new Queensland. For the energy sector the last budget included a massive increase in capital works. The Leader of the Opposition showed his ignorance with comments such as that the distributors are burdened with $4 billion in debt. It is simply silly. In actual fact, Energex has a gearing ratio of 54 per cent and Ergon's is 45 per cent—well within acceptable levels. The whole debate on dividends is a sideshow and everyone who knows anything about this issue knows that. The Leader of the Opposition loves to quote figures from a recent productivity report about dividend payout ratios above 95 per cent. In 2001-02 the Productivity Commission report indicated a payout ratio of 243 per cent for Energex, but this includes the $150 million special dividend initiated by and paid by Energex. Energex indicates that the payout ratio excluding the one-off $150 million payment for 2001-02 was 95 per cent. With respect to Ergon, page 129 of the Productivity Commission report shows dividend payout ratios of 85.1 per cent and 113.4 per cent for the 2001-02 and 2002-03 years respectively. Once again, the 2002-03 number includes the $20 million special dividend paid in this year. If it did not then the payout ratio would reduce from 113.4 per cent to 94.4 per cent. The Productivity Commission report acknowledges this point in its footnotes to the table. To understand it fully you need to pay attention to detail. You need to read the footnotes; you need to read the full report. If you do not you are either incompetent or mischievous. I will leave the opposition's view on this and its behaviour to the people of Queensland to determine as to which one it is guilty of. The Leader of the Liberal Party also took a turn at manufacturing a dividends story. He notes the Somerville report refers only to special dividends, and he is right about that, although it depends on one's interpretation. Page 202 of the report states— The Panel examined this matter and found the distributors' ability to spend on the networks was not affected by the payment of special dividends. That is why the chair of that independent panel was asked to comment on the matter of ordinary dividends to clarify the position. He also confirmed his position in a letter to me on 5 August. These are his words. He is the man who took the warts-and-all approach to Energex and Ergon and to the energy system generally. He was very critical of it. There are 44 recommendations. He was the independent chair who also said, 'The conclusion we reached was that the level of dividends paid to the state government did not cause either of the distributors to be lacking in the funds necessary to carry out these functions.' The member cannot have it both ways. If on the one hand he wants to say that the Somerville report is a condemnation of the process and us and all the rest of it, he cannot simply accept that and then on the other hand say, 'I like that part of it but not that part.' He cannot do that. He has to take it in its entirety. The key issue is whether the GOCs had enough money to fund necessary infrastructure. The government takes dividends from the businesses only after the businesses have funded their annual infrastructure investments and operations. If you take 95 per cent and they have spent all their money on maintenance, then you take 95 per cent of nothing. It is very simple; it is very straightforward. It is a numerical calculation that even the Leader of the Opposition can understand, I would hope. The government's dividend policy, therefore, could not have impacted on the businesses' ability to fund new work. So let us end this nonsense. That is fact. The policy of the government needs to be seen in two parts—a dividend policy and a financing policy. This means that while we continue to take dividends we also put the money back in where there is a genuine need. I have sat on seven budgets as the chairman of the Cabinet Budget Review Committee (CBRC) and every one of the GOCs since I have been Premier is clearly under no illusions. If they want an equity injection and there is a substantive case for it, they get it. It is very simple. That is why there is a difference between a dividend policy and a financing policy. This means that while we continue to take dividends we also put the money back in where there is a genuine need, and I spelt out earlier today where the equity injections of the GOCs were going. The government has never turned down a request from Energex or Ergon Energy for an equity injection. We have never turned it down— never turned it down. We gave them $200 million. They asked for it earlier this year. They got $200 million. We set it out. As I said this morning, the government has always made it clear to all GOCs that if they require additional funding for genuine capital programs such funding would be forthcoming by way of equity injection. I repeat what I said before: I have chaired the CBRC for seven years. Every GOC clearly understands that. No-one is under any illusions to the contrary. Several speakers attempted to suggest that the government was told that the dividends were going to hurt the businesses' capacity to fund maintenance and network upgrades. One example quoted by the Leader of the Opposition was the 1999 letter from the then chair of Energex, Mr Popple. Conveniently, he fails to note that the letter was in two parts—one section making general comments on the network and another section on its retail and non-regulated ambitions. The Treasurer addressed this matter, noting the government's disinterest in additional expenditure being undertaken by GOCs in 1814 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004 areas outside their core business and outside of Queensland when the business case is not strong. Sometimes it will be a good business case to go outside the state for GOCs, and we make that on a case-by-case assessment. A government member: Proper advice. Mr BEATTIE: Proper advice; that is true. For the benefit of the House, I would like to note that, at the time Mr Popple was writing about dividends—when this letter was written—and the network and other issues, Energex's five-year capital works plan was costed at $1.3 billion, with only $716 million, or just under half of that, devoted to the network. I mean: come on, look at the statistics and understand what was going on here. That gives a flavour of the argy-bargy we were involved in. The corporation had made grand plans that were not about the network and the government was pulling it up on that, and I make no excuse for it. I was part of that, and I make no excuse for focusing on Queensland first. The Leader of the Opposition and the member for Cunningham then proceeded to make reference to our four-year old FOI document which was a memo from the Under Treasurer to the Treasurer, all of which was released under FOI, although I must say that there was some attempt to try and represent this as leaked documents which I find very ethically unsound. I know that people who will be listening to this understand exactly what they did. I will not even bother dealing with it. I just think that is behaviour that is unbecoming of anyone involved in politics. The Under Treasurer noted that— Dividends paid by electricity GOCs has been the subject of some discussion, with the main criticism being that the level of dividends paid by these corporations compromised their capacity to undertake maintenance. That is only part of the story. The next sentence is the cruncher. The Opposition Leader and Mr Copeland conveniently leave that out. Let us go to the next sentence, because it notes that— However, dividends are paid out of net profits which are arrived at after maintenance work and other necessary expenditure has been incurred, there is no foundation for such criticism. Why would they leave that out? Because it does not help their argument. Why would they leave it out? Because it simply undermines their case. I think that is the sort of debate we are getting and the level of it, and I think out of this debate today we have exposed the hypocrisy, dishonesty and duplicity of the opposition on this point. Just like the comments in the Somerville report, you cannot pick and choose. Members have to look at the full story if they are going to be honest. At least the Leader of the Liberal Party had the decency to acknowledge the fact that the chair, Darryl Somerville, and his panel did a comprehensive job, and he supported the government in implementing the recommendations in full. That is a positive outcome of this debate. I have to say to the Leader of the Liberal Party that I appreciate the approach that he has taken. We do not always agree, but I think at least he tries to look at things with some degree of objectivity from time to time. At least Mr Quinn knows that the government should be commended for putting in place the review and for committing to implementation. That is what our motion is all about. If the member for Robina was just a little stronger he would even vote for this. Despite looking as if he had actually taken the trouble to read the report, I think the Liberal Leader is being selective—I was being nice and now I will get back to it—in suggesting that it was the last six years that contributed to the problem we are determined to fix. The report shows that that is wrong. Ergon, which is only a relatively recent organisation, has suffered the legacy of inheriting a patchwork of six regional distribution networks with a range of standards which had evolved over many years. Accountability is a point raised by many speakers from the Leader of the Opposition's party and the member for Nicklin. I have accepted responsibility, and I will make sure the boards and management of Energex and Ergon are also accountable. They all know that they are on notice. Some people have a lust for heads to roll from the boards and management of Energex and Ergon. I would like to ask those people to reflect on the alternative. The pressing need is the impending summer. Think of the waste of time and resources if we spent the next few months finding replacements in an industry with a tight labour market, particularly bearing in mind that these problems go back over many, many years over successive governments and different administrators. I took the decision that the people we have in those companies are the right people to get us ready for the summer period. It was a decision taken and supported by the shareholding ministers. It would have been that much harder to get things ready if we were scrambling to find new people at the top. Yes, we would have satisfied the blood lust, but where would that have left us in summer? The member for Warrego raised issues about the cost of extending the network to rural properties and how the price of this changed over time. This is probably because Ergon has lifted standards in those areas. He is not in the chamber, but I am sure he will read this tomorrow. Companies are not discouraging power consumers; they are in the business of selling electricity. We will address the recommendation of the panel to change the regulatory system to improve the incentive for Ergon and Energex to invest in new connections. As the report also notes, we must look closely at the outer reaches of the distribution network and how we can best service those areas. 17 Aug 2004 Electricity Supply 1815

Several speakers, including the member for Gladstone, spoke about human resources. The report notes an international shortage of skilled electricity workers, which is why the government and the GOCs, in combination with unions and others such as TAFE, will be examining the best strategies for building up the work force. The member for Nicklin raised concern about service in his areas. I know he has raised those issues with ministers and Energex officials several times in the past. I am advised that this contributed to new capital works and vegetation management programs in the Palmwoods and Mooloolah areas. I draw the House's attention to the Energex summer plan, which shows that the comprehensive program of preventive maintenance will include Palmwoods. I have already dealt with some of the other issues raised by the member for Nicklin. I hope I have answered his question. The member for Nicklin is someone for whom I have enormous respect, and I take seriously what contributions he makes in these debates. Everyone in the House would understand that no system is immune from outages, but I know that that is no comfort to constituents who do lose power. The member for Callide claimed that last summer was normal for Queensland. I would urge him to read the report and note that page 194 states— The sequence of the five severe storms within a week was very unusual. They are not my words. It is what page 194 of the report says. I think the Deputy Premier made the point before that there was a succession of storms. When there is succession of storms it is difficult to maintain and repair the distribution system. The reality is we may live in the best place on this planet, but we do from time to time get cyclones, and because of changing weather patterns we end up with severe storms like we did at the beginning of this year, but it was unusual. He says that all I am worried about is getting a headline. Well, obviously he has not read the papers for the past three weeks. The member for Toowoomba South mentioned the stand-by generation trial in the Brisbane CBD. It is not a replacement of major upgrades. I remind the member for Toowoomba South of the $139 million for the CBD reinforcement project that Energex and Powerlink will roll out in coming months. Although it is not related to the Somerville report, the National Electricity Market Management Company—NEMMCO—report I tabled today underlined our enormous generating capacity. I might make the point—and I would hope that a number of the members opposite would at least support us on this—that there was some criticism, I noticed, by those involved in Millmerran about our bringing on the Kogan Creek project. It was a bit unfair. We supported Millmerran going ahead and facilitated it. We also facilitated Kogan Creek going ahead. Why did we do that? We did that because we want to continue to have surplus supply beyond 2007-08. If members go out and ask the people around Kogan Creek do they agree with this—I bet they do—the criticism from the Millmerran project was because we have put an extra competitor in the field from 2007. What does that mean? That means not only do we have surplus supply of electricity beyond 2007; it also means that we keep the price of electricity down. Of course, Millmerran will not be excited by that because it has another competitor. That is right. It is good for private consumers and it is good for industry. In China I met one of the partners of the Millmerran ownership because there is significant Chinese investment in it. They did not raise concerns with me about Kogan Creek. Why would they? They know that this is about a competitive national electricity market. I stand by what we did with Kogan Creek and I stand by what we did with Millmerran. If members opposite want to, they can go out to the people on the downs, tell them that they do not agree with it and see how far they get. I acknowledge the comment made by the member for Toowoomba North. He stood by us when we facilitated Millmerran. I opened Millmerran and I have been a strong supporter, along with my ministerial colleagues, of the project at Kogan Creek. Mr Mackenroth interjected. Mr BEATTIE: That is right. Hopefully the two of us will do it together, Deputy Premier. We will open it in 2007. If you just think about this nonsense about Millmerran and Kogan Creek, you can understand why there is some frustration in the government. We have a long-term strategic view about the adequate and more than adequate supply of electricity to Queensland, yet we get some half-baked nonsense, critical of us putting extra generation in to make sure we have a continuity and surplus of supply on the one hand and the ability to keep electricity prices down on the other. I reject that nonsense out of hand. Any sound examination of this will show that the decision we made at CBRC was the right decision— absolutely the right decision. So is the base power station we are building in Townsville, where we are using coal seam methane. So are all the other strategic positions that we are putting in place, including the cleaner energy strategy, which has facilitated coal seam methane, which has facilitated natural gas. All of those are long-term strategies to serve the energy needs of this state. I thank the member for Moggill for repeating a point I made in the House this morning, that the NEMMCO report raises questions about why two potlines did not trip as they were supposed to. I thank the member for raising that. I notice that he dropped me an email complaining that Stephen Robertson and I turned up in his electorate without announcing it and letting him know. I just say, with due courtesy, 1816 Electricity Supply 17 Aug 2004 that it is very important for us to make sure that we are out there doing what we need to do. Where we can we will let the member know, but his constituents come ahead of him. I know that the member would not want me to go out there and say that he is more important than his constituents. I make the point that this government serves all Queenslanders, regardless of where they live. We do not sit down and look at who the local member is; we just get on with the job. I know that the member would not want to stand in the way of us fixing vegetation issues and clearing vegetation in his electorate. The member has to make a choice. Does he want me to get on the phone and talk to him or does he want me to get out there, along with the minister, and fix it up? I know the member's answer is that he would like me to get out there and fix it up, so I will not get any more nonsense emails from him when I go to his electorate because I know that his constituents would want me to go to his electorate. Mr Quinn interjected. Mr BEATTIE: Yes, Bob. I will go to yours, too. I thank all members for their contributions. I just wish the opposition had put more effort into discussing the real issue at hand—that is, the distribution network. All members have been around long enough to understand the nature of politics and to understand that there will be those who want to score silly political points. The reality is— Miss Simpson interjected. Mr BEATTIE: Please. The member would have to be one of the rudest people in this chamber. She really would. Miss Simpson interjected. Mr BEATTIE: I showed the opposition great courtesy during this debate. I listened and I did not seek to disrupt its contributions. That interjection from the honourable member confirms— Honourable members interjected. Mr SPEAKER: Order! Mr BEATTIE: That interjection confirms this: we gave the opposition an opportunity today to put its case and it was found wanting. We have found that it is only interested in cheap politics; it is not interested in solutions. It confirms what I said before— Miss Simpson interjected. Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member for Maroochydore. Mr BEATTIE: It absolutely confirms what I said. Miss Simpson: You have not explained yet. Who is at fault, Mr Beattie? Mr SPEAKER: Order! The member for Maroochydore. Mr BEATTIE: The rudeness continues. The opposition was given an opportunity today to put its case and it was found wanting. It has put no new information before this House. Let us be clear about what we have. We have a plan—a strategy—to fix this problem, and we will fix it. I hope that this plan we have put to the parliament will be endorsed by the parliament. I want to say to the people of Queensland that this parliament has endorsed a solution to these problems with Energex and Ergon. Anyone who votes against this today is interested only in politics; they are not interested in fixing this. They are part of the problem; they are not part of the solution. The opposition has a choice: either it is with us for the solution or it is in the gutter with cheap party politics. I urge every member in the House to put Queenslanders first and to support this solution. Question—That Mr Springborg's amendment be agreed to—put; and the House divided— AYES, 25—Copeland, E.Cunningham, Flegg, Foley, Hobbs, Horan, Knuth, Langbroek, Lee Long, Lingard, McArdle, Menkens, Messenger, Pratt, Quinn, Rickuss, E.Roberts, Rowell, Seeney, Simpson, Springborg, Stuckey, Wellington. Tellers: Hopper, Malone NOES, 56—Attwood, Barry, Barton, Beattie, Boyle, Briskey, Choi, E.Clark, L.Clark, Croft, Cummins, English, Fenlon, Finn, Fraser, Hayward, Hoolihan, Jarratt, Keech, Lavarch, Lawlor, Lee, Livingstone, Lucas, Mackenroth, Male, McGrady, McNamara, Mickel, Miller, Molloy, Mulherin, Nelson-Carr, Nuttall, O'Brien, Palaszczuk, Pearce, Pitt, Purcell, Reilly, Reynolds, N.Roberts, Robertson, Schwarten, Shine, Smith, Spence, Stone, Struthers, C.Sullivan, Wallace, Welford, Wells, Wilson. Tellers: T.Sullivan, Nolan Resolved in the negative. Question—That the motion be agreed to—put; and the House divided— AYES, 57—Attwood, Barry, Barton, Beattie, Boyle, Briskey, Choi, E.Clark, L.Clark, Croft, Cummins, English, Fenlon, Finn, Foley, Fraser, Hayward, Hoolihan, Jarratt, Keech, Lavarch, Lawlor, Lee, Livingstone, Lucas, Mackenroth, Male, McGrady, McNamara, Mickel, Miller, Molloy, Mulherin, Nelson-Carr, Nuttall, O'Brien, Palaszczuk, Pearce, Pitt, Purcell, Reilly, Reynolds, N.Roberts, Robertson, Schwarten, Shine, Smith, Spence, Stone, Struthers, C.Sullivan, Wallace, Welford, Wells, Wilson. Tellers: T.Sullivan, Nolan NOES, 24—Copeland, E.Cunningham, Flegg, Hobbs, Horan, Knuth, Langbroek, Lee Long, Lingard, McArdle, Menkens, Messenger, Pratt, Quinn, Rickuss, E.Roberts, Rowell, Seeney, Simpson, Springborg, Stuckey, Wellington. Tellers: Hopper, Malone Resolved in the affirmative. 17 Aug 2004 Matters of Public Interest 1817

SITTING HOURS; ORDERS OF BUSINESS Hon. P.D. BEATTIE (Brisbane Central—ALP) (Premier and Minister for Trade) (8.19 p.m.), by leave, without notice, I move: That so much of the sessional orders be suspended to enable the House to sit past 9.00 p.m. for matters of public interest, one hour, the introduction of government bills, at which time the motion of adjournment may be moved, followed by the 30-minute adjournment debate. Motion agreed to.

MATTERS OF PUBLIC INTEREST

Electricity Supply Mr SPRINGBORG (Southern Downs—NPA) (Leader of the Opposition) (8.20 p.m): After a day of bluff and bluster from this government and after weeks of bluff and bluster from this government we are still no closer to finding out who is responsible for the electricity crisis in Queensland. Today, we have sat through a whole range of excuses from Mr Beattie and a range of his ministers and backbenchers. They have been standing up making excuses for this electricity crisis. He has not told us who is responsible for it. After all of this today he has not told us who was responsible for this. He has not told us whether he was lied to. He has not told us who told who what. He has not told us that. All he has done is stood there and said, 'Mea culpa, but I am not going to tell you how this whole crisis unfolded and why the people of Queensland were put through the inconvenience of blackouts through the early part of this year and last Friday night.' Quite frankly, we have had to sit through the ignominy, we have had to sit through the spectacle of Mr Beattie congratulating himself and backbenchers congratulating the government on its appalling performance. What that basically means is today we have seen members of this government congratulating themselves for blackouts. We have seen this government commending itself for the blackouts. What do the people of Queensland think? What do those people out there think who have suffered the problems and who have suffered the inconvenience of blackouts, whether it be throwing out food, whether it is not having the convenience of being able to flick a light switch to be able to see where they are going, or the people in my electorate who last Friday night were suffering in the cold if they had to rely upon electricity to be able to heat their homes and who were unable to do so because of the blackout? There has been no explanation today from Mr Beattie or his government members as to who was responsible for this particular crisis. We have heard a lot of promises about fixing it. We have heard a lot of promises about how good it is because it had a report done in the Somerville report, which, quite frankly, it had no choice but to do. What did it expose? We know what it exposed, because quite frankly it exposed the hypocrisy and the lies from Mr Beattie and the members opposite who said that the problems were all about flying foxes and little furry animals and cars hitting powerlines. We now know from Mr Somerville that that was a lie, because 57 per cent of last summer's outages were brought about because of the lack of investment in refurbishments, maintenance and upgrades of the power distribution system across Queensland. Mr McGrady walked into this place earlier today and said that this issue had not been raised before, that this issue had not been raised by the opposition earlier. I have done a little bit of a search in the short time available to me, and on 1 February prior to the state election I issued a press release saying that power companies should concentrate on supply. That followed the revelations of the ripping out of the dividends and the effects that this was having on the distribution network. The then Deputy Leader of the Coalition, Bob Quinn, issued a press release on 30 January saying that Beattie should apologise to blackout victims. Again, on 31 January 2004 the then Deputy Leader of the Coalition, Bob Quinn, put out a press release about blackout delays due to government raids. We were raising it earlier. When Mr Beattie was clutching his heart and wringing his hands and saying that there was not a problem, we were saying that there was a problem. Again, there was a press release from the then coalition on 1 February saying that Beattie needs to shed light on energy bonuses. This followed the storm crisis that contributed to the failure and the breakdown of the distribution system which, as we know now, was at least caused 57 per cent of the time because of the failure of this government to sufficiently upgrade, maintain and refurbish the system. Let us hear no more nonsense from the government about how good it is. Let us hear no more nonsense at all. The other thing is that we have seen lots of challenges in the media and also in this parliament today for all members to better acquaint themselves with the real facts. When we exposed six weeks ago that the power companies in Queensland were at least $4.6 billion in debt, what did Mr Beattie say? He could not repudiate it at all. He said, 'We should be better briefed.' He said that we would be better briefed. He could not repudiate it, because it was in his own documents. We got them under FOI. But we have been waiting ever since that to have a briefing from Ergon. We have been waiting ever since that time to have a briefing from Energex. We have been waiting ever since that time for a briefing from 1818 Matters of Public Interest 17 Aug 2004

Powerlink, from CS Energy, from Enertrade, from Stanwell, you name it. We have been waiting all of that time. There has been nothing—nary a word from Mr Beattie and nary a word from those electricity chiefs. Mr Beattie knows that he has to keep those people under wraps because otherwise he runs the risk of those people letting the cat further out of the bag. We know that together they can concoct and maintain the lie, but apart the whole fabric of their stories starts to fall apart. I just say to Mr Beattie: no more of your stunts. If you are true to your word, then you will arrange for the energy chiefs to come in and brief myself as leader of the Nationals and the National shadow cabinet when next we meet so that we have the opportunity to be able to question them to really understand what is going on in Queensland. But you will not do that because you are hiding something. You are hiding a lot and you do not want to have that exposed. What we have seen again today from this government is more promises and more promises and more promises. As we have discovered from this government, words are cheap but after a while they really mean nothing because you do not see the actions. The proof of this government's commitment is going to be some time down the track. It is going to be this storm season. It is going to be the storm season after. It is going to be subsequent times to that when we see the full extent of any power failures in the future. We also know that the electricity demand this summer is going to be seven per cent higher than the previous summer. We also know that in the following summer it is going to be at least seven per cent higher again. So how is this government going to be able to fix that crisis with cheap words? We are yet to see if its actions are going to properly match its words, and the opposition will be doing its level best to keep the government accountable to its words for the people of Queensland. The people of Queensland demand better from this government. The people of Queensland demand a power supply which is reliable and which is a 21st century power supply—not a 19th century power supply but a 21st century power supply. What has been proven by this government's management or mismanagement of the electricity system is that we have a Third World power supply system in Queensland. Let us look at the strategic plan for summer 2004-05 from Energex. This is typical. It is the sort of Beattie government spin machine that is typical of it. What is contained in the introduction? It says that one of the crucial ways of addressing this crisis is increasing the use of mass media as a communication medium to customers for information regarding power outages. We have seen that over the last few weeks in Queensland. We have seen the spin cycle. We have seen a whole lot of spin. We have seen a lot of smoke and mirrors, but we have not seen too much light from this government. What we have not heard today from Mr Mackenroth or Mr Robertson or Mr Beattie is how much it is going to cost to fix this crisis which is of their own making. We have not heard that. We have not heard if it is $200 million. We have not heard if it is $300 million. We have not heard if it is $500 million. We have not heard if it is $1 billion. We have not heard if it is $2 billion, because the government knows that it is going to cost an absolute motza. We have already had admissions that to fix the Brisbane CBD alone, or at least start down that path, it is going to cost at least $139 million. We had today in this place Mr Mackenroth repudiate calls from the Nationals to stop taking the dividends until such time that our electricity distribution system in Queensland is in a healthy state. Why would he repudiate that? Why if you are serious about fixing this problem would you vote against any moves whatsoever that would ensure that that money stayed with Ergon and Energex and assisted them in being able to meet the distribution needs of power consumers in Queensland? We now know that this government is becoming more and more reliant on the proceeds of those dividends just to balance its budget. That is why it does not want to give it away. So the government is going to have a trickle-feed system in Queensland providing a second-class distribution system for power in this state because it does not want to take its hands out of the pockets of Ergon and Energex. If the government was serious, it would actually do that. I refer to what the Productivity Commission said with regard to the dividend take and the take from Energex in particular. Time expired. North Queensland Cowboys Rugby League Team; Adoption Ms NELSON-CARR (Mundingburra—ALP) (8.35 p.m.): Tonight I rise to speak about a matter of extreme importance, and it is about petitions. I have to say that petitions are the work of dedicated constituents and they actually work. They are all about people power. Today, I tabled a petition with nearly 500 signatures created by one of my constituents regarding the erasing of parents' names from birth certificates after adoption. Before I get on to making a serious speech about this practice, can I say that recently the Cowboys celebrated its 10th anniversary of being part of the National Rugby League. It has a very strong and committed supporters club. As we all know, currently the hot issue is free-to-air television coverage of games. The Townsville Bulletin and the Cowboys organised a petition, which was delivered 17 Aug 2004 Matters of Public Interest 1819 to Channel 9 earlier this month, requesting that the Cowboys feature on free-to-air televised games in the future. Over 12,000 people signed that petition. Their persistence has paid off as the Cowboys' round 25 away game versus the West Tigers on Sunday, 29 August will now be shown on Channel 9. I will get down to the more serious business about which I was unaware as was my constituent, Nellie McLennan, until a few years ago. Nellie was adopted by her stepmother when she was 14 years old after her birth mother tragically died when she was four. Members could imagine how shocked she was to discover a few years ago that her biological mother's name had been erased from her official birth certificate. Later in her life Nellie needed a passport, for which she needed her official birth certificate. But that certificate showed that only her stepmother's name was on her birth certificate. Although Nellie is very quick to point out that no disrespect is intended to her stepmother, she does not recognise the person listed on her birth certificate as her mother. Nellie does not believe that her stepmother has earned the right to be there. The Adoption of Children Act 1964 states that after making an adoption order in favour of a child's step-parent, the step-parent becomes the child's permanent legal parent. A new birth certificate is issued, which names the child's custodial birth parent and the step-parent as the child's parents just as though the child had been born to them. The birth parent's name is permanently removed from the child's birth certificate after adoption. After the adoption order is made, the child's original birth certificate is sealed in the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages and cannot be released except with the authorisation of the chief executive under section 39C of the Adoption of Children Act 1964 or under an order of the Supreme Court. Nellie requested a copy of her original birth certificate, which was duly issued. However, in accordance with the requirements of section 39C(a) of the act, the copy of the original birth certificate that is issued to the adopted person must be marked ‘not to be used for official purposes'. The act makes no provision for an adopted person's original birth certificate to be issued without the instruction ‘not to be used for official purposes'. When Nellie's own situation came to light, she discovered that she was not alone. Many adults have requested that their adoption order be discharged and that their step-parent's name be removed from their birth certificate, substituting their birth parent's name. In other words, they have requested that their birth parent's name be reinstated. Under the current act, there is no provision for an adoption order to be discharged after an adopted person attains 18 years of age. There are several issues of concern about this practice, but the most offensive issue is that it represents an incorrect record and, most importantly, it is disrespectful to the deceased parent and their child. Deleting a birth parent's name from a birth certificate may lead ultimately to a gross anomaly, problems associated with untrue family genealogy and the severing of family ties with existing relatives. It can also be misleading when searches are made for relevant medical knowledge and can even create problems on a deep personal level by creating an identity crisis. Both Nellie and I believe that it is vitally important for people to know where they come from and to know their history. In order for people to know their personal history and for their birth certificate to be a true record, Nellie argues that, in the case of a step-parent or relative adoption, both the birth parent and the step-parent should be listed on the birth certificate, particularly if the birth parent is deceased. I am heartened to know that the Adoption of Children Act 1964 is currently being reviewed. That is great news. I believe that issues associated with amending adopted persons' birth certificates after the making of an adoption order will be considered in the review process of the adoption legislation. I would respectfully request that the minister consider this sensible proposal. It would be a huge step in the right direction. Nellie McLennan is a champion. She has been dogged in her pursuit of justice and at no time has she let her frustration with an outdated law make her give up. She has always conducted herself with dignity and we have become friends. I believe that, as the petition indicates, this practice of deliberately erasing a biological parent's name on a birth certificate is ethically wrong and hurtful. I hope that this disrespectful and misleading practice be reviewed and amended. This change will be give people like Nellie— Time expired. Ipswich Motorway Mr LIVINGSTONE (Ipswich West—ALP) (8.38 p.m.): Ipswich is in the news almost every day for the wrong reasons. The region is being held back because two major cities are joined by just one road. An independent study commissioned by the Courier-Mail has revealed that the Ipswich Motorway is Queensland's worst stretch of road with commuters facing a 50-50 chance of striking delays due to accidents on any given day. The federal member for Blair, Cameron Thompson, would like the public to believe that the construction of a northern option to the Ipswich Motorway is the answer to major traffic congestion. I can 1820 Matters of Public Interest 17 Aug 2004 describe it only as bizarre. The major growth that is occurring in Ipswich is not to the north, but to the south. The state government is responsible for building a road to the south. That work will commence next year. Plans are being drawn up now. We will not dodge our responsibility, as the federal government is, with the Ipswich Motorway. The Ipswich Motorway is a National Highway. As such, it needs to be dealt with as a matter of urgency by the federal government. It must be increased to six lanes with a large number of service roads. That needs to be done now. Service roads will take something like one in five cars off the Ipswich Motorway. People travelling from Ipswich to Brisbane or vice versa do not always wish to go the full distance. Some want to go to Goodna, Jindalee, Wacol, Darra or Inala. Contrary to what Cameron Thompson is telling people, cars will not be dodging bulldozers while the work is being done. As the motorway is reconstructed, sections will be closed and traffic diverted onto service roads. Traffic will continue to flow at speeds as it did when the Gold Coast Motorway was being built. At the time of the construction of the Gold Coast Motorway, some three minutes was added to the length of time it took to travel from Brisbane to the Gold Coast. So there is no logical reason why we cannot have the same traffic flow while the Ipswich Motorway is being constructed. The work will be completed in five years, not eight years as stated by Cameron Thompson, who also claims that the road will be a bottleneck by the time it is completed. However, project planners claim that a reconstructed Ipswich Motorway will have a serviceable life beyond 2021. After those roads have been completed, we should look at a northern option. But that northern option should not be an alternative but in addition to the Ipswich Motorway. The northern option should not be designed by members of parliament. We must have traffic engineers looking at the big picture: future growth in the western suburbs of Brisbane and bottlenecks like Moggill Road. I can only say to residents in my area that if they want the Ipswich Motorway and major roadworks done in their area, at this next federal election they must put John Howard last. They should put all of their politics to one side. At the moment the population of Ipswich is in the vicinity of 137,000 people. By the year 2021, the population will have exploded to in excess of 240,000. We regularly hear people saying that members of parliament from different levels of government and from different political parties should be able to get together to try to resolve some of the problems. In this case, almost everybody is in agreement: the Liberal Party in Queensland agrees, the state government agrees, the federal opposition agrees and the local council agrees. The only person who does not agree is John Howard. Another area of concern to me relates to a lot of struggling families who have children in child care facilities. What happens when they get into these massive delays on the Ipswich Motorway? It costs parents something like $1 for every minute they are late to pick up their kids. That just simply cannot continue. I just plead with people to put their politics to one side and to put John Howard last.

A2 Milk Mr HOPPER (Darling Downs—NPA) (8.40 p.m.): On 11 September 2002, A2 Dairy Marketers Pty Ltd was formed by directors Lindsay Stewart and Phil Roberts. A2 Dairy Marketers Pty Ltd is a Brisbane based company located at Upper Mount Gravatt. A2 milk made its debut in the Queensland marketplace on the shelves of Coles, Woolworths, BI-LO, Action and major independents on 2 May 2004, with the product selling out every day. From early childhood milk is a major part of our diet, but new scientific research now tells us that cow's milk could be—and I emphasise could be—causing coronary heart disease, childhood diabetes, autism and even schizophrenia. Great Queenslander Dr Julie Campbell's research has found links between normal milk and animal heart and stomach disorders, but further studies are needed. The results have shown that the potential of A2 milk is to be protective. The apparent problem lies with one of the major proteins in cow's milk called A1 beta-casein. Milk containing this—the normal milk we drink—is known as A1 milk. The milk without it is called A2. It is all to do with the type of cow. In most herds there is a mix of cows. Certain breeds such as Friesians produce mainly A1 milk, while others such as Jerseys and more particularly Guernseys produce mainly A2 milk. So in Australia our milk is normally a mixture of A1 and A2 milk. A2 milk from cows is isolated by DNA tests. Since the deregulation of the dairy industry, hundreds and maybe even thousands of farmers have walked off the land. A2 Dairy Marketers knows that we do not have a product without the farmers and, therefore, we are giving farmers a higher farm gate price of up to 50c a litre. This has already provided financial relief for farmers and has resulted in farmers considering going back to the farm. A2 Dairy Marketers has done the right thing by presenting its milk to Dairy Australia and inviting other milk companies to become a part of its great project. All of them have treated the company with disregard. In fact, the industry itself did everything in its power to ensure A2 milk's launch into the marketplace was an extremely difficult one, with complaints being made by the industry bodies and 17 Aug 2004 Matters of Public Interest 1821 subsequent investigations by Queensland Health and the ACCC. Major dairy companies are also going to great lengths to say that farmers who dual supply A2 milk will not have their milk collected on farm. This is a great Australian company that is further expanding its operations on 30 August to South Australia, up to Rockhampton, out to Dalby and Chinchilla and down to Grafton. It is a company that already employs 40 staff and is ever expanding. It is a company that, for once, is fighting for our farmers, ensuring that they get top dollar for their milk. It is a company that is giving consumers a healthier choice, but in no way is denigrating. The final statement shows how good this company is. It has piles of research that states all the negatives about A1 milk—the milk that we are currently drinking—but, rather than go on and say that normal milk will kill you, they say that all milk is good and theirs is just better than good. On Tuesday evening Today Tonight featured another story on the health benefits of A2 milk and, in particular, the latest research from Professor Boyd Swinburn, professor of public nutrition in the School of Health Sciences, Deakin University, Melbourne. Now, emerging reports suggest that the New Zealand Food Safety Authority has not only falsified Professor Boyd Swinburn's report on the health benefits of A2 milk but also systematically misled the public of New Zealand into believing that Swinburn concluded that A1 milk was safe. I am not saying that it is not safe; I am saying that this is what happened. The NZFSA released an altered version of Professor Swinburn's original report which has deceived consumers into believing that A1 milk was proven safe when Swinburn's report reaches no such conclusion. These are the kind of battles that A2 Dairy Marketers is facing. I say that the big companies are scared. They are extremely scared of what is happening because since the deregulation of the dairy industry farmers have been slaughtered. They have been paid a very low price. We now have an answer to deregulation whereby people are selling a product that is returning a farm gate price to farmers of up to 50c a litre. We do not want people trying to stop this from happening. The customers are buying it. It is good and it will get better all the time. At clearing sales cows of this genetic type are bringing up to $1,500 when the average price used to be $800 or $900. Things are happening in the dairy industry. This should be totally promoted and supported. Let us hope it is a proven benefit to health.

Queensland Multicultural Festival Ms STRUTHERS (Algester—ALP) (8.45 p.m.): The world is enjoying the thrilling action of the Olympics in Athens. The Olympics also offers us all a timely opportunity to reflect on world conflict and use this great sporting competition to promote multicultural relations. Millions of people around the world shared the joy when the Iraq soccer team, which struggled to make it to the Olympics with its country shattered by war, upset the star-studded Portugal team 4-2 last Thursday in a gritty, come-from-behind victory. The Olympics can be a powerful, positive force for building tolerance, multiculturalism and harmony. In Queensland we are making our own contribution to bringing the world together. On 10 October this year a great new initiative to promote Queensland's cultural diversity is being staged in Brisbane— the Queensland Multicultural Festival: A world of difference. I know that the Premier is proud to be staging this event, which will be held at the Roma Street Parkland. Throughout the day there will be food, music, art, dance and other performances from ethnic, cultural and indigenous groups. This event is for all Queenslanders, and the government encourages ethnic community groups to make the inaugural Queensland Multicultural Festival a huge success. Community groups can show off their culture by participating in music, dance ceremonies, outdoor activities, crafts and many more. However, there is more. As part of the festival a new photographic awards scheme is about to be announced. Competition details will be released this Friday. The awards boast prize money of $25,000. Like the festival, the new photographic awards will promote the theme that Queensland's 'world of difference' enriches life in our great state. This exciting Queensland government initiative celebrates Queensland's diversity and the strength of our rich cultural communities through photography. The Beattie government has committed $325,000 in new funding to the festival and photographic awards, which are designed to strengthen and unite the Smart State. On behalf of the Premier I invite all Queenslanders to get involved in these events. We can each in our own way make a world of difference by embracing multiculturalism, by welcoming and extending the hand of humanity to refugees and migrants. These determined efforts by the Queensland government stand in stark contrast to the determined efforts of the Howard federal government. What we see from the Howard government is determined efforts to demonise people from other cultures through its lies about children overboard and through its irresponsible fear-mongering about refugees. These lies and demonising have embarrassed and tarnished our international reputation as a tolerant community. I am delighted that Premier Peter Beattie is actively supporting this new multicultural strategy, including the festival and photographic awards. We all can and must make a world of difference by valuing and supporting our cultural diversity. 1822 Matters of Public Interest 17 Aug 2004

I encourage all members to promote the photographic awards and the festival on 10 October in their own local areas and encourage all local groups to get involved. Multicultural Affairs Queensland, which has the lead agency responsibility for promoting multiculturalism in Queensland, is organising these events. I encourage members to get in touch with MAQ and encourage their community groups to get in touch with MAQ and make these great events a huge success. Cosmopolitan Magazine Mrs LIZ CUNNINGHAM (Gladstone—Ind) (8.47 p.m.): Last Saturday in our local paper Mr Warren Hooper raised his concerns in relation to the easy access to unsuitable material in magazines. The article states— Boyne Island father of five, Warren Hooper is disgusted that young teenagers can get their hands on magazines teaching oral sex techniques. Mr Hooper said he was stunned to see the September edition of a popular women's magazine had graphic photos and editorial on this sexual matter. The magazine Warren Hooper is referring to is the September issue of Cosmopolitan. This magazine had a so-called sealed section giving graphic details on oral sex. For the purposes of bringing his concerns to this House I attempted to purchase a copy of the magazine this morning to table in this chamber. After checking three newsagents I found that it was sold out. Honourable members interjected. Mrs LIZ CUNNINGHAM: It is not a laughing matter. If members listened to the concerns of this father they would realise that they are genuine. One newsagent said that he sold out of stock within four days and could not order any more because they were unavailable. The local paper quoted Mr Hooper as saying— There was a big description on the front cover telling about the articles inside. I want parents to be aware of what their children can have access to. You try to bring children up steering them away from this, but it is difficult when it is so easily available. The Observer contacted newsagents who also confirmed that there were no age restrictions on this type of magazine. I believe the magazine editors would say that they are targeting a young adult demographic. Two ladies who were interviewed by the paper more or less said that if they—that is, younger children—want to read it they should be able to. However, two men—one a father—interviewed also expressed concern at the unrestricted access to such material. In today's Observer there was a letter to the editor also from a lady who lives locally saying that the issue that Mr Hooper raised reflected a double standard. That is, she referred to the fact that for years quite young boys have been accessing magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse and she more or less stated this was just the opposite to that. However, I believe most parents would be concerned at the unrestricted access to material which is clearly adult in nature. Indeed, there would be quite a few who would question the need for some of the information contained in the magazines to be publicly available to any demographic. The problem or the concern that has been raised is the uncontrolled or open access to such material. I spoke with Warren, who advised that the current issue of other women's magazines such as CLEO also contained similar articles. Each member in this chamber has expressed in some way concerns in relation to child safety and child protection. It is disappointing to me that our children seem to be required to grow up so quickly now. We have to alert them to threats to their personal safety from a very early age. On that basis, often their innocence and their ability to enjoy their childhood has been compromised for their own protection. Mr Hooper, along with others, has called for restricted access to materials such as is contained in the September issue of Cosmopolitan, and many in my electorate agree with that call. He believes that an 18-plus classification should be imposed on magazines, whether they are targeting the female readers or male readers, which have a content which is clearly adult in nature. I support Mr Hooper's call and look forward to the Queensland government reviewing its position in relation to access to material in Queensland which is clearly of an adult nature and needs some restriction. National Party Policy Ms MALE (Glass House—ALP) (8.52 p.m.): Tonight I want to talk about an elusive, chameleon- like creature called National Party policy. At the recent National Party state conference and during the media-fuelled frenzy over the electricity industry, the Opposition Leader, Lawrence Springborg, announced that he would abolish all the electricity and power generation government owned corporations. It is a bold, if somewhat pointless, policy corner Mr Springborg has painted himself into. At the National Party state conference on 30 July Mr Springborg issued a press release which said, 'Unelected and unaccountable electricity corporations will be abolished under a Springborg Nationals government and responsibility for electricity supply and generation will return to the government.' We all know that the National Party is full of agrarian socialists, but Springborg's plan to departmentalise the electricity distribution and generation companies is pure fantasy in the present market but something that Joseph Stalin would have been proud of. 17 Aug 2004 Matters of Public Interest 1823

Let us look at Springborg's grand plan closely. Queensland would lose massive amounts of funding because the federal government would have no choice but to withhold competition payments. Strike one. I would like Mr Springborg to explain how a government department or minister would be able to run Queensland's contribution to the highly volatile national electricity market where a department will be competing with private energy providers. Will the minister or director-general be deciding the hourly generation rates for Queensland's input into the electricity grid, or will it be left up to a public servant in the department to make those billion-dollar decisions? If so, how is Mr Springborg going to attract the expertise needed for those decisions on Public Service pay rates? Already GOCs' pay rates are below the standard in the private sector but well above those paid to public servants including DGs. Is he going to establish a special class of well-paid public servants authorised to trade on the national electricity market, and if they make a billion-dollar mistake will the minister happily take the fall for it? We did see the National Party trying to blame our current Treasurer for the downturn in world markets. Would it be prepared to take responsibility for losses for which it ostensibly had control? Strike two. The ACCC would also take a very dim view on combining generation and distribution under one hat. It would breach all types of provisions under the Trade Practices Act. Strike three. Isn't it the National Party who has the 'three strikes and you're out' rule? But I digress. It is interesting to note that it was a National-Liberal government which set up the current GOC framework for the electricity industry. One of the people who spoke in glowing terms about how great this new system would be when the legislation was before parliament in 1997 was Mr Springborg himself. He now thinks it is an absolute shambles and a poor governance model. However, at the time the Borbidge-Sheldon government was proposing to break up the electricity industry into GOCs, the Labor Party opposed the move, saying that the then system was working well and that the government's moves were a precursor to privatising the industry. Thankfully, the Borbidge-Sheldon government was thrown out at the 1998 election and never had the chance to sell off the electricity industry as their commission of audit report recommended, and as they did with Suncorp Metway. So what has changed to transform Mr Springborg's thinking? I think it is just political opportunism at its worst and Mr Springborg knows he would never implement the policy. I am not saying that the present structure is perfect because there is always room for improvement. For instance, electricity distribution could be separated from the retail arm because there are certainly conflicts between the two sections and it can be a distraction for management. For example, on one hand, we have Energex and Ergon saying the growth in airconditioners has led to high demands on their system, yet we have their retail arms encouraging more people to buy airconditioners. I believe we should have a GOC solely focused on the distribution network. It would be a sensible reform aimed at ensuring we get the distribution network right without the board and CEO being sidetracked by retail considerations. In my own electorate of Glass House, Energex has worked hard to meet the requirements of my constituents. There have been particular problems with the distribution network in the Glasshouse, Beerwah and Mooloolah areas, but each time these problems have been highlighted to Energex, to their credit, they have sat down with my constituents to work out a solution. Whether it was building a new substation at Beerwah or bringing the construction of a new transformer forward at Mooloolah and, in a recent instance, doing extensive vegetation management work, Energex were prepared to make the necessary improvements and they were also prepared to front up and talk to the local residents. It is proof that, as has been highlighted in the Somerville report, extra focus needs to be concentrated on certain areas of the network and this is what the government is doing. Mr Springborg's proposals, however, are sheer lunacy and are akin to trying to unscramble an omelette. It seems that whenever he is presented with a problem he wants to trash the whole system and take us back to Sir Joh's days. For a leader who is supposed to be young and progressive, Mr Springborg is determined to wind the clock back in a whole range of policy areas. He certainly likes to see himself as trendy, but in reality his ideas are firmly entrenched in the 1970s when he was growing up. After watching his entirely inappropriate comments on the news during the last week, he obviously has a lot more growing up to do yet. Fishing Industry Mr HORAN (Toowoomba South—NPA) (8.57 p.m.): The Queensland government's fish enclosures in inshore waters adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park are going to have a devastating effect on recreational and commercial fishermen and hundreds of jobs associated with the seafood industry for little or no environmental or scientific reason. This plan will affect 600 kilometres of coastline between Baffle Creek near Bundaberg right up to Cape York, banning amateurs from fishing along beaches and shutting down key commercial fishing grounds. The plans will, in particular, hurt barramundi and mud crab fishermen and their families. The Beattie government and Environment Minister, John Mickel, have been making a range of misleading claims about their plan. They have been trying to suggest the federal government is forcing 1824 Matters of Public Interest 17 Aug 2004 the state government to match Commonwealth zoning in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in state waters. They have been saying that the federal government should provide compensation for the state's decision to close these fishing areas. This is utter and complete nonsense and a fact confirmed publicly on numerous occasions by federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell and in correspondence with the fishing industry. In a media release on 12 August, Senator Campbell stated that at no time did the Commonwealth request Premier Peter Beattie or Minister John Mickel to take any action whatsoever within Queensland waters to mirror the Commonwealth's recent rezoning plan. Senator Campbell went on to say, ‘I have written to the Queensland government and asked them to match the Commonwealth's structural adjustment package. They have refused that financial support to the fishing industry and the fishermen themselves.' Despite all the Beattie government's attempts to bring these changes in under the radar, trying to pass the buck to the Commonwealth, it is clear these fish enclosures are a state government decision and it is the state government's responsibility to compensate affected fishers. The state plan has been condemned by recreational and commercial fishers alike. A sample of some of the public comments made by the fishing industry include the following— Closing huge strips of inshore waters to commercial fishing, and in many cases to recreational fishing as well, will force large numbers of operators out of the industry, right through from fishing operations and processors and related businesses. That was from the Queensland Seafood Industry Association CEO, Duncan Souter, in the Herbert River Express on 31 July. What it will do is totally wipe out costal fishing in Cook Shire, with the exception of Princess Charlotte Bay. That was from the Cape York Marine Advisory Group chair, Ian McCollum, in the Cooktown Local News on 28 July. This is an unfair attack on our way of life—for as long as I can remember it's been the great Aussie tradition for parents to take their kids down to the beach for some fishing and now it seems like we can't even do that anymore. That was from Sunfish North Queensland president, Brian Pickup, in the Pioneer News on 29 July. The Queensland Boating Industry Association said yesterday recreational fishing families will be hardest hit by the proposal to shut another 20 per cent of the state's recreational fishing grounds. That was a report in the Townsville Bulletin on 29 July. Through my consultation with commercial fisherman I have learnt that there are some 20 to 30 key fishing grounds where closures will have a detrimental effect and impact on their industry. These range from areas in Cape York such as Temple Bay and Port Stewart through to areas around Hinchinbrook Island, Cape Pallarenda and Cleveland Bay near Townsville, Pioneer Bay near Airlie Beach down to Broadsound and Shoalwater Bay north of Yeppoon. Primary Industries and Fisheries Minister, Henry Palaszczuk, has been sadly missing in action on this issue and, as usual, he refuses to stand up for Queensland fishing families. In fact, all we have heard from the Fisheries Minister is comments on ABC Radio on 4 August that he does not believe there will be a major impact. The minister even claimed, ‘I am sure commercial fishers later on will really appreciate what we did.' Imagine the hurt that is happening to families now. What about fishermen today? The government is quite happy to throw them on the scrap heap with no compensation in its obscene chase for green votes. We have members of parliament such as the members for Whitsunday, Cook, Mackay, Thuringowa and Keppel, to name a few, sitting silently while their hard-working constituents are left high and dry by this callous state government. These closures are not chickenfeed, as the Premier heartlessly suggested. These closures are going to cost jobs, putting fishing families and others who rely on a vibrant local seafood industry out of business. The assault does not end there, with the Primary Industries Minister stating that the Beattie government will look at further restricting inshore commercial and recreational fishing through the proposed east coast inshore finfish management plan. It is time the government stopped this never- ending assault on Queensland commercial fishermen and started basing its decision on the true science, honesty, accuracy and real consultation rather than this dishonest, dismissive approach we have seen to date. It is time the government stood back and took a deep breath and tried to help these commercial and recreational fishing families and the industries along the coast, and brought a bit of science and accuracy into this whole debate. This is going to be an environmental disaster. They are forcing more fishers into fewer and fewer areas. Mr Schwarten: The honourable member is misleading the House. The intent of any green zones came from the Commonwealth, his tory mates in Canberra. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr O'Brien): Order! Time for the honourable member has expired. I call the member for Toowoomba North. Mr HORAN: A point of order. I take objection to what the minister said. The green zones are in the Great Barrier Reef. The complementary zones I have spoken about are between the high water and low water mark and are the entire province of the state government, and the state government had— 17 Aug 2004 Matters of Public Interest 1825

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, there is no point of order. The member will resume his seat. I call the member for Toowoomba North. Toowoomba, Police Services; Ergon Mr SHINE (Toowoomba North—ALP) (9.03 p.m.): Tonight I would like to speak on two topics. One is the performance of the Toowoomba police and the other is with respect to Ergon plans with respect to my electorate. Policing in Toowoomba has been a major priority of mine since being elected to the seat of Toowoomba North in 2001. During that time I have been involved in a number of important developments for the Toowoomba police district, such as securing a new Toowoomba police complex valued at $20 million and the soon-to-be-opened Highfields Police Beat. These developments demonstrate the Beattie government's commitment to policing in Toowoomba and surrounding areas, and I commend the government's response to my calls for improved policing facilities in our area. Today I want to speak about the outstanding performance of the Toowoomba police and relay the excellent results they have achieved over the past 12 months. In several major prime areas the Toowoomba police district has demonstrated a huge lift in positive results for the region. Areas such as drug abuse detection, unlawful use of motor vehicles and unlawful entry offences have seen a marked improvement, and the safety of Toowoomba and district citizens has increased and in many cases Toowoomba statistics are better than the state average. Drug abuse is a very real issue in our society. It is in the best interest of society that those involved with supplying and taking drugs are detected and dealt with appropriately. The performance of Toowoomba police in this area has been exceptional, especially since the introduction of the tactical crime squad in April last year. In 2002 there had been an eight per cent increase in drug detection in the Toowoomba police district from the previous year. In 2003 there was a further 32 per cent increase, which equates to approximately 1,532 offences detected. I believe the culmination of new policing facilities, increased numbers of police and the introduction of the Toowoomba Tactical Crime Squad have been major factors in this amazing lift in performance in regard to drug related offences. In 2001-02 we saw a 26 per cent decrease in unlawful use of motor vehicles offences from the previous year. This rate has been held stable since that time. The current clear-up rate for unlawful use offences for the Toowoomba district is 35 per cent, 11 per cent above the state average. Since 2001 there has been a constant decrease in the number of unlawful entry offences in the Toowoomba police district. In 2002 there was a 22 per cent decrease in the number of offences of this nature. In 2003 there was a further decrease with a total decrease of 26 per cent, or 762 fewer offences. Of course, this is a great start. There is clearly more to be done. I feel it is important that we praise the Toowoomba police for their outstanding work and continue to support them so they can tackle the tough issues in our society. In particular I want to thank Inspector Gary Wells for the great assistance he has given me in my office over the last three years, and Constable Adrian Zorzi for his updates on police matters in Highfields. There are, of course, too many officers to mention, but I am particularly grateful for the support and cooperation from Constable Wayne Mackay, who is the East Beat police officer; constables Cam Crisp and Scott McGrath from crime prevention; Damien Borger, the Harlaxton neighbourhood police officer; Tommy Scowl at Newtown; Darryl Dunston at Wilsonton; and Peter Campbell at the shopping centre in Grand Central. I want to also want pay tribute to the former minister, Tony McGrady, as well as, of course, to the Hon. Judy Spence, the current minister. I just want to mention some projects that Ergon have with respect to my electorate following on recent events. The previous minister, Mr Lucas, ensured that a new 11kV line was installed at Highfields, and then in December last year a new 33kV line from Torrington to Meringandan was also installed. This alleviated problems associated with the expansion of that area. In the line now are further works to be done at Torrington to the tune of $1,199,000; another extension of a kV bus at Torrington, $225,000; Crows Nest transformer upgrade, $900,000; at eastern Darlings Downs, replacement of Krone switch gear, $150,000; and at Toowoomba Westbrook, a new feeder 11kV augmentation to supply Westbrook township and reduce the load on Isa Street to the tune of $558,000. It can be seen that Ergon has, in the southern region, planned extensively for upgrades and expansion of its services for the people of Toowoomba and the Darling Downs. I am pleased to see that happening, as well as, of course, carrying out a vegetation management program along lines previously established. Time expired. Coolangatta Special School Mrs STUCKEY (Currumbin—Lib) (9.08 p.m.): In speaking on this matter of public interest I refer to the Coolangatta Special School. This school has built post World War I in 1919 on top of Kirra Hill, 1826 Matters of Public Interest 17 Aug 2004 making it the third school constructed on the south coastal area of Queensland. Today it contains some of the oldest buildings in the southern Gold Coast and holds many fond memories for many of the surviving locals who live nearby. It was built as a state school. However, in 1977, when the facilities could no longer accommodate the growing number of enrolments, a new school was built in Stapleton Street, Kirra. The old bell was moved to the new site, where it still rings out class sessions each day. The facilities on Kirra Hill were then transformed in 1978 into the current special school. In recent years the enrolments have exceeded the facility's capabilities and the buildings themselves have become run down. The state government has agreed to build a new special school in the Currumbin Valley. The question on everyone's lips is what will now become of this historic site. Minister Bligh has been very tight-lipped about what the government intends to do at this site. The minister's almost secret meeting on 28 June with a small number of parents caused a public outcry from the general community that it had not been consulted about plans for the school's future and, more importantly, the fate of the now surplus site. The state government needs to keep in mind that many of the residents attended the school long before it catered for children with special needs and many feel extremely protective of this magnificent parcel of land with its multimillion-dollar views. The local community agrees with the minister that the current site is no longer suitable to cater for the highly specialised needs of the children who currently attend the school and are glad that they will gain a brand new, purpose-built facility. The school's enrolment of 95 pupils is the highest it has ever been. This figure is expected to grow, rendering the current facilities even less appropriate. What the community does not agree with is the notion of closed-door negotiations, which they feel will occur—if they have not already started— between the state government and developers. The last thing the community wants is for the land to be sold off to the highest bidder. This would cause the old historic building to be torn down and probably be replaced with yet another high-rise. The minister has recently deemed the site as surplus to the Education Department's needs and has stated that the future of the site will be dealt with through the government's asset management process. Is this political jargon for selling it off to the highest bidder? I certainly hope not. The community has been extremely vocal about what it would like to happen to the Kirra Hill site. There appears to be unanimous agreement that the premises should be preserved for the benefit of the community. Suggestions that have already been put forward are for a surfing museum, a centre to house precious historic memorabilia, a restaurant, tearooms and an observatory. Kirra is world renowned as a serious contender for Australia's surfing capital and attracts tourists and board riders from all walks of life to the area. Currently, there are surfing museums in both Victoria and New South Wales but none in Queensland, to date. Quicksilver, Australia's largest surfwear manufacturer, helps to organise exhibitions in England and Japan to showcase collectors' surfing memorabilia. The southern Gold Coast has an abundance of collectors who I am sure would love to have somewhere local to display boards, photos, books and artworks relating to Queensland's prestigious surfing history. The president of the Coolangatta and Environs Heritage Group has expressed a desire that the site become a gallery for multiple purposes. It would be an ideal location to embrace the story of the first Aboriginal people in the area. The site has great meaning to the Ngarakwal people, as it is the basis of an ancient dreaming story. The 85-year-old building is big enough to cater for a variety of displays, some of which may be stationary, such as the Aboriginal history and the surfing culture displays, and others may be travelling around Australia and need a home for a month or two. As a result of the keen interest and sense of belonging felt by so many residents, I have joined forces with the southern Gold Coast Chamber of Commerce to host a public meeting on Wednesday, 24 August at 5.30 p.m. at the Coolangatta Bowls Club so that local residents have an opportunity to put forward their suggestions for this historic site. Minister Bligh has already been invited and I hope that she takes us up on our offer to come and listen to the people. Some 20,000 electorate newsletters have been sent out containing information and details. I am also committed to exploring the possibility of this site being registered as a heritage building or buildings. The history of the Gold Coast is disappearing rapidly and we have a wonderful opportunity here to preserve a significant slice of it at Kirra. Domestic Violence Prevention Mr MULHERIN (Mackay—ALP) (9.13 p.m.) On Tuesday 4 May, I attended a forum on behalf of the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy, Hon. Liddy Clark. Fittingly, it was held during Queensland's Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Month, which concluded on 31 May. The title of the forum was Indigenous Family Violence Prevention: Which Way Now? It was hosted by the wonderful, state-funded Queensland Centre for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence based at Mackay's Central Queensland University campus. The forum included a great range of presenters, including distinguished keynote speakers Ms Jackie Huggins AM and Professor Mick Dodson. 17 Aug 2004 Matters of Public Interest 1827

Ms Jackie Huggins AM is Co-Chair of Reconciliation Australia and the Deputy Director of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit at the University of Queensland. She is also the former Chair of the Queensland Domestic Violence Council (2001). Professor Mick Dodson is Convenor of the Australian National University's Institute for Indigenous Australia and Council Chair of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies or AIATSIS. Participants came from throughout Queensland to highlight and celebrate indigenous responses to indigenous family violence and to provide an opportunity for the general public and especially for Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders to participate in and work towards sustaining progress in this area. As well as attending presentations during the day, as the Minister's representative I had the privilege of participating in a panel discussion at the end of the forum which focused on the responses to indigenous family violence across all levels of government. Our government recognises that violence is prevalent in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, with women and children at particular risk. Our commitment to dealing with this issue is demonstrated in the Meeting Challenges, Making Choices reform agenda in a number of priority areas, including alcohol and substance abuse and rehabilitation; crime and justice; children, youth and families; and health. The government is working with community justice groups to make alcohol management plans work for the benefit of the whole community and to instil the idea that abusive and violent behaviour is socially and cultural unacceptable. While there have been some signs that alcohol management plans are having a positive and beneficial impact on these communities, there were concerns raised at the forum that the plans have resulted in increased alcohol related abuse problems in surrounding areas due to people leaving a ‘dry' area to purchase alcohol. Our government has established an evaluation project to report on the Meeting Challenges, Making Choices reforms and it will report to cabinet by 2005 on alcohol management issues. We understand that simply limiting the availability of alcohol is not enough. In this regard, we are committed to working closely with communities to identify their needs and aspirations and to negotiate the development and implementation of local strategies. Our government is also working in collaboration with the Commonwealth government, with trials currently under way in Cape York on improving the integration of government services and better ways of doing business. The Beattie government also knows that it cannot act alone to implement real reforms within communities. Change must come from within and involve community leaders and elders.That is why the Indigenous Family Violence Prevention Forum held in Mackay was significant. It brought together stakeholders and respected leaders who understand the issues affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in relation to family violence and who are actively working to address them. One of the most compelling presentations I was able to witness during the forum was that of Ailsa Weazel, the coordinator at the Woorabinda Women's Shelter near Rockhampton. Ailsa is the brains behind a program known as ‘Koora: Our way! Promoting Respect through School and Community Partnerships'. The project is a collaboration between the Queensland Centre for Domestic and Family Violence Research, the Woorabinda Women's Shelter, the Woorabinda State Primary School and Central Queensland University's Faculty of Education and Creative Arts. The word Woorabinda means ‘kangaroo sit down'. Ailsa has used this association as the basis of this innovative program, which is comprised of a resource package for early childhood and primary school teachers at Woorabinda. Ailsa has also authored a series of stories that incorporate a kangaroo character named ‘Koora' who promotes and explores respectful and cooperative ways of solving problems and highlights themes of respect for self, culture and elders, reconnection with Aboriginal culture, and cultural pride. This program is an oral and visual treat for the children, with the resource package including an adult sized kangaroo costume, and local community members visiting the children at school to tell the stories. Traditional practices such as art, dance, music, song and ceremonies are also used to convey the stories' messages. Ailsa's stories have been illustrated and produced in booklet form by the Queensland Centre for Domestic and Family Violence Research. An evaluation of the outcomes of this wonderful project will help determine the adaptability of the program to be included in Queensland's state syllabus. Having heard Ailsa speak about the project, and also having heard her tell one of her stories, I am confident of the program's capacity to make a difference in Woorabinda and possibly in other Queensland communities. Ailsa is a perfect example of the determined effort by many within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities who are being proactive about tackling domestic and family violence. I congratulate everyone who participated in the Indigenous Family Violence Prevention: Which Way Now? forum. Also, I congratulate the Director of the Queensland Centre for Domestic and Family Violence Research, Ms Heather Nancarrow, and her staff for organising the event. It was a pleasure to be involved and I look forward to hearing what direction will be taken from here after the centre has the opportunity to evaluate the forum's outcomes. 1828 Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 17 Aug 2004

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION AMENDMENT BILL Hon. P.D. BEATTIE (Brisbane Central—ALP) (Premier and Minister for Trade) (9.19 p.m), by leave, without notice: I move— That leave be granted to bring in a bill for an act to amend the Freedom of Information Act 1992. Motion agreed to. First Reading Bill and explanatory notes presented and bill, on motion of Mr Beattie, read a first time. Second Reading Hon. P.D. BEATTIE (Brisbane Central—ALP) (Premier and Minister for Trade) (9.19 p.m.): I move— That the bill be now read a second time. Integrity and accountability are core values for my government and I have always been personally committed to ensuring that we continue to work to improve our integrity framework. This government has always been determined to be at the forefront in continuing to make changes that will strengthen our commitment in this important area and improve transparency in government decision making. The Freedom of Information Act 1992 is fundamental to that approach. At the same time, the importance of our investment attraction strategy to the Queensland economy and job creation must not be underestimated. Therefore, this government is totally committed to ensuring that our efforts to bring major projects to Queensland are undertaken in the most transparent and accountable way. I intend to speak to the House about the government's approach to freedom of information and how it links to our strategy for attracting investment and significant projects, our commitment to extensive and detailed accountability mechanisms for the Queensland Investment Incentives Scheme and the reasons this legislation before the House is vitally important. I will also detail my announcement on Wednesday, 11 August 2004 that the government will now release information about individual incentives after a period of eight years. The government has determined to legislate as a direct response to a recent decision by the Office of the Information Commissioner in Seeney and Department of State Development; Berri Ltd, third party. In December 1999 Berri Ltd, otherwise known as Berri, sought financial assistance under the Queensland Investment Incentives Scheme, QIIS, for the establishment and operation of a fruit processing plant at the Lytton Industrial Estate. The then Department of State Development offered financial assistance to Berri, subject to a number of conditions and the meeting of performance criteria. That offer was accepted in May 2000 and an agreement between the parties was executed in February 2001. In 2002 the member for Callide applied to the department for access under the Freedom of Information Act 1992, the FOI Act, to all documentation surrounding Berri's application and its assessment by the department and all briefing notes, memoranda and any other correspondence about the application. The department refused access to some of the documents requested on the basis that they were exempt pursuant to section 45 of the FOI Act—matters relating to trade secrets, business affairs and research. In June 2002, the member for Callide applied to the Information Commissioner for an external review of the department's decision. On 29 June 2004, the Office of the Information Commissioner determined that, except for the internal and financial documents of Berri Ltd, all other documents were not exempt under the FOI Act. The central issue for decision was whether the dollar amount of the grant sum was exempt from disclosure. The department's main argument was that this amount had a commercial value to it and should therefore be exempt from disclosure under section 45(1) (b) of the FOI Act. Other exemptions were also relied upon. In the decision, the argument that the dollar amount of the grant sum was an exempt matter was rejected. It was found that, in administering the grant scheme, the department was not conducting a commercial activity for the purpose of generating income or profits. The grant sum could only have commercial value if the department has commercial affairs. The Office of the Information Commissioner found that the department in administering QIIS undertakes traditional government activity and does not conduct or have business or commercial affairs. As a result of the Berri decision, it is much more likely that confidential information held by government and used for strategic commercial decisions may be disclosed under the act. The view of the government was that this decision was wrong and for that reason we determined to apply to the Supreme Court for judicial review of the decision. QIIS is important for generating strategic investment and employment opportunities in Queensland and has been an outstanding success. The fact that Queensland's unemployment rate has dropped to 5.5 per cent, which is the lowest rate since 1981 and the equal lowest since the ABS monthly labour force started in 1978 is proof of that. If we have a look at it, all but 500 of the 5,900 jobs created in Australia over the month of July this year 17 Aug 2004 Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 1829 were created in Queensland. That is, 91.5 per cent of all jobs created across Australia in the month of July were created in Queensland. Queensland's annual employment growth is rocketing at 4.2 per cent compared to the national growth rate of 2.4 per cent. QIIS is important for generating strategic investment and employment opportunities in Queensland. This scheme operates in a fully accountable and transparent way and there is potential for harm to the Queensland economy and extra cost to taxpayers in disclosing such information. While the government remains of the view that the decision was wrong, I considered it was important that we move to put the matter beyond doubt by bringing legislation directed towards this issue before the parliament to allow full and open debate. We had an option to bring it in by way of regulation. We decided against that because it was too restrictive, but also because it would have limited debate to something like two hours. We thought we would do this in a very open and transparent way, which is the way this government operates. The bill will lay on the table and people can have their 99c worth, or a dollar if they wish. It is unfortunate that a particular company has been caught up in attempts by the opposition to undermine the effectiveness of the government's efforts to attract strategic investment to Queensland. As a consequence, on 13 July 2004 in estimates hearings, I announced that the government would discontinue its judicial review application to the Supreme Court in relation to the Berri decision and legislate to ensure that commercial confidentiality would remain protected in such cases, even though the advice we were given is that we would have won such a judicial review and the Information Commissioner's decision was wrong. While there are a range of concerns regarding the impact of the Berri decision on the interpretation of the commercial-in-confidence provision, the bill before the House at this time only addresses the need to protect information regarding the amount of particular incentives. The government will consider amendments at a later time to deal with the general application of commercial confidentiality to FOI. That is a matter the Attorney-General will bring before the parliament. This does not undermine this government's strong commitment to freedom of information legislation. As an indication, let me provide some of the statistics regarding the operation of the FOI Act in 2002-03. There were a total of 11,111 applications made to state and local government in that financial year under the act. Of those applications, 9,872 were made to state government agencies. More than 5,000 of that total were free of charge as they were personal applications. The remaining 4,510 applications were non-personal with an application fee of $33.50. No charge is made for non- personal applications that consume less than two hours in staff time. The release of documents is of a very high proportion. More than 90 per cent of documents sought were released. In 85 per cent of applications, all documents sought were released. In 93 per cent all applications, all or part of the documents sought were released. This is clear evidence of a system that is working well and meeting the object of the legislation in extending as far as possible the right of the community to have access to information held by the Queensland government. This government acts to promote openness, accountability and public participation. FOI enables members of the public to find out what information government holds about them and whether it is correct. It also enables people to find out more about what government is doing. There are only a limited number of exemptions from the release of information. They include documents that are part of the cabinet process and specific exemptions relating to matters such as secrecy, commercial-in-confidence and legal proceedings. There are similar sets of exemptions for the various state governments and the Commonwealth. What we do here is consistent with the rest of Australia. They are there because they are necessary for the good workings of government. FOI legislation is not designed to make publicly available every piece of information that may be used by government in its decision making. It would not improve the quality of government to release every internal opinion or evidence of frank debate within government. Freedom of information legislation was never intended to do otherwise. To do so would also undermine the Westminster principle that members of cabinet must be able to freely discuss matters while maintaining the concept of collective responsibility. Similarly, a government's ability to negotiate with the private sector would be severely impeded if it could not restrict access to information relating to commercially sensitive matters. There are a number of important reasons why the government does not provide full disclosure of QIIS agreements regarding the quantum of incentives negotiated with project proponents. Government needs to protect the commercial position of the companies involved. To release such information can undermine the government's credibility in negotiating incentives for projects requiring commercial confidentiality. It would also set benchmarks that could be used by other applicants for assistance to assess a starting point for negotiations. This would weaken the government's negotiating position and would not be in the best interests of taxpayers. Do members know why? Because it would cost them more money—millions more. Why should we do that? Mr Schwarten: I do not think the taxpayers want us to do that. 1830 Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 17 Aug 2004

Mr BEATTIE: Exactly. Taxpayers know the results. All they have to do is look at what has happened with Virgin Blue, Qantas and Australian Airlines—the 5,000 jobs in aviation—to understand that this has been a successful program. It would encourage forum shopping by business operators to get the best deal available and would enable other governments both within and external to Australia to tailor their offers to outbid Queensland on particular projects, and that is not on. We will do everything we can to put Queensland first. As a result, the disclosure of actual incentives provided or proposed could damage the economic and financial interests of Queensland and of course the government. This outweighs the potential benefit to the community of having complete access to this information. As Deputy President Judge Wood of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal noted in Bracks v the Department of State Development [1998] VCAT 579 [28(a)] in agreeing that grant sums should be exempt from disclosure under freedom of information laws—this is a Victorian example; this is what happened in Victoria—he said— ... in my view there can be little more commercial in nature than advancing monies upon condition that the recipient discharge obligations imposed upon it in consideration of the advance, the provision for reimbursement of the sum advanced with interest in the event of default with an ancillary agreement in the form of a guarantee from the recipient's parent company. Further, at [38] Judge Wood, in exempting the grant sum, states— In my opinion the public interest in the economic viability of the grants system necessitates that particular documents, or parts of them, should not be made public. I cannot for the life of me understand why our Information Commissioner did not take notice of that case. I have to be frank. We should also recall that under the last coalition government in Queensland the Major Projects Incentive Scheme was in place and that government was also concerned about the release of commercial-in-confidence information. Let me repeat the statement from the then Minister for Tourism, Small Business and Industry, Mr Bruce Davidson, a Liberal, on 13 June 1997 when he said— We do not go around disclosing arrangements that are commercial in confidence simply because we face continued pressure from southern States, particularly New South Wales and Victoria, that are competing with us for all those types of opportunities that present themselves to Queensland. Earlier at the same estimates hearing Mr Davidson made the point that— ... all these negotiations and agreements are commercial in confidence. There is absolute agreement from us. It should be noted that full disclosure was not in fact recommended in the Queensland Auditor-General's report to parliament entitled A review of grants and other incentives at the Department of State Development dated 1 November 2002. The only outstanding recommendation of the Auditor-General has been to detail in the department's annual report the number and aggregate amount of incentive packages provided to proponents stratified within bands according to value. While the government agrees with the need for transparency in the QIIS process, the approach outlined under this recommendation could have the unintended consequences in some cases of effectively disclosing specific details of incentive arrangements. I understand there is a level of concern about this issue, and I reassure Queenslanders that these matters are being dealt with in a way that gives the public access to information while still protecting the state's position in negotiating these agreements. As a result, I announced on Wednesday, 11 August that this government will now be even more transparent by releasing information about the amount of individual QIIS incentives after a period of eight years. This period will run from the date that an incentive has been approved by the government. While I remain concerned that this may impede our ability to negotiate the best deals for Queensland, I believe a period of eight years will not give other countries and states an edge over Queensland. I should point out that under the existing cabinet arrangement any material that goes to cabinet or whatever is exempt for 30 years. I should say—and I will come back to this in a moment—that any material after eight years will be released under FOI or the Premier or minister of the day will answer questions in this parliament either with or without notice or in the estimates process after the eight years. If we did not protect this commercial-in-confidence information for at least eight years it would promote a bidding war with other states and it would weaken the government's negotiating position. Releasing this information earlier would be at a cost to Queensland taxpayers. I do not want this debate to distract us from getting on with the business of creating more opportunities and jobs for Queenslanders. This policy decision will make available more information about QIIS. Details of the amount of individual incentives will be available eight years after the date of agreement. As I said, the information will be accessible under the FOI Act and I or the relevant minister will answer questions about it in parliament, assuming that we are still here. Our successors will if we are not. I believe it will strike a new balance between the imperative of open government and the need to protect commercial-in-confidence information about government grants. The policy will lead to even greater openness, accountability and transparency in Queensland—in fact, unprecedented openness, 17 Aug 2004 Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 1831 accountability and transparency in Queensland. This has never been done by any government before. It will cover all QIIS grants made since we came to government. To further demonstrate my government's commitment to openness and to illustrate why we are passionate about business attraction, I will seek leave to incorporate more information about projects funded under QIIS. The Department of State Development and Innovation advises me that this represents the companies that have been approved for incentives through QIIS since my government came to office, with details of the date of approval and the dates when access to the additional information about the quantum of these individual grants will fall due. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard the names of companies that have received funds under the Queensland Investment Incentives Scheme, the date they were approved and the release date. There are quite a number of these companies. I do that to demonstrate not just the names of the companies. We are releasing their names, the date they have been approved and the release date, which is eight years from the approval date. They will be released publicly so everybody knows. This information has been provided to me by the Department of State Development and to the best of my knowledge is accurate. I say that because we will obviously double-check these as the years go by. Leave granted.

Queensland Investment Incentives Scheme

Client Date Approved Release Date

Advanced Metal Products 1/05/2003 1/05/2011

Alliance Airlines Pty Ltd 28/02/2003 28/02/2011

Alphapharm Pty Ltd 4/10/2001 4/10/2009

APN Newspapers Pty Ltd 5/11/1999 5/11/2007

Arnott's Biscuits 12/07/2001 12/07/2009

Austar 23/04/2004 23/04/2012

Austicks 2/04/2001 2/04/2009

Australian Aerospace Limited 22/03/2004 22/03/2012

Australian Airlines Limited 30/09/2002 30/09/2010

Australian Cooperative Foods Ltd 7/05/2002 7/05/2010

Australian Electronic Manufacturing Services 21/02/2001 21/02/2009

Australian Insurance Holdings Pty Ltd 13/03/2001 13/03/2009

Australian Insurance Holdings Pty Ltd 29/06/2004 29/06/2012

B & D Australia Pty Ltd 29/04/2003 29/04/2011

Bechtel Australia Pty Ltd 18/11/1999 18/11/2007

Bendigo Bank 4/04/2001 4/04/2009

Berri Limited 20/03/2000 20/03/2008

Cannon Hill Investments Pty Ltd 30/05/2000 30/05/2008

1832 Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 17 Aug 2004

Capral 18/03/2003 18/03/2011

Cellnet Telecommunications Group 5/06/2001 5/06/2009

Cement Australia 4/08/2003 4/08/2011

Central Queensland Mining Supplies Pty Ltd 18/05/2004 18/05/2012

Centrogen Holdings Pty Ltd * 26/05/1999 26/05/2007

Citect Corporation 12/05/2004 12/05/2012

Citibank Limited * 14/10/1999 14/10/2007

Cooltemp Pty Ltd 7/12/2001 7/12/2009

Cummins Engine Company 1/05/2001 1/05/2009

Cutting Edge Post Pty Ltd 28/11/2001 28/11/2009

DHL International (Aust) Pty Ltd 7/10/1999 7/10/2007

EDI Rail – Bombardier 3/06/2004 3/06/2012

EGR 20/01/2001 20/01/2009

Faulding Healthcare Pty Ltd 13/06/2002 13/06/2010

General Electric Medical Systems 11/01/2001 11/01/2009

Greenhalgh Asia Pacific Pty Ltd 6/05/2003 6/05/2011

Hatch Associates Pty Ltd 10/08/2001 10/08/2009

Herron Pharmaceuticals Pty Ltd 22/04/2002 22/04/2010

Hume Masterpanel Pty Ltd 15/02/2002 15/02/2010

IBM Australia Ltd 6/05/1999 6/05/2007

IBM Australia Ltd 5/06/2002 5/06/2010

Intergraph Corporation Pty Ltd 8/03/2002 8/03/2010

Jaws Buckets & Attachments P/L 30/08/2002 30/08/2010

Jet Care Pty Ltd 16/02/2001 16/02/2009

Kerry Ingredients Australia Pty Ltd 24/02/2000 24/02/2008

Knight Piesold Pty Ltd 28/03/2003 28/03/2011

Laminex Industries 10/08/1999 10/08/2007

Luxury Paints Pty Ltd 5/06/2001 5/06/2009

Macquarie Bank Limited 27/06/2001 27/06/2009

Medical Benefits Fund of Australia (MBF) 15/08/2003 15/08/2011

17 Aug 2004 Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 1833

Mediherb Pty Ltd 11/03/1999 11/03/2007

Meteceno Pty Ltd 11/05/2004 11/05/2012

Miller's Retail Limited 30/01/2003 30/01/2011

Mills-Tui Pty Ltd 2/09/1999 2/09/2007

Mindpearl 7/08/2000 7/08/2008

Mrs Crocket's Kitchen Pty Ltd 26/02/2002 26/02/2010

Namoi Cotton Cooperative Limited 22/04/2003 22/04/2011

National Jet Systems Pty Ltd * 10/12/2002 10/12/2010

NRMA Insurance Ltd 4/04/2001 4/04/2009

Optus Administration Pty Ltd 17/05/2002 17/05/2010

OSI International Foods (Australia) Pty Limited 19/2/2003 19/2/2011

P&O Nedlloyd 19/10/2000 19/10/2008

PanBio Limited 25/05/2004 25/05/2012

Pioneer Construction Materials P/L 30/03/2000 30/03/2008

Placer-Dome 5/01/2001 5/01/2009

Poolrite Equipment Pty Ltd 16/04/2003 16/04/2011

Probiotec (Australia) Pty Ltd 5/06/2001 5/06/2009

Qantas Airways Limited 19/01/2001 19/01/2009

Raytheon Australia Pty Ltd 10/04/2003 10/04/2011

Red Hat Asia Pacific Pty Ltd 23/03/2000 23/03/2008

Saint-Gobain Ceramic Materials Pty Limited 5/06/2001 5/06/2009

Salmat Teleservices Pty Limited 6/05/2003 6/05/2011

Shipworks Brisbane Pty Ltd 1/10/2003 1/10/2011

Singapore Flying College Pte Limited 4/12/2001 4/12/2009

Smiths Snackfood Company Pty Ltd 28/04/2000 28/04/2008

Smorgan Steel Tube Mills Pty Ltd 13/06/2003 13/06/2011

Snap Fresh Pty Limited 14/09/2000 14/09/2008

Stellar Call Centres Pty Ltd * 4/02/1999 4/02/2007

Suncorp-Metway Limited 28/12/2000 28/12/2008

The Queensland Institute of Medical Research 26/06/2003 26/06/2011

1834 Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 17 Aug 2004

The Warehouse Group (Australia Pty Limited 16/03/2004 16/03/2012

Tropico Fruits Pty Ltd 9/09/1999 9/09/2007

Tyco Flow Control Pacific Pty Limited 26/04/2002 26/04/2010

Union Switch and Signal Pty Ltd 5/09/2002 5/09/2010

Universal Communications Group Pty Ltd * 7/12/2000 7/12/2008

Varley Holdings Pty Limited 24/02/2000 24/02/2008

Virgin Blue Airlines Pty Ltd (see also 6/03/01) 18/01/2001 18/01/2009

Virgin Blue Airlines Pty Ltd 6/03/2001 6/03/2009

Virgin Blue Airlines Pty Ltd 1/06/2004 1/06/2012

Wagner 8/02/2002 8/02/2010

Western Star Trucks Australia Pty Ltd 28/01/2003 28/01/2011

Westpac Banking Corporation 17/12/2002 17/12/2010

Woolworths Ltd 30/01/2002 30/01/2010

Wyco International Pty Ltd 7/09/2001 7/09/2009

Notes:

Approval Date is determined by the date when a commitment in principle has been reached by all parties for the project to be located in Queensland.

The approval date is followed by ongoing negotiation with the firm until project details are clarified and performance milestones are confirmed. At this stage the final agreement is signed by all parties and the period of contract management commences. The period of negotiation will vary dependant on the project. In some instances infrastructure is in place and the period will be of short duration. In other instances the client may need to work with approval agencies throughout Government to confirm infrastructure development and undertake construction. In these instances the agreement certifying the scope of the project and related milestones will be negotiated over a longer timeframe.

* Termination or suspension of agreements has occurred in instances where the project is not able to meet performance milestones

Annual Reports of the Department of State Development and Innovation and of the previous Department of State Development include projects in the Investment Attraction section where recipients are not in receipt of QIIS Grants.

Mr BEATTIE: There are some explanatory notes at the back that go with it. I also draw attention to the fact that the list includes approvals from 2003-04 which have not yet been published in a Department of State Development and Innovation annual report, but of course they will be. So I am releasing this information months earlier than usual.

In the more than 90 projects which have agreements already in place, companies have committed to 14,875 jobs for Queenslanders. What does this QIIS program mean for Queensland? It means a commitment to 14,875 jobs. That is what it means, and that is why this program works. Some of these jobs are already in place and some will occur in projects still under construction or in the early days of operation. The reality is that QIIS succeeds. The Department of State Development and Innovation advises me that checks through the contract management system have shown that these projects already account for 11,748 jobs. That is not bad—11,748 jobs. Those details speak volumes for the value of our program to attract key projects to Queensland. 17 Aug 2004 Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 1835

Let me provide more details about QIIS. It is the principal assistance program available to the state government to influence the location of major projects to the state, projects which are considered to have strategic merit and that, in the absence of financial incentives, would not occur in Queensland. QIIS is strategic to the state government's investment attraction activities in order to secure major projects in important growth areas of the state's economy. Last Thursday's jobs figures, as I said before, show how effective the government's economic and investment strategies have been. Queensland created 91 per cent or thereabouts of jobs created in Australia last month. That is an unbelievable figure. Over the past year Queensland has created four out of every 10 of the total full-time jobs created in Australia. Our trend unemployment is now 5.7 per cent. Do members remember when they used to have a go at me when I set a target of five per cent? With 5.7 per cent unemployment we are a long way from the 9.5 per cent under the conservatives. This equals Queensland's lowest unemployment rate since 1978, and it is worth repeating. This has been achieved through attracting business and investment, fostering industries like aviation and biotechnology, encouraging innovation and research, and improving our education and training systems as well as enhancing and developing and encouraging more exports and exporters. The investment attraction strategies we use through QIIS form a key plank in a highly successful economic and jobs strategy. Our policy is to only use investment incentives in those select instances where a project or business would not otherwise relocate in Queensland. This government has been committed in an ongoing way to raising the accountability bar in its management of QIIS. To be eligible for consideration, a project must be at an advanced stage of planning and must fulfil a number of criteria: • be promoted by a proponent with a successful track record and the capability, including technical, managerial and financial, to carry out a project of the type proposed; • be commercially viable in the absence of incentives; • be contestable; • provide a significant net economic benefit to the state, including an increase in sustainable jobs; and • not cause significant detriment to and/or be in substitution for existing businesses in Queensland. These are set down in guidelines that have been endorsed by the government. All eligible applications under QIIS are subject to rigorous review and due diligence. A due diligence report, detriment assessment report and an economic evaluation report are prepared for review and consideration by the QIIS committee and may result in a recommendation of financial assistance for a project.The QIIS committee is a high-level committee which delivers experienced and expert determination on all applications. It includes two deputy directors-general and an executive director from the Department of State Development and Innovation. Queensland Treasury and the Department of Premier and Cabinet are represented on this committee where the incentives under consideration exceed certain parameters. All funds are underwritten by performance undertakings and, in the case of cash grants, secured by bank guarantees or equivalent securities from the grantee for the full term of the agreement. In addition to the above, the ongoing contract management entails visits to the project to assess progress as well as regular project and company updates. The Queensland Audit Office conducts regular audits of the department's contract management unit. The entire QIIS processes from guidelines, application, assessment, monitoring, committee review and the payments process have been strengthened in the last year to increase accountability and confidence of the government and the community in the administration of these public funds. The details of the approved projects under this scheme are now included in the Department of State Development and Innovation's annual report. These details include the name and a profile of the recipient firm, an overview of the project, job creation and capital expenditure targets, and the type of incentives made. These could include payroll tax rebates and cash grants for which the firm must supply a bank guarantee as security. Also included in the annual report is a total of the grant assistance provided to firms. In addition, the Ministerial Portfolio Statements, prepared in February each year, provide overview comments about the department's programs and initiatives. We publish the total value of all the incentives to industry so that everyone can clearly see what it is costing to attract these new industries, or their expansion in Queensland, and compare that to what we are getting in return. All arrangements the government has with industry are open to scrutiny by the Auditor-General. It is up to the Auditor-General to choose which QIIS projects he audits. We are happy for him to audit the lot—one, two, three; whatever he wants to do. My government has cooperated with the Auditor-General in delivering a transparent reporting system in relation to investment incentives. Queensland is the only state which routinely publishes the names of all of the recipients of investment incentives as well as the job creation and capital expenditure milestones they are committed to achieving. I want to repeat that. Queensland is the only state which routinely publishes the names of all of the recipients of investment incentives as well as the job creation and capital expenditure milestones they are committed to 1836 Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 17 Aug 2004 achieving. No-one else does it. We are the only state to consistently provide this level of accountability. As such, the Queensland government has delivered the most transparent investment incentive reporting system of any state government in Australia. Mr Schwarten interjected. Mr BEATTIE: Yes, National Party crooks. In terms of risk management, Queensland has the most prudential and robust arrangements of all Australian states. We insist on a mandatory bank guarantee to be in place to cover cash advances in every case. I would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the key accountability mechanisms this government has put in place and supported. I do this because we are the most open and accountable government that Queensland has ever had. The Crime and Misconduct Commission chairperson has said that— The concept of an integrity system highlights the integrated and mutually supportive roles of the many participating agencies. In particular, key independent agencies such as the CMC, Ombudsman and Queensland Audit Office have crucial complementary roles in helping to maintain and enhance integrity in the Queensland public sector. Let me take the opportunity to outline how my government has been and remains committed to a world-class integrity system. On 1 January 2002, my government merged the former Criminal Justice Commission and the Queensland Crime Commission to form the Crime and Misconduct Commission— the CMC. It is established to combat major crime, including organised crime and paedophilia, to reduce public sector misconduct and improve public sector integrity, and to protect witnesses. There is no other body like that in Australia. It is more than an upper house; it has the power of a standing royal commission. No other politicians in Australia have the level of accountability that we do. No other politicians in Australia are subject to a body like the CMC—bar none. ICAC in New South Wales does not have the power of the CMC, which is a standing royal commission. In the 2004-05 state budget the CMC received an extra $4.6 million over the coming four years to enhance its ability to investigate public sector misconduct and enhance public sector integrity. As the minister for the CMC, I am delighted to see that happen. This has increased the CMC's annual budget to more than $33 million a year to pursue its objectives. The misconduct jurisdiction of the CMC covers almost all of the Queensland public sector, including the Police Service, statutory authorities, universities, local authorities, courts, prisons, and elected officials. Its supporting functions ensure a coordinated approach to research, intelligence and witness protection. This makes it one of the most comprehensive anticrime and anticorruption bodies in Australia. Sometimes its activities are an irritation to government, but my government remains firmly committed to its central place in Queensland's integrity system. It has my full support and full confidence and that of my government. This contrasts with the Borbidge government's sustained attempts to undermine the then Criminal Justice Commission, including through the failed Connolly-Ryan inquiry. The CMC is taking its responsibilities to improve integrity and reduce misconduct very seriously. In this capacity-builder role, emphasised in its 2001 legislation, the CMC has recently produced two high-quality publications. In March this year, the CMC produced its 118-page handbook, Facing the Facts: A CMC guide for dealing with suspected official misconduct in Queensland public sector agencies. In July this year, the CMC released the results of its Responding to Misconduct survey in its report, Profiling the Queensland Public Sector: Functions, risks and misconduct resistance strategies. The survey report is based on the responses of 234 Queensland government agencies, and provides valuable pointers for agencies to enhance their integrity and ability to resist misconduct. The CMC will use the survey to work smarter with agencies in targeting misconduct risks. The CMC is comprehensively accountable to the people of Queensland through the Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee, assisted by the Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Commissioner. The CMC reports to the Premier on efficiency, effectiveness, economy and timeliness. Overall, Queensland's corruption and crime-fighting system is amongst the most effective and accountable in Australia. It is a long way from the dark, corrupt days of the 1980s under the National Party. I have already mentioned the Queensland Audit Office's role in ensuring high standards of accountability in relation to investment incentive schemes. The office is another key element in Queensland's integrity system. It is important for maintaining public confidence in the financial management of public sector entities. My government has always respected and supported the Auditor- General and his work. The Auditor-General has an independent role mandated by the Financial Administration and Audit Act 1977 to ensure the efficient stewardship of the state's financial resources. The Auditor-General, supported by the Queensland Audit Office, has a central role in the public sector accountability framework by reporting to parliament about how public sector agencies discharge their responsibilities in terms of requirements set out in financial management legislation. The Queensland Audit Office—the QAO—has discretion to perform audits of performance management systems in the public sector. The objects of such audits include determining whether agencies' performance management systems enable them to assess whether their objectives are being achieved economically, efficiently and effectively. The QAO provides independent reports to parliament, again through a comprehensive and systematic reporting structure overseen by the Public Accounts Committee, that ensures maximum transparency not only for the QAO but also for the agencies it audits. 17 Aug 2004 Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 1837

Again, this is sometimes awkward for government, but my government is firmly committed to the QAO's central place in the integrity framework. The Queensland Ombudsman is another central plank in Queensland's integrity framework. The Ombudsman's office is an avenue for people to make complaints against state government departments, public authorities and local government agencies investigated by an independent officer. The Ombudsman also makes recommendations for remedial action when evidence of defective administration is found. I am proud of my government's important work in revamping and modernising the Ombudsman's office and legislation. We continued the work of the Wiltshire review in 1997-98, commissioned a strategic management review in 1999-2000, and rewrote the legislation, now the Ombudsman Act 2001. The reviews and legislation resulted in an office that has improved its expertise and effectiveness in its traditional complaints investigation functions, but, like the CMC, has developed an important new emphasis on building public sector agencies' capacity to run their own complaints management and integrity enhancement systems. This all emphasises the Ombudsman's role to improve public sector decision making and administrative practices. This includes not only recommendations to agencies arising from individual complaints but also working proactively with agencies to develop complaint reduction strategies and improved internal complaints management processing; training and information strategies; and undertaking projects with relevant agencies. The Ombudsman is an independent officer of the Parliament and reports to Parliament through the Legal, Constitutional and Administrative Review Committee. I should say that at one point we, as a Parliament, will have to consider whether we in fact split the role of the Ombudsman and the Information Commissioner. There is a mechanism in the legislation to do that. I do not want to consider that at the moment because it may be misunderstood in the current circumstances. However, I think that there is a relevant argument that we should consider at some point the separation of both those roles. I think that would enhance the performance of the Ombudsman, and I have enormous regard and respect for David Bevan. He is a top-rate officer. It would enhance the operation of both the Ombudsman and the Information Commissioner if there were two separate people. Despite our disagreement with the Information Commissioner about the Berri decision, this government has been committed to fostering openness and accountability of government in Queensland by promoting and supporting fair, reasonable and transparent administration of FOI legislation. As I mentioned earlier, the FOI legislation enables members of the community to access documents held by government, subject to limitations that are designed to protect important public interests and privacy of individuals. The Information Commissioner also reports to Parliament through the Legal, Constitutional and Administrative Review Committee. This ensures maximum transparency and scrutiny not only of the Information Commissioner's operation but also of those agencies who the office reviews. The combined budget for the Office of the Ombudsman and the Information Commissioner exceeds $6 million in 2004- 05. Another office that forms an important element in the government's integrity and accountability framework is the position of Integrity Commissioner. The government recently appointed Mr Gary Crooke QC to this position where he takes on the vital role of providing advice on conflict of interest issues to me as Premier, my ministers and senior executives of the Public Service. His advice will ensure that all senior public servants and ministers are well informed and equipped to ensure the highest standards of accountability and probity in their professional dealings. A significant contributor to the government's accountability framework is the Office of the Public Service Commissioner. The office operates as the Office of the Public Service Merit and Equity and is responsible for creating a forward-looking, performance driven Public Service that delivers high-quality results for Queenslanders. Further details on each of these bodies and their future priorities can be found in the government's Ministerial Portfolio Statements. It is no accident that these comprehensive, transparent and accountable bodies and mechanisms are in my portfolio as Premier. That is because I am committed to them. This emphasises the importance that I place on integrity in government. In addition to these bodies we have a range of legislative instruments and policies that promote high standards in government administration. These range from the Financial Administration and Audit Act 1977, the Judicial Review Act 1991, the Public Sector Ethics Act 1994, the Public Service Act 1996 and the Freedom of Information Act 1992. This government has also strongly supported the role of parliament and particularly the parliamentary committees. The committees provides greater accountability by making the policy and administrative functions of government more open and accountable, giving the community more and better access to parliamentary processes and ensuring members of parliament have more involvement 1838 Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 17 Aug 2004 in and oversight of decision making. They also provide a forum for investigation of matters of public importance. There is a range of Committees of the Legislative Assembly— • The Members' Ethics and Parliamentary Privileges Committee is established under the Parliament of Queensland Act 2001. The committee has responsibility for the ethical conduct of members of the Legislative Assembly and the privileges of the parliament. • The Legal, Constitutional and Administrative Review Committee is established under the Parliament of Queensland Act 2001. The committee has responsibility for administrative review and reform; constitutional reform; electoral reform and legal reform. The committee also has statutory responsibilities in relation to the Queensland Ombudsman, the Information Commissioner and senior officers of the Electoral Commission of Queensland. • The Public Accounts Committee is established under the Parliament of Queensland Act 2001. The role of the Public Accounts Committee is to assess the integrity, economy, efficiency and effectiveness of government financial management. It does this by examining government financial documents and considering the reports of the Auditor-General. • The Public Works Committee is established under the Parliament of Queensland Act 2001. The Public Works Committee's areas of responsibility are public works undertaken by an entity or major government owned corporation. • The Scrutiny of Legislation Committee is established under the Parliament of Queensland Act 2001 and is responsible for scrutinising both primary and subordinate legislation. In scrutinising primary and subordinate legislation the committee has regard to the fundamental legislative principles outlined in the Legislative Standards Act 1992. These principles ensure that legislation has sufficient regard to the rights and liberties of individuals and the institution of parliament. • The Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee (PCMC) is established under the Crime and Misconduct Act 2001. The primary functions of the PCMC are to monitor and review the performance of the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC), and to report to parliament on matters pertinent to the CMC. The PCMC has both a continual role in monitoring and reviewing the CMC and also conducts specific inquiries in respect of matters pertaining to the CMC. It is through the PCMC that the CMC is accountable to the parliament and to the people of Queensland. • The Standing Orders Committee is established under the Parliament of Queensland Act 2001. Standing orders govern the conduct of business of the Legislative Assembly and its committees. The Standing Orders Committee is responsible for all matters concerning the standing orders including any additions or alterations in relation to the practice and procedures of the House. The estimates committees also play a fundamental part of the parliamentary process of checks and balances by scrutinising proposed expenditure for each department. These are established by sessional orders of the Legislative Assembly and operate during the budget session. Since 1996 there have been seven estimates committees holding hearings over a number of days. What we have is this, as I have set out clearly in this second reading speech: we have the most comprehensive accountability mechanisms that this state has ever, ever, ever had. We will not move away from that accountability. My government is committed to it, I am committed to it, and that demonstrates that we are the most accountable government in the history of Queensland. I now turn to the bill. This bill represents a very minor and narrow amendment to the Freedom of Information Act 1992. It does not deal with all the issues raised in the recent Berri decision. Clause 3 of the bill inserts a new section 47A—Matter relating to investment incentive scheme. It is a very narrow amendment. The section exempts disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act 1992 of incentives, including proposed incentives, as documented in the course of all processes for a particular project under an investment incentive scheme. The proposed exemption is limited to incentives only, being monetary amounts and any other benefits, for example installation of infrastructure. The proposed exemption will cover incentives given to or arranged for a particular project, and incentives proposed in the course of inquiries, discussions or negotiations for a project. It will also exempt any documentation of the incentives during the monitoring process under an agreement. An investment incentive scheme is one which provides incentives to promote projects that entail investment or other spending and provide employment opportunities in Queensland. The exemption only applies to incentives administered in the department where the State Development and Public Works Organisation Act 1971 is administered. So it is very limited. This is currently the Department of State Development and Innovation. We are not seeking to extend this exemption to schemes of other departments of the Queensland government. This clause will only provide a new exemption where the release of information could reasonably be expected to disclose information about such an incentive. I commend the bill to the House. Debate, on motion of Mr Springborg, adjourned. 17 Aug 2004 Plant Protection Amendment Bill 1839

PLANT PROTECTION AMENDMENT BILL Hon. H. PALASZCZUK (Inala—ALP) (Minister for Primary Industries and Fisheries) (9.59 p.m.), by leave, without notice: I move— That leave be granted to bring in a bill for an act to amend the Plant Protection Act 1989, and for other purposes. Motion agreed to. First Reading Bill and explanatory notes presented and bill, on motion of Mr Palaszczuk, read a first time. Second Reading Hon. H. PALASZCZUK (Inala—ALP) (Minister for Primary Industries and Fisheries) (9.59 p.m.): I move— That the bill be now read a second time. The Plant Protection Amendment Bill 2004 makes urgent and essential amendments to correct deficiencies in the Plant Protection Act 1989 that have been identified during the current emergency response to the citrus canker pest incursion. The citrus canker disease outbreak near Emerald has required a strong and immediate response from the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries to identify and eradicate the disease and prevent its spread throughout the state. The potential losses to the Queensland and Australian citrus industry are enormous if the disease is not contained. In 2001-02 the Queensland citrus industry's gross value of production was $91 million while the gross value of production for Australian citrus was $410 million. There is also a significant potential economic impact on the nursery industry through the sale of ornamental citrus. The Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries has been exercising its powers under the Plant Protection Act to the fullest extent possible in order to prevent, control and eradicate this disease, and it has done so very successfully to date. This is, however, an old act, and the recent citrus canker outbreak has clearly identified that a number of urgent changes need to be made to ensure that government can effectively respond to such outbreaks. In particular, it is important to ensure that there is no legal doubt about what can and cannot be done under the existing legislation. As members will be aware, the department's powers to eradicate were challenged in the Supreme Court recently. While the court has upheld our actions this time, the experience has demonstrated that, if governments are to be charged with the responsibility of tackling devastating exotic diseases like citrus canker, they need the certainty from strong legislation to be able to apply appropriate eradication measures. It is intended that this bill will provide this certainty. Other areas in the Plant Protection Act have been identified as in need of strengthening. For example, the current general powers in the Plant Protection Act do not include basic powers to monitor for the presence or absence of a pest. This amendment will rectify this situation. Extensive monitoring for the presence of a pest is fundamental to scoping its distribution so that the appropriate quarantine response can be undertaken. Surveillance is also necessary at the end of a disease episode to establish area freedom accreditation across the state so that market access restrictions can be lifted. Just as important is the need for keeping and producing relevant movement records and for making available important information about the infestation to enable timely tracing of movements of host plants. This requirement will also be strengthened. In summary, the proposed amendment bill will amend the act so as to guarantee that the state has the legislative support necessary to carry out treatment or destruction within a pest quarantine area; ensure that landowners of properties infested with the most serious pests and diseases cannot seek judicial review by way of injunctions or court hearings in order to prevent eradication and other emergency response activities; provide improved pest and disease surveillance powers to inspectors; allow inspectors to access relevant movement records, wherever located, to trace the movements of potentially pest infested plant matter; and apply appropriate penalties for behaviour which threatens environmental, commercial and personal wellbeing and make company directors personally liable for corporate behaviour and ensure that corporations comply with the provisions of the act. The amendments which are designed to restrict judicial review of departmental emergency powers are similar to those inserted in 2002 in the Exotic Diseases in Animals Act 1981. These were inserted to combat serious animal disease like foot and mouth disease and they received bipartisan support. This bill is essential to protecting Queensland's primary industries and the economy of Queensland and strikes the right balance between individual rights and the public interest. As we have recently seen, diseases like citrus canker can devastate markets overnight. The flow-on effects and impact in rural and regional communities and across the economy can have disastrous consequences. 1840 Natural Resources Legislation Amendment Bill 17 Aug 2004

It is critical to have the necessary legislative capacity to be able to control and eradicate these devastating diseases when they do strike. Finally, I would like to congratulate officers in my department and those in other government agencies for their efforts in the current citrus canker emergency. It has been a truly magnificent whole- of-government response. I commend the bill to the House. Debate, on motion of Mr Lingard, adjourned.

NATURAL RESOURCES LEGISLATION AMENDMENT BILL Hon. S. ROBERTSON (Stretton—ALP) (Minister for Natural Resources, Mines and Energy) (10.04 p.m.), by leave, without notice: I move— That leave be granted to bring in a bill for an act to amend legislation about natural resources. Motion agreed to. First Reading Bill and explanatory notes presented and bill, on motion of Mr Robertson, read a first time. Second Reading Hon. S. ROBERTSON (Stretton—ALP) (Minister for Natural Resources, Mines and Energy) (10.05 p.m.): I move— That the bill be now read a second time. This bill proposes routine, uncontroversial amendments to several pieces of legislation that fall within my portfolio responsibilities to improve the administration of those acts. Since the Land Protection (Pest and Stock Route Management) Act 2002 was proclaimed more than a year ago, certain events have demonstrated that the act would benefit from minor amendment. One such event was the discovery of the establishment of the red-eared slider turtle—a major pest animal in Brisbane's north. We learned that people may have been unwittingly keeping these turtles as pets for some time. The best approach would have been to declare an amnesty on the turtle so that people could surrender them at collection points without the threat of prosecution, which might have led to the animals being dumped at great harm to the local environment. This amendment will provide for amnesties being declared in similar situations in the future. In addition, several amendments to the stock route management provisions of the act are required to ensure that our stock route network is able to operate effectively for those who rely on it. Due to the lateness of the hour, I seek leave to have the remainder of my second reading speech incorporated in Hansard Leave granted. However, most of the changes to the act are aimed at strengthening existing provisions, and providing more certainty for their implementation by local governments, which have the major role in the implementation of this Act. The Surveyors Act 2003 commenced on 1 August 2004. However, there are a number of aspects of this Act which require amendment to ensure a smooth transition from the previous legislation. The Act contains a provision that keeps the previously appointed Surveyors Board of Queensland in place for six months to allow the Board to continue functioning until a new Board is appointed under the new Act. This provision needs to be clarified to ensure that the Board operates as intended. Changes also allow for a new Board to be appointed within six months of the Act commencing. Other proposed amendments will clarify that assessments of competency that were made under the former Act can still be used as the basis for registration under the new Act, and that the new disciplinary provisions can be applied to surveyors registered under the old Act if necessary. The current Act does not contain a head of power for a number of application fees that were intended to be included in the regulations under the Act, and the proposed amendments address this. The Survey and Mapping Infrastructure Act 2003 commenced on 1 August this year, containing a requirement for surveyors to provide the chief executive with a copy of a plan within 40 business days of placing a boundary mark or a permanent survey mark. The proposed amendments will provide for a more efficient process for the providing these plans. The Valuation of Land Act 1944 is being amended to correct anomalies that may arise because of the existing definition of 'owner', and to correct some out-of-date terminology. For example, where land owned by a Government Owned Corporation is leased, the lessee is the 'owner' under the Act and is responsible for the payment of local government rates. In this case, a valuation is provided to the lessee as the 'owner' responsible for rates. The existing definition of 'owner' in the Act requires that this same valuation be provided to the GOC, but this valuation is redundant, as the GOC is not responsible for the rates. The proposed amendments will refine the definition of 'owner' and also correct some out-of-date terminology including 'zoning', 'ordinance' and 'by-law', which are no longer appropriate terms. 17 Aug 2004 Petroleum (Submerged Lands) Amendment Bill 1841

Mr Speaker, this is a routine Bill to improve the administrative efficiency of several Acts that fall within my portfolios. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate, on motion of Mr Lingard, adjourned.

PETROLEUM (SUBMERGED LANDS) AMENDMENT BILL Hon. S. ROBERTSON (Stretton—ALP) (Minister for Natural Resources, Mines and Energy) (10.09 p.m.), by leave, without notice: I move— That leave be granted to bring in a bill for an act to amend the Petroleum (Submerged Lands) Act 1982. Motion agreed to. First Reading Bill and explanatory notes presented and bill, on motion of Mr Robertson, read a first time. Second Reading Hon. S. ROBERTSON (Stretton—ALP) (Minister for Natural Resources, Mines and Energy) (10.10 p.m.): I move— That the bill be now read a second time. The offshore petroleum industry supports thousands of jobs and provides Australian communities with most of their domestic natural gas requirements. It is a major export contributor to the Australian economy and attracts significant foreign investment for exploration and the development of new oil and gas fields. Offshore safety on petroleum facilities is regulated according to whether the facility lies in Commonwealth or state waters. This means that operators in several jurisdictions may be subject to two or more regulatory regimes. In August 2001, with the support of the industry and the work force, the Commonwealth Department of Industry, Science and Resources prepared a report on offshore safety. The report found that the current system of regulation was inadequate with unclear limitations, overlapping acts and inconsistent application between Commonwealth and state jurisdictions. The Commonwealth has responded to the report by initiating the creation of a National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority to regulate occupational health and safety matters on offshore petroleum facilities in both Commonwealth and state waters. The Commonwealth has already passed legislation to enable the authority to undertake its regulatory activities in Commonwealth waters and to provide them with the ability to fully recover the cost of its operations through industry fees and levies. All the states are party to the offshore constitutional settlement with the Commonwealth, which supports consistent offshore regulation. This obligation requires Queensland to enact legislation to mirror the legislative changes made by the Commonwealth to enable the safety authority to carry out its role in state waters. Queensland does not currently have any offshore petroleum facilities. The Beattie Labor government is, however, committed to preventing any exploration on the Great Barrier Reef. However, each jurisdiction has mirror legislation of the Commonwealth's Petroleum (Submerged Lands) Act and has committed to enacting legislation which will confer powers and functions on the National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority. It will mean that state laws which currently regulate occupational health and safety matters on offshore facilities will no longer apply and a new schedule 3 will be inserted into the act. This will mean that the occupational health and safety regime applies in state waters. Given the hour, I seek leave to incorporate the remainder of my second reading speech in Hansard. Leave granted. Schedule 3 outlines the duties that are to be carried out by various people with responsibilities on an offshore facility, including the operator of a facility and employers of workers. It also extends to the manufacturers and suppliers of plant and substances to be used on the offshore facility, to ensure the health and safety of the workers. The occupational health and safety regime will be supported by the safety case approach which will be contained in the Regulation to the Act. Safety cases have been applied in Queensland for a number of years under the Occupational Health and Safety Act and Regulation and require the owner-operators of offshore facilities to provide for high standards of occupational health and safety procedures. The Bill provides for the functions of the National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority which include the promotion of the occupational health and safety of persons on offshore petroleum facilities and the development and implementation of monitoring and enforcement strategies to ensure compliance with occupational health and safety obligations. The safety authority is also able to investigate occupational health and safety incidents and make reports and recommendations to the State and Commonwealth Ministers on these matters. The safety authority is also empowered to cooperate with other State and Commonwealth agencies that may also have functions relating to offshore petroleum operations. The Bill gives the Federal Minister the power to require the safety authority to prepare reports or give information in relation to its performance or in the exercise of its powers in State waters. The Federal Minister must also cause a review to be undertaken of 1842 Partnership and Other Acts Amendment Bill 17 Aug 2004 the operations of the safety authority in State waters every three years and a copy of the review report is to be tabled in Parliament. The Bill also provides for a Safety Authority Board, which will give advice and make recommendations to the Chief Executive Officer of the safety authority, the State and Commonwealth Ministers and the Ministerial Council on Mineral and Petroleum Resources. Advice may be given on policy or strategic matters relating to occupational health and safety issues on offshore facilities or the performance of the safety authority. The Bill provides for a significant level of consultation between the Commonwealth and the States. This Bill will benefit the petroleum industry by providing consistent occupational health and safety regulation on offshore facilities by a national safety authority that will be staffed by people with a unique mix of technical competence, judgment and skills. I am sure that the new safety authority will provide a high degree of confidence in the regulation of safety on offshore facilities and the protection of the offshore work force. Mr Speaker, I commend the Bill to the House. Debate, on motion of Mr Lingard, adjourned.

PARTNERSHIP AND OTHER ACTS AMENDMENT BILL Hon. M.M. KEECH (Albert—ALP) (Minister for Tourism, Fair Trading and Wine Industry Development) (10.11 p.m.), by leave, without notice: I move— That leave be granted to bring in a bill for an act to amend the Partnership Act 1891, and for other purposes. Motion agreed to. First Reading Bill and explanatory notes presented and bill, on motion of Ms Keech, read a first time. Second Reading Hon. M.M. KEECH (Kawana—ALP) (Minister for Tourism, Fair Trading and Wine Industry Development) (10.12 p.m.): I move— That the bill be now read a second time. The bill introduces an incorporated limited partnership in Queensland. This entity will be a new form of business structure which Australian and international venture capital investors in Queensland can use to access taxation exemptions and flow through taxation treatment for venture capital investment recently provided by the Australian government.The Australian venture capital fund raising industry is relatively small when compared with its United States equivalent. In 2000, Axiss Australia, a division of the Australian government's national inward investment agency, Invest Australia, reported that in 2002 the United States venture capital industry raised 115 more times the amount of capital than that raised in Australia. The venture capital industry in Australia has traditionally been small in comparison but has demonstrated steady growth over the period 1996–2000. Venture capital is one of the main sources of funding for the biotechnology, information technology and communications sector. It is therefore a very important industry for Queensland. These industries have high research and development activities, and rely heavily on venture capital to fund these activities. The suppliers of such finance are predominantly institutional investors and specialised venture capital investment entities. The introduction of an incorporated limited partnership, together with the Australian government's taxation reform, will create an environment in Queensland that will encourage further international investment in these sectors. It will strengthen Queensland's growing venture capital fund raising and management industries. Since 1992, the Australian government taxed the income of limited partnerships in the same manner as the income of companies under the corporations legislative framework. However, in late 2002, the Australian government enacted the Venture Capital Act 2002 and the tax Laws Amendment (Venture Capital) Act 2002. These acts set up a new taxation regime for venture capital investment in Australia through the use of limited partnerships. These provide for capital gains exemptions and flow through taxation treatment on the income from venture capital investment earned through a limited partnership. The taxation of such venture capital funding entities is internationally recognised as world's best practice. These Commonwealth acts established a regime with the Australian government Pooled Development Fund Board for the registration of venture capital limited partnerships and Australian venture capital fund of funds. These entities will be incorporated limited partnerships initially formed in Queensland. A venture capital limited partnership is the investment vehicle used to make direct eligible venture capital investments into Queensland companies under the Commonwealth registration and taxation regimes. An Australian venture capital fund of funds will make investments in a range of venture capital limited partnerships in order to diversify investors' funds. The Commonwealth acts also established a venture capital management partnership within the taxation regime. A venture capital management 17 Aug 2004 Marine Parks Bill 1843 partnership will be an incorporated limited partnership formed in Queensland and will manage the businesses of venture capital limited partnerships and Australian venture capital fund of funds. Internationally, limited partnerships are the preferred investment vehicle for venture capital investment. However, these associations have their own separate legal identity that provides full protection from liability for their limited partner investors. Queensland's partnership law does not presently provide for such a business structure. To align Queensland's venture capital investment structures with this international practice, the bill will therefore establish an incorporated limited partnership as a new type of body corporate with a separate legal identity from that of its investor partners. An incorporated limited partnership will consist of at least one general partner and at least one limited partner. The general partner will be responsible for the management of the business of the incorporated limited partnership, while the limited partner will only be obliged to commit an agreed amount of capital or property to the business. As the incorporated limited partnership will be a separate legal entity, it will be responsible for all of its debts and obligations. However, the bill also provides that where an incorporated limited partnership cannot meet those debts or obligations, the general partner must meet that shortfall. Given the lateness of the hour, I seek leave to have the rest of my speech incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. A limited partner will have no liability for the debts or obligations of the business. The 'trade off' for this protection from liability will be that the limited partner will be prohibited from taking part in the management of the business. The Bill does however provide for certain circumstances in which a limited partner can participate in the management of the business. These exceptions will allow a limited partner investor to monitor and oversee the way in which that investor's money is used. Apart from these situations, if a limited partner does participate in the management of the business of the incorporated limited partnership, the limited partner will be treated the same way as a general partner and must satisfy those debts and obligations that cannot be met by the incorporated limited partnership itself. The Bill provides for three ways an incorporated limited partnership may be wound up. The body may be wound up voluntarily, through the direction of the chief executive, or if it is unable to pay its debts, it is just and equitable or in the public interest to do so, it may wound up under specific provisions of the Commonwealth Corporations Act 2001. The Bill will place Queensland in an identical position to New South Wales and Victoria, the only two other jurisdictions that have passed equivalent venture capital investment provisions in their partnership legislation. It will ensure that Queensland can attract further Australian and international investment by providing the legal structure most suitable to access the Australian Government's venture capital investment taxation exemptions and 'flow through' taxation treatment. MINOR TECHNICAL AMENDMENTS TO OTHER ACTS In addition to the creation of an incorporated limited partnership, the Bill makes some minor and technical amendments to 4 Acts administered by the Office of Fair Trading. Currently, the Service Delivery and Development Division of my department performs the registry functions under the Business Names Act 1962, Bills of Sale and Other Instruments Act 1955, Liens on Crops of Sugar Cane Act 1931 and the Motor Vehicles and Boat Securities Act 1986. Registry functions include receiving applications for the registration of business names and security interests, seeking further information in relation to these applications and removing particulars from the relevant registers. It is proposed that a number of departmental officers performing these functions are transferred to the Smart Service Queensland project presently run by the Department of Communities. Smart Service Queensland is the project that aims to provide provide Queenslanders with a 'front door' to government transactions, information and referrals through the Internet, phone and face-to- face customer service. Essentially, the aim is to provide Queenslanders with one point of contact with all their dealings with government. In order to ensure that officers transferred out of the department to the SSQ project can continue to perform functions under these Acts, minor and technical amendments are required to the powers of delegation for these functions. The power to delegate functions under these Acts currently refer to 'officers of the department' and 'offices of the department'. This means that the power to delegate is restricted to officers employed by my department and offices in my department. The Bill will amend these Acts to ensure that the power to delegate registry functions extends to another public service employee and that all other provisions in these Acts referring to officers or employees of my department are consistent with the change in the power to delegate. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate, on motion of Mr Lingard, adjourned.

MARINE PARKS BILL Hon. R.J. MICKEL (Logan—ALP) (Minister for the Environment) (10.18 p.m.), by leave, without notice: I move— That leave be granted to bring in a bill for an act to provide for marine parks and the conservation of the marine environment, and for other purposes. Motion agreed to. First Reading Bill and explanatory notes presented and bill, on motion of Mr Mickel, read a first time. 1844 Marine Parks Bill 17 Aug 2004

Second Reading Hon. R.J. MICKEL (Logan—ALP) (Minister for the Environment) (10.19 p.m.): I move— That the bill be now read a second time. Queensland's waterways are among our most wonderful natural assets. They are used by families for recreation, by commercial and recreational fishers, indigenous peoples, divers, nature lovers, tourists and tourism operators, coastal developers, shipping and mining interest, scientists and the aquaculture industry, providing job opportunities and generating income for coastal communities. It is therefore vital that they are protected. In the lead-up to the February 2001 state election, the Premier released the reef protection plan. This document included a policy commitment to continue to review and strengthen Queensland's regulatory protection of marine parks by updating the Marine Parks Act 1982. Tonight, I am pleased to introduce the Marine Parks Bill 2004, which will meet that commitment. This bill is a major advance in providing Queensland with forward-looking legislation for the protection and balanced use of our estuaries and coastal waters. This is a bill about marine conservation. It seeks to build upon the multiple use models used in Moreton Bay and elsewhere, which have strong community support. In marine parks established under the bill, conservation is largely delivered through the Environmental Protection Agency working with other agencies and users. The agency's role is simply to ensure that the health of the overall marine environment is maintained, that uses are sustainable and that conflicts are minimised. The term ‘multiple use' means that most areas in a marine park can be used for fishing, shipping, tourism, ports, aquaculture, extractive industry, marina development, and so on. In addition, when a zoning plan is developed for a marine park, some areas are usually set aside as the core conservation areas for hands-on management by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. These are the marine national park zones and conservation park zones. Marine national park zones are set aside for complete protection as no-take areas. Conservation park zones allow for line fishing, bait netting, recreational collecting and oyster culture. There has been a great deal of publicity in recent months about the Commonwealth Representative Areas Program for the Great Barrier Reef, under which the Commonwealth government has decided to set aside around one-third of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park as no-take areas. I have released for public comment a proposal for a strip of the Queensland coastline, in intertidal areas directly adjacent to the Commonwealth Marine Park, to adopt the zones proposed by the Commonwealth. This is designed to bring Queensland back into sync with the Commonwealth and to deliver certainty for all reef users. The alternative would be chaos. You cannot have two sets of rules for one body of water. I want to make it clear tonight that there is no intention to replicate such a high level of no-take areas in other Queensland marine parks in Moreton Bay, Hervey Bay, or the estuaries and rivers adjoining the Great Barrier Reef. I turn now to the provisions of the bill. The existing Marine Parks Act 1982 predates the establishment of fundamental legislative principles under the Legislative Standards Act 1992, as well as the introduction of most other natural resource legislation. Put simply, the current laws are out of date. Most of this bill simply comprises the existing provisions on zoning, management planning, permits and similar matters, redrafted and updated to meet current standards. The purpose of the bill is clearly stated as providing for the conservation of the marine environment. The term ‘conservation' is defined to mean protection and maintenance of the environment while allowing for sustainable use. This reinforces the multiple use philosophy which underpins the Queensland approach to marine parks. The bill sets out elements of the strategic approach to be adopted in achieving conservation, including declaring marine parks, which may be separated into zones, designated areas and highly protected areas; cooperating with other agencies, traditional owners and stakeholders; cooperating in the implementation of our international, national and intergovernmental agreements such as the World Heritage Convention; recognising the cultural, economic, ecological and social relationships between marine parks and adjacent areas; and coordinating with other legislation. This last provision allows for the excellent working relationship between the Environmental Protection Agency and other government agencies involved in the management of marine areas to continue. Mr Deputy Speaker, in view of the lateness of the hour, I seek leave to have the remainder of my speech incorporated into Hansard. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave is granted. For example, last year the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries cooperated to prepare a joint regulatory impact statement on protection of the grey nurse shark, a critically endangered species. 17 Aug 2004 Marine Parks Bill 1845

The two agencies implemented simultaneous amendments to the fisheries legislation and the Moreton Bay Marine Park Zoning Plan to protect key shark habitats. Similar examples could be given of cooperation between the Environmental Protection Agency and Maritime Safety Queensland for dugong protection, oil spill response and waterways management. The Bill seeks to expand joint planning with other agencies and accreditation of plans and approvals under other legislation where possible to minimise red tape. The Bill places on record the fact that this legislation serves to maintain a Queensland commitment under the 1979 Off-shore Constitutional Settlement that State marine park legislation would be brought into line with the Commonwealth Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975. The Bill is framed to ensure that the State and Commonwealth can work together to provide seamless management of the whole of the Great Barrier Reef, and to provide certainty and consistency for users, despite the fact that the boundaries between State and Commonwealth jurisdictions are not clear in many areas. The Bill allows for extraterritorial application if needed. Under the 1979 Off-shore Constitutional Settlement, the states are responsible for marine parks within coastal waters of the states, and the Commonwealth is responsible for marine parks further off-shore. The extra-territorial provision would be relevant only if the use of State legislation outside Queensland coastal waters is specifically negotiated with the Commonwealth, or where there is uncertainty over the location of off-shore jurisdictional boundaries. The provision simply leaves options open in cases where it may be necessary to have a marine park extending slightly outside the limit of Queensland coastal waters. This may be necessary in the case of the ex-HMAS Brisbane dive site off the Sunshine Coast, for example. A marine park will be declared to manage diving on the ship but the exact location is still being refined. The Bill also updates provisions regarding reclamations. Reclamation has been permitted in marine parks in a number of situations such as the marina developments associated with tourism projects at Nelly Bay harbour on Magnetic Island, Daydream Island in the Whitsundays, Keswick Island off-shore from Mackay and Laguna Quays north of Mackay. Other examples include development at Toondah harbour at Cleveland and the recent expansion of a water taxi terminal at Weinam Creek in southern Moreton Bay. Under the Marine Parks Act 1982, two different legal interpretations of the procedures to be adopted in approving reclamations are possible. This Bill seeks to clarify the processes for reclamation, and for the associated revocation of the reclaimed area from a marine park, by introducing a balanced approach to the assessment and management of these activities. The need for these changes is highlighted by the fact that in 2001, my predecessor sought and obtained a resolution of Parliament for the revocation of an area of Marine Park at Nelly Bay on Magnetic Island. This was necessary to remove legal uncertainty resulting from an application for judicial review which sought to challenge the validity of a reclamation permit. The Bill contains provisions to validate past reclamations so that there can be no further challenges along the lines of the one mounted to the Nelly Bay development. For future reclamations, the Bill adopts a middle ground approach which resolves legal uncertainty while respecting the conservation status of some marine park areas and the interests of all stakeholders. It makes reclamation and associated revocation from a marine park in general use and habitat protection zones a clear, straightforward and well managed process with absolute certainty for the developer. However, it does not allow revocation of national park or conservation park zones without a resolution of Parliament. The Bill will allow reclamation for marinas, ports and similar developments to occur under a permit, without a Parliamentary resolution, subject to the following conditions: The relevant zoning plan must allow for permits to be granted for reclamation; An environmental impact study involving public consultation must have been undertaken to the satisfaction of the Chief Executive. The study must also include information about the proposed regulation revoking the reclaimed part of a marine park that would normally be required in a regulatory impact statement; and The Governor in Council must approve the proposed revocation, via a notice which is gazetted before a permit can be issued. This provides future certainty for the developer, as well as elevating the decision on reclamation to Executive Council level, and allowing for Parliamentary scrutiny. This process will not apply to highly protected areas such as national park or conservation park zones. To date, there have been no instances of reclamation works in these zones, and it is not likely that there will be any in the future. However, if such a proposal were to be put forward, any reclamation would need to be preceded by rezoning of the area with public input, or a Parliamentary resolution for revocation of the area from the marine park. This approach will allow the Chief Executive to remain in control of a development, to maintain a site supervision role, and to impose indemnities, bonds and monitoring programs, all of which are important for effective conservation management. The Bill also allows for part of a marine park to be revoked without a Parliamentary resolution in circumstances where minor reclamation works are undertaken for a public purpose (for example, a boat ramp) or where there might be a need to fill or bund off an area in an emergency (for example, to contain an oil spill or to protect property from erosion.) The Bill provides for enhanced Parliamentary scrutiny of marine park rezonings. In the past, Queensland marine parks have sometimes been criticised as not being secure because a national park zone, for example, could be readily downgraded through rezoning. 1846 Integrated Planning and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 17 Aug 2004

To facilitate Parliamentary scrutiny the Bill now requires that where the classification or boundaries of an existing zone are changed in a way that decreases the level of protection provided, a statement must be tabled in Parliament clearly identifying the area affected and giving reasons for the reduced protection. The Bill provides more flexible powers to achieve compliance, and stronger penalties where appropriate: It allows for compliance notices to be issued as an alternative to prosecution; It allows the Chief Executive or an inspector to seek enforcement orders. This is consistent with current practice under the Environmental Protection Act 1994, the Coastal Protection and Management Act 1995, the Nature Conservation Act 1992 and other legislation; The Bill also allows third parties to seek an enforcement order in relation to matters which have been explicitly prohibited in a marine park (for example illegal reclamation works in a national park zone) or unlawful serious environmental harm; and The Bill also toughens penalties for environmental harm. Under the present act, the maximum penalty that can be imposed is one hundred penalty units or $7500 and is considerably lower than penalties for similar offences under other natural resource management legislation. The Bill consequently introduces a range of penalties consistent with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975, the Nature Conservation Act 1992 and other relevant legislation. In the most severe cases these may be up to $225,000 for an individual or $1,125,000 for a corporation, or 2 years imprisonment. Queensland has a higher proportion of its coastal waters declared as marine park than any other Australian state. Our marine parks in the Great Barrier Reef, in the whale watching areas in Hervey Bay, at Mon Repos turtle rookery and in Moreton Bay protect areas of major conservation significance, attract millions of visitors each year and support regional economies. The introduction of the Marine Parks Bill 2004 is a significant step in the delivery of the government's commitment to review and strengthen the State's regulatory protection of marine parks. The passage of the Bill will immediately be followed by review of the Marine Parks Regulation 1990, and the new package will come into effect in mid 2005. Mr Speaker, I commend this Bill to the House. Debate, on motion of Mr Lingard, adjourned.

INTEGRATED PLANNING AND OTHER LEGISLATION AMENDMENT BILL Hon. D. BOYLE (Cairns—ALP) (Minister for Local Government, Planning and Women) (10.24 p.m.), by leave, without notice: I move— That leave be granted to bring in a bill to an act to amend the Integrated Planning Act 1997, and for other purposes. Motion agreed to. First Reading Bill and explanatory notes presented and bill, on motion of Ms Boyle, read a first time. Second Reading Hon. D. BOYLE (Cairns—ALP) (Minister for Local Government, Planning and Women) (10.25 p.m.): I move— That the bill be now read a second time. Today I introduce to the House the most significant legislative reform to planning since the introduction of the Integrated Planning Act in 1997. Regional planning in south-east Queensland was initiated in 1990 by the Goss Labor Government. Since then, regional planning has been based on a voluntary partnership between state and local governments, with regional plans being non-statutory. However, in 2004, massive growth is threatening the lifestyle and landscape of south-east Queensland. Both the state government and local governments in south-east Queensland have recognised the need for regional planning to be given more status and support if we are to deal with the impacts of growth. The Office of Urban Management was created as a direct result of this determination, as were proposals to give the Regional Coordination Committee and the South-East Queensland Regional Plan statutory backing. While the focus of this bill is on regional planning in south-east Queensland, regional planning elsewhere in the state is also receiving the state government's attention. In fact, the Beattie Government has committed substantial extra funding to support regional planning in other areas of the state. An additional $3.6 million will be made available over the next four years to update and implement regional plans outside south-east Queensland. South-east Queensland is the fastest growing region in Australia. It is estimated that by 2026 the region will be home to 3.7 million people, up from 2.5 million people in 2001. This represents 26 per cent of all the population growth expected in Australia over the next 25 years. This growth, while creating opportunities, also brings with it challenges. If the urban system in south-east Queensland is to deliver liveable communities and sustainable development, this growth needs to be managed by governments at all levels, through working together to develop and implement a regional plan. The Office of Urban Management—a 2004 pre-election commitment of the Beattie Government— is now established and is working collaboratively to finalise a new South-East Queensland Regional 17 Aug 2004 Integrated Planning and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 1847

Plan by October this year. The Office is working with the local governments of south-east Queensland through the South-East Queensland Regional Organisation of Councils, and with state agencies, business and community groups. The Office will ensure that infrastructure programs, investment in natural resources and environmental programs, and policies of Queensland Government agencies and local governments align with the regional plan. A solid partnership between the state government and local governments in south-east Queensland was achieved through the SEQ 2001 and SEQ 2021 projects. Indeed, much of this important work, carried out over the past decade, was possible because of the drive and determination of a former Local Government and Planning Minister, now Deputy Premier and Treasurer, Terry Mackenroth. I would like to recognise his efforts today, as we take this historic next step, and say how very fortunate Queensland is to have a man of his experience and strength of purpose leading the Office of Urban Management. I am very confident that the partnership between the two levels of government that has been fostered by the Deputy Premier and Treasurer will continue. However, it is recognised that the pressures created by rapid growth in south-east Queensland may generate issues that cannot be resolved by consensus between stakeholders. In these circumstances, it is appropriate that the state has the necessary powers to settle such matters. The legislation I am bringing forward today will include an entirely new Part 5A in Chapter 2 of the Integrated Planning Act, dealing with regional planning arrangements for the south-east Queensland region. Mr Deputy Speaker, in light of the lateness of the hour, I seek leave to incorporate the remainder of my speech in Hansard. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave is granted. This new part will become the administrative responsibility of South-East Queensland's Regional Planning Minister, my Colleague, the Honourable the Deputy Premier, Treasurer and Minister for Sport. It recognises the critical impact that uncoordinated urban development in the region could have on the State's budgetary bottom line, and its capacity to continue to deliver high quality infrastructure and services to the people of south-east Queensland. In addition to the South-East Queensland Regional Planning Minister's responsibilities under the new Chapter 2 Part 5A, powers and responsibilities already in existence under the Integrated Planning Act will be extended to the South-East Queensland Regional Planning Minister, to ensure the effective development and implementation of the regional plan. The Bill defines the south-east Queensland region as the 18 local government areas already involved in the SEQ 2021 project, as well as adjacent coastal waters. The Bill will give statutory recognition to the continuing partnership between the State and local governments in the region by requiring the South-East Queensland Regional Planning Minister to formally constitute a Regional Coordination Committee consisting of Ministers, and Mayors from throughout the region. The Bill also allows for the Regional Coordination Committee to include other members with qualifications appropriate to the committee's functions. The Bill requires the South-East Queensland Regional Planning Minister to develop, consult upon, and approve a regional plan for the south-east Queensland region. The Regional Coordination Committee will have a crucial advisory role at key points in this process. The Bill requires that the regional plan include a spatial structure, including a land use component, and the identification of key regional infrastructure. The regional plan will also identify critical regional resources and the way these will be preserved, maintained or developed. In particular, the regional plan will identify priority areas for urban development, as well as regional landscape areas to be protected from incompatible development. The Bill also provides that the regional plan may include provisions with a direct regulatory effect over development. Whilst the majority of the regional plan's outcomes will be achieved through established planning mechanisms under the Integrated Planning Act, the proposed regulatory provisions will provide crucial support to these mechanisms by establishing clear boundaries and development requirements, such as for the proposed regional landscape areas. The Bill provides that the regulatory provisions contained in the regional plan may act in the same way as a temporary local planning instrument, by modifying the effect of a planning scheme until that scheme is amended to reflect the regional plan. However the regulatory provisions may also have a direct regulatory effect on development by stating clearly what development may or may not occur in given localities. Finally, the regulatory provisions may establish transitional arrangements for development applications that have not yet determined when the regional plan comes into effect. The Bill provides the regulatory provisions of the draft regional plan will come into effect at the start of the consultation period for the draft plan. This is one of the mechanisms in the Bill to ensure that the outcomes of the regional plan are not compromised through speculative development applications made before the regional plan comes into effect. Because of their critical importance, the Bill requires the regulatory provisions of the final regional plan to be tabled in Parliament within 14 sitting days of the approval of the regional plan, and be ratified by Parliament within a further 14 sitting days. If the regulatory provisions are not ratified by Parliament within this time, they will cease to have effect. This requirement reflects the importance of the need for a critical degree of parliamentary scrutiny of these important provisions, and underscores their role in achieving the outcomes of the regional plan. The new Chapter 2 Part 5A also establishes crucial relationships between the regional plan and other State and local planning instruments. As I have already indicated, despite the regional plan potentially containing regulatory provisions with their own effect, the majority of the outcomes of the regional plan will be delivered through existing mechanisms in the Integrated Planning Act, and in particular local government planning schemes. This approach builds on the fundamental intent of the Integrated Planning Act to integrate State and local planning outcomes through the key medium of local government planning schemes. 1848 Integrated Planning and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 17 Aug 2004

The importance of planning schemes in delivering the outcomes of the regional plan is reflected in a requirement in the Bill that local governments must—within 90 business days of the plan's approval—submit to me proposed amendments to their planning schemes to reflect the regional plan. The Bill also contains reserve powers for the South-East Queensland Regional Planning Minister to undertake appropriate amendments to planning schemes in the event this requirement is not met. The Bill also establishes important relationships between the regional plan and other State planning instruments and policies affecting land use and development in the region. State agencies preparing such plans or policies will be required to take account of the regional plan, and report in their plans, or policies, how the outcomes of the regional plan will be furthered. The regional plan will also be a direct and prevailing consideration for State agencies using Integrated Planning Act processes to achieve their plans or policies (such as when acting as an assessment manager or concurrence agency under the Integrated Development Assessment System process). When Integrated Planning Act processes are not involved, the regional plan will be a key medium to ensure through machinery of government processes that State infrastructure and servicing priorities are aligned with regional outcomes in the plan. The Office of Urban Management will play a key role in this respect, in coordinating government processes to further the outcomes of the plan. Apart from the new Chapter 2 Part 5A administered by the South-East Queensland Regional Planning Minister, the Bill contains several other amendments to the Integrated Planning Act designed to ensure effective implementation of the regional plan. These are: introducing the regional plan as a prevailing consideration for assessment managers and concurrence agencies under the Integrated Development Assessment System process, unless the regional plan has been adequately reflected in the relevant planning scheme; preventing development applications being made if the development that is the subject of the application would conflict with the regulatory provisions of the regional plan; requiring that an assessment manager cannot take a decision about a development application that would be contrary to the regulatory provisions of the regional plan; and introducing a development offence for carrying out development contrary to the regulatory provisions of the regional plan. The Bill also contains important additions to the ministerial call in arrangements in the Integrated Planning Act to allow the South- East Queensland Regional Planning Minister to deal with development applications which could potentially compromise the outcomes of the regional plan before it is finalised. The new provisions allow the South-East Queensland Regional Planning Minister to call in, and hold, a development application, pending the outcome of either the draft regulatory provisions or the final regional plan. The South-East Queensland Regional Planning Minister may then either decide the application, or return it to the local government for a decision in light of the draft regulatory provisions or the regional plan. The proposed provisions include important accountabilities, such as a requirement for the South-East Queensland Regional Planning Minister to nominate a date for the Integrated Development Assessment System process to restart for an application when calling it in. Mr Speaker, the Bill I am bringing forward today also contains several other minor, yet important provisions aimed at clarifying or improving the operation of the Integrated Planning Act and related legislation. For example, the Bill inserts a new Section 2.1.8A allowing the Minister to give a notice to a local government that the Minister is satisfied the local government's planning scheme reflects a particular State Planning Policy. At present, the Minister is only able to give such a notice during the preparation of a planning scheme. The new provision will allow planning schemes to be recognised as having already reflected a new or amended State Planning Policy without having to wait until the next review of the Planning Scheme. The Bill also includes a provision clarifying how a development approval or planning scheme provision can deal with development that is not assessable in its own right, but is directly associated with assessable development. For example a development approval for a material change of use can include conditions about works associated with the use, such as building, parking or amenity. The provision explicitly provides that a development approval or planning instrument can regulate this associated development. This does not change the law with respect to exempt and assessable development, but merely makes the intent of the Integrated Planning Act in this regard more explicit. Allowing works to be dealt with in this way is an important factor in discouraging the over- regulation of development, in particular minor works. Many planning schemes seek to make such works assessable in their own right, when in fact they can be effectively managed through other processes such as conditions on development approvals. The Bill contains an addition to Chapter 5 Part 6 of the Integrated Planning Act, dealing with public housing, to bring the arrangements for public housing more into line with those for community infrastructure under Chapter 2 Part 6 of the Integrated Planning Act. Section 2.6.6 of the Integrated Planning Act already provides that designated community infrastructure does not incur local government infrastructure charges under Chapter 5 Part 1 of the Integrated Planning Act. The amendment in the Bill includes a similar arrangement for public housing. State contributions towards local government infrastructure costs in respect of development for community infrastructure are already dealt with through a State Government Policy outside the Integrated Planning Act, and it would be more appropriate for public housing to be dealt with in this way as well. The Bill also contains a series of minor amendments to both the Local Government Act 1993, and the Queensland Heritage Act 1992, designed to clarify and better integrate processes under those Acts with those in the Integrated Planning Act. Mr Speaker, these amendments represent the next step in the evolution of Queensland's integrated planning regime. Although minor in nature, they will further clarify rights associated with existing uses and approvals. Our Government is committed to providing the development industry with certainty, and Council Planning Officers—those at the coalface—with a system that is straightforward and easy to administer. Ongoing maintenance of our planning legislation is designed to do just that. Approval processes under the Queensland Heritage Act 1992 were integrated into the Integrated Development Assessment System in November 2003. This Bill contains several amendments designed to further clarify how approvals under that Act work in the context of Integrated Development Assessment System. In particular the Bill contains transitional arrangements clarifying how 17 Aug 2004 Southern Moreton Bay Islands Development Entitlements Protection Bill 1849 applications made, but not determined under the Queensland Heritage Act 1992 before its integration with Integrated Development Assessment System are to be treated. The amendments to the Local Government Act 1993 build upon amendments made last year, and further clarify how local laws under that Act may deal with particular development. Mr Speaker, the south-east Queensland region faces immense challenges over the coming years and decades. It is essential we act now through the arrangements contained in this Bill, and in partnership with local governments in the region, to secure a sustainable future for the community in the region, and protect the lifestyle for which it is so justifiably famous. I commend the Bill to the House. Debate, on motion of Mr Malone, adjourned.

SOUTHERN MORETON BAY ISLANDS DEVELOPMENT ENTITLEMENTS PROTECTION BILL Hon. D. BOYLE (Cairns—ALP) (Minister for Local Government, Planning and Women) (10.30 p.m.), by leave, without notice: I move— That leave be granted to bring in a bill for an act to establish development entitlements for particular land on the Southern Moreton Bay Islands. Motion agreed to. First Reading Bill and explanatory notes presented and bill, on motion of Ms Boyle, read a first time. Second Reading Hon. D. BOYLE (Cairns—ALP) (Minister for Local Government, Planning and Women) (10.31 p.m.): I move— That the bill be now read a second time. The bill allows for the continuation of existing development entitlements to prescribed southern Moreton Bay islands landowners whose rights are proposed to be removed by inclusion of their land in the conservation zone in the Redland Shire Council's new Integrated Planning Act 1997, IPA, planning. These development entitlements may be taken up only by owners of those blocks of land where engineering and development requirements contained in the Redland Shire Council's current planning scheme can be satisfied. Those rights will fall away if the land is sold or otherwise transferred. The southern Moreton Bay islands were subdivided into around 22,500 lots in the 1960s and 1970s, before coming under the authority of Redland Shire Council. There was little or no recognition given at the time to a range of physical constraints to development, such as tidal surge and overland flow, or to the islands' future need for roads, water, sewerage and parkland. The subdivision allowed for a potential population of 33,000. The current population of the islands is approximately 4,000. In May 1973, the southern Moreton Bay islands were included in the Redland Shire. In 1995, the state government agreed to fund a joint study with the Redland Shire Council to determine the ecologically sustainable population for the islands, and identify the most appropriate measures for managing development impacts. The Southern Moreton Bay Islands Planning and Land Use Strategy study released in January 1999 recommended: a reduction in the number of developable lots by 11,300, approximately one-third, representing a sustainable population of approximately 22,600; and compulsory acquisition of almost 5,500 lots, both for conservation purposes and because many blocks were subject to tidal inundation and flooding. After extensive public consultation on the recommendations of the study, the state government adopted the position that individual—or mum and dad—landowners should be able to continue to exercise existing development entitlements for the purpose of constructing a house on the lot, regardless of a change in the council's planning scheme. The bill gives effect to this decision made by cabinet on 29 May 2000. Cabinet's decision was widely communicated at that time by means including a circular which was sent to all southern Moreton Bay islands landholders. The need for action to give effect to the cabinet decision was established in October 2003. At that time, the Redland Shire Council submitted a draft IPA planning scheme to the state government showing a number of lots, currently known to have a clear existing development entitlement, being proposed for inclusion in a conservation zone. This new zoning would make further development of these lots for a dwelling inconsistent with the draft IPA planning scheme. The possibility of attempting to achieve the government's stated objective through the IPA planning scheme for the Redland Shire was considered, but found unsuitable. This approach would have made the scheme unnecessarily complex while creating uncertainty into the future. An IPA amendment bill would have unnecessarily complicated IPA. This bill is therefore stand- alone legislation, which is seen as the most workable method to and the method that ensures the 1850 Southern Moreton Bay Islands Development Entitlements Protection Bill 17 Aug 2004 greatest degree of permanency for the state government's policy intent of securing protection of existing development entitlements for affected landholders. I seek leave to incorporate the remainder of my second reading speech in Hansard. Leave granted. An IPA Amendment Bill, on the other hand, would have unnecessarily complicated IPA. Mr Speaker, the Bill applies to an "owner" of prescribed land. An "owner" is an individual—not a company—who is legally or beneficially entitled to an estate of freehold in possession in the land. The definition is intended to include a life estate but not a lease. Executors, administrators, trustees and mortgagees in possession are excluded from the definition of "owner". If an "owner" sells the land with only a partially complete house, the development approval will not flow on to the purchaser. The date chosen for determining who is an "owner" of land to be protected under the Bill is the last day of the public consultation period for the Redland Shire's first IPA planning scheme. This gives SMBI landholders an opportunity to view the draft planning scheme as well as the State's proposed Bill, before making an informed decision, and potentially lodging a submission on the draft planning scheme. Under the Bill, the "owner" will be given the right to have Redland Shire Council apply the superseded, that is, currently in place planning scheme, in assessing their development application for a house. In contrast, under the usual IPA provisions, it is the local government's choice whether to agree to this request. However, if a land owner does not wish to use the provisions of the Bill that would allow a Development Application to be lodged for ten years, and instead wishes the Redland Shire Council to consider his or her application under the new IPA planning scheme, the Bill ensures that the usual IPA provisions regarding the payment of compensation remain available. It is considered equitable to give land owners on the Southern Moreton Bay Islands this choice. The owner's "prescribed" land must be located in the Residential A, Comprehensive Development or Rural Non Urban zone under the superseded, that is, currently in place planning scheme for Redland Shire at the time that the Redland Shire Council's IPA planning scheme is adopted; and it must be proposed for inclusion in whole within the Conservation zone under Redland's IPA planning scheme. The Bill further states the land must be prescribed under a regulation. Mr Speaker, not all land with the appropriate zoning will be prescribed, reflecting studies carried out by Redland Shire Council showing that it is not possible to build a house on all of these lots on engineering and development grounds. A regulation, not a schedule, will be used to identify the lots to be afforded protection under the proposed legislation. A schedule to the legislation was not possible in the current circumstances, as this new legislation is required prior to the Redland Shire Council's IPA planning scheme being publicly notified. This is currently expected to occur in October 2004. Until public consultation on the draft scheme is completed, and the scheme is submitted to me for approval to adopt, it is not possible to definitively define the affected lots. This approach allows anyone affected by either the draft IPA planning scheme, or by this Bill, to make a submission to Council during the public display period for the draft planning scheme. Their submission can then be evaluated in terms of an ultimate determination of the lots to be eventually included in the regulation. This approach also allows time for some Southern Moreton Bay Islands landholders, whose lots are included in the conservation zone, to demonstrate they can overcome drainage concerns, that have been previously identified by the Redland Shire Council. The Redland Shire Council's current voluntary land purchase and exchange program will reduce the number of lots requiring the Bill's protection due to these lots moving to Council ownership. Council's consideration of public submissions on the draft planning scheme may also result in a reduction in the number of lots ultimately included in the Conservation zone contained in the planning scheme adopted by Council. For all these reasons, it is not possible to include a final list of lots by way of a schedule. Mr Speaker, the Bill does not attempt to guarantee a right to build a house in every case. This is because the precise extent of the development entitlements of "owners" of land on the Southern Moreton Bay Islands are not known until specific applications are lodged with Council and are assessed against the provisions of Council's superseded planning scheme, that is, the planning scheme that is currently in place. The State is not in a position to undertake a detailed site-by-site analysis of lots covered in the Bill. Under the Bill, a development approval will lapse if land is transferred to an entity that is not an "owner" before a final inspection certificate is issued for the house. This avoids potential abuse of the Bill's provisions by way of trade in development permits. Section 5.5.1 of IPA, which allows compulsory acquisition of land by local government where the acquisition meets the "desired environmental outcomes" of the planning scheme, is excluded in the Bill. This avoids an outcome that is also contrary to the intent of the Bill. The Bill will sunset in ten years, during which time the "owner" of the "prescribed land" must have made a development application to Council in order to obtain the benefit of the Bill's protection. This sunset period is considered to be a fair and reasonable time to make an application. Regardless, regulations lapse after ten years. Mr Speaker, those landholders on Southern Moreton Bay Islands whose lots are not ultimately listed in the regulation are still able to access usual IPA provisions in progressing a development application. Those landholders can make a development application under the superseded planning scheme, thus relying on their Residential A, Comprehensive Development or Rural zoning, rather than the IPA planning scheme where their land may be zoned Conservation, and thus preclude the building of a house. These landholders can bring forward a development application under the superseded planning scheme for two years after the IPA planning scheme is adopted, as opposed to ten years for those protected under the Bill. The Bill's impact is limited in that it does not seek to prevent other State or local government legislation and policies from operating in the usual manner (other than a small number of specifically identified aspects of IPA). 17 Aug 2004 Adjournment 1851

The Department of Local Government, Planning, Sport and Recreation, and the former Department of Local Government and Planning, undertook extensive consultation while developing up the principles on which the Bill is based, and during finalisation of the detailed provisions of the Bill. The process included consultation with the Redland Shire Council; the Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy; the Environmental Protection Agency; the Department of Emergency Services; and Crown Law. Mr Speaker, I commend the Bill to the House. Debate, on motion of Mr Malone, adjourned.

ADJOURNMENT Hon. D. BOYLE (Cairns—ALP) (Minister for Local Government, Planning and Women) (10.35 p.m.): I move— That the House do now adjourn. Reinke Family Property Mr MESSENGER (Burnett—NPA) (10.35 p.m.): I wish that all the members sitting opposite me could have been in my office on the afternoon of Tuesday, 22 July and felt the sadness, rage and humiliation of Mrs Sue Reinke who wept in front of me like a baby. I am reluctant to tell this parliament that Mrs Reinke cried because she would be embarrassed. She is not the sort of person to cry easily. Sue is a hardworking country woman who is well aware of the realities of life. Sue, with her husband, Peter, owns and works on a cattle breeding property just west of Rosedale, which is about one and a half hours drive north of Bundaberg. They raised a family on that property, battled all the droughts, floods and fires and now because of a letter from Peter Beattie's EPA she and her family are about to give up hope. The Labor state government is about to do what no drought, fire or flood could do. That is to break the will and spirit of this hardworking, beautiful Queensland woman. I am outraged and disgusted. This Labor government has once again sunk the boot into regional and rural Queensland. The Reinkes bought a grazing lease from the Queensland government in the 1990s. Now, suddenly, the Queensland government has decided not to allow the Reinkes to renew their grazing lease. The only way that they can renew this grazing lease is to lodge an application form detailing, for the past three years, full financial statements, including profit and loss statements, balance sheets, livestock trading schedules, depreciation schedules, personal taxation forms, monthly cash flows and property management plans. I think members can get the picture. The only thing that the Labor state government does not want is the shirt off their backs and the colour of their underwear. All these details are required to be submitted by the 23rd of this month. If one reads between the lines of this vintage piece of red tape madness very quickly one realises that Mr Beattie and his heartless Labor mates do not want the Reinkes to fill out the forms and apply for an extension to their grazing lease. It would prefer that the Reinkes lose 40 per cent of their income and are driven off their property and then this leaseland would become a haven for dingoes, wild dogs, feral animals and noxious weeds. The grass on this resumed land will grow and increase the fuel level so that when a bushfire hits the property the intensity would destroy much of the virgin timber and native wildlife. The predicament of the Reinkes is typical of what many Queensland rural people are facing because of Peter Beattie's heartless arrogance, his slavish sucking up to the minority Green lobby and a state bureaucracy gone mad. This government has forsaken the Reinkes, the workers and rural Queensland. Mr E. Redfern Hon. S. ROBERTSON (Stretton—ALP) (Minister for Natural Resources, Mines and Energy) (10.38 p.m.): Tonight I remember the life of an extraordinary person, Edward Alexander Redfern. Eddie was born at Hughenden on 10 March 1945. At age five, along with his mum, Sylvia, dad Roy, and sister, June, he moved to Brisbane. Eddie left school at 13 to work as a shoe salesman. Even back then he worked two jobs. He waited on tables at night to improve his standard and quality of life. In the early 1960s he met his true love, Denise. In 1965 he was called up for national service. He was to go to Vietnam and, while proud of his national service, with his political views Eddie fought for his rights and remained here. On New Year's Eve 1966 Eddie and Denise had married. Eddie always said he chose New Year's Eve so he would never forget their anniversary. Eddie found it hard to settle back into civilian life so in 1968 he joined the fire brigade, a job he loved and dedicated himself to for 35 years. It was here he made many great mates. The enduring nature of those friendships were demonstrated with such dedication over the time that he was sick when his former shift mates all rallied around. 1852 Adjournment 17 Aug 2004

Eddie planned to retire from the fire service in June last year and we all felt for him when he had to leave the job early. Eddie also ran a successful painting business. Painting provided Eddie and Denise with the means to explore the world—and explore it they did, travelling on no less than 19 occasions with Eddie planning the next trip even before he had returned from the last. When asked what was the best place he had ever visited, he always replied 'Brisbane airport'. After his family and friends and alongside the fire service, his great love was the Australian Labor Party. Eddie worked tirelessly for the Labor Party for 15 years. Over the years he accumulated photos with every Labor politician he met. I would like to think it was the case that every Labor politician wanted their photo taken with Eddie, and why wouldn't they? I know the photo I will always treasure is one with Eddie on election night 1992 when we celebrated the first of many victories at his home. It has hung in my office ever since and will forever be an inspiration and a priceless memory for me. The respect and thanks he earned was evidenced at Eddie's funeral. Along with over 300 family and friends, federal and state members and local councillors all came together to remember Eddie for his commitment to the cause. When he retired he joined the After Burners, the retired firefighters association, immersing himself in many of the activities it organised, particularly those giving support to firies who, like himself, were experiencing a bad trot. When Eddie was told that he had cancer in November 2002, he was given three to six months. But proving to be a true fighter, he battled it with all his heart and soul as if it was a challenge to prove all the specialists wrong. Eddie fought for 20 months, showing us just how tough he was in wringing every last second out of his shortened life. It was as if he believed that Denise, Mathew and all who knew him were owed nothing less. Things would have been so much harder had it not been for the tireless support and love given by Denise but also the firies, particularly from Acacia Ridge station. In fact, so frequent were their visits to Hinton Street that I thought a new substation had opened in my electorate. He enriched all of our lives and in so many ways. I consider myself fortunate to have shared part of the life of a true believer. On Monday 26 July that sharing ended and so did the many experiences, stories and laughs, but not the memories. Thanks, Eddie. We are all the richer for knowing you and the poorer for your passing. We miss you, mate.

Public Transport, Sunshine Coast

Mr McARDLE (Caloundra—Lib) (10.41 p.m.): Yet again Sunbus, the only public transport service across the Sunshine Coast, has failed to live up to the requirements of the residents of the coast. The Sunshine Coast Daily on 7 August reported on a survey of passengers it had undertaken on one of the coast's main bus routes. The paper states— It was almost impossible to find anyone who was happy with the bus service. It is hard to see, given the level of complaints, how anyone could condone the current service. The list of grievances consisted of complaints such as these: of the 30 bus stops between Pacific Paradise and Coolum, only 12 had timetables whilst another four did not even have noticeboards in place; long waiting times were reported on many occasions; buses were rarely on time; buses were crowded; and passengers could not obtain timetables despite requests. The newspaper article quoted a traveller as saying— He said that since arriving on the coast a month ago, he had found the Sunbus service 'not particularly satisfactory. I find it very expensive, rarely on time and the capacity of the bus is totally inadequate for the number of people travelling on them.' The Minister for Transport in this House on 20 April this year stated— A number of issues have been raised about Sunbus on the Sunshine Coast—complaints of late running or missing people. I have made it very clear in the Sunshine Coast newspapers and other media in that area that if there are any complaints I am very keen to hear them. The minister should well and truly have heard the complaints raised as a consequence of the article that appeared in the Sunshine Coast Daily. For too long the people of the Sunshine Coast have put up with a woefully inadequate bus transport service and have demanded action be taken to rectify the problems. Of more concern is the article that appeared in the Sunday Mail on 15 August 2004, again involving Sunbus, when a driver told a year 8 student on a Saturday that he could not ride the nearly empty service because his TransLink pass was invalid. There is a real question over Sunbus's policy in collecting children which needed to be clarified as a matter of urgency ages ago so that parents on the Sunshine Coast could feel secure in their children accessing Sunbus services. Public transport is not a matter to be considered over time. It is an issue that must be addressed immediately, and the minister must comply with his own words of 20 April— I want to ensure that the system that we have in place is a system that gives the public maximum confidence. This is not happening under the existing contractor, and the minister must terminate this contract with a professional service provider to be engaged forthwith. 17 Aug 2004 Adjournment 1853

Seniors Week Mrs CROFT (Broadwater—ALP) (10.44 p.m.): This week is Seniors Week, a week-long celebration that focuses on showcasing the diversity of older people and promotes healthy ageing. I personally enjoy the opportunities to speak with seniors about their lives, their passions and their dedication to their families and their communities. It is so important to continue to recognise the incredibly broad-ranging contribution of senior Queenslanders to our communities, and Seniors Week is a great opportunity to do this. I love this year's theme, Ageing—Everyone's Doing It. Yes, everyone is doing it and that is why Seniors Week is an event for all parts of the community to get involved in. Today I had the honour of opening the Moncrieff U3A's Festival of Ideas, an event hosted by the Moncrieff U3A to showcase the talents and skills of its members. The Festival of Ideas is a highlight in Seniors Week celebrations on the Gold Coast with 200 local residents turning out to be treated to a morning of charming entertainment. The Moncrieff U3A choir conducted by Colleen Johnson delighted the audience with a wonderful bracket of songs and following that the poetry writers touched us with their poetry readings and took us away from Paradise Point. A hilariously entertaining game—define this word game—was then demonstrated to the audience. It was a fun game where each of the members spoke for a minute about a created word—a word that is not found in the dictionary. I must say that the entertainment was outstanding and the individual members did very well. Aside from this, at the back of the room there was artwork that was incredibly outstanding. There was a display including drawings, miniature paintings and pastels and also included poetry. I am a strong supporter of the lifelong learning concept and the University of the Third Age where all teaching, planning and administration of the University of the Third Age is carried out by its own members, thus tapping into the skills and experience of older people. There is no doubt that engaging in learning builds up individual confidence, personal acceptance and happiness and reduces isolation and depression. The Moncrieff U3A offers a range of courses for members to sign up to, including computer courses such as Microsoft, Word processing, creative writing, French for beginners, painting and even current affairs. I wish to commend all of the members of the Moncrieff U3A and the tutors for their dedicated effort to engaging in lifelong learning and positive and healthy ageing. It was indeed my great pleasure to join with residents at today's Festival of Ideas in celebration of Seniors Week because, after all, ageing—we are all doing it.

Vegetation Management, Ballot Process Mr MALONE (Mirani—NPA) (10.47 p.m.): Applications for the clearing of land through the current state government ballot process are an absolute nightmare for all involved. Indeed, from tonight, farmers have only 13 days in which to put their applications in. The process of a ballot for land-holders to clear their land has been deliberately created by the Beattie government to cause great confusion and unnecessary angst. Why else would the application forms be so complicated and the process so difficult? Land-holders seeking assistance in this process have been advised to ring a 1800 number to obtain the necessary application kits and relevant information. My office has been inundated with calls and letters from understandably irate and totally frustrated land-holders who have certainly not found this government service at all helpful. On phoning this number one can expect to be placed in a queue and if they wait long enough eventually contact is made and they are told that someone will phone them back some time in the next three weeks. No time or date is given and as a number of people have discovered if they are not there to take the call they have well and truly missed out on their opportunity. Should they have further questions after that call, it means that they have to go through the whole painful process again. This ballot process requires land-holders to comply with a number of guidelines, meet very strict criteria, and supply property maps and aerial and satellite photos all within a very limited time frame. Is it any wonder that people are asking if this process has been deliberately staged to prevent the majority of legitimate applications from ever being lodged? I for one certainly believe so. The Beattie government has set out with great determination to make it difficult for land-holders and has hyped up the land clearing issue solely for the green vote. There is nothing fair about the process. It is costing land-holders vast amounts of money in consultancy fees, application fees, property mapping fees and huge amounts of time. In the end, a land-holder may or may not be successful in his or her application as it all depends on the luck of the draw of the ballot. However, in this case the cost is unacceptable. The ballot process is impacting adversely on people's future livelihoods and their businesses. Land clearing has never been taken lightly by the vast majority of land-holders. It is a practice that is planned carefully and usually undertaken over a long period. Therefore, the time frame for this ballot process should be extended to allow land-holders a suitable period in which to fully evaluate their needs for the future and to obtain the necessary information. If the Beattie government was at all interested in a fair outcome, it would give the farmers a fair go and extend the time frame for this misguided ballot process. 1854 Adjournment 17 Aug 2004

Morayfield State Primary School Mrs CARRYN SULLIVAN (Pumicestone—ALP) (10.50 p.m.): Last week the Minister for Public Works, Housing and Racing visited the electorate of Pumicestone to officially open the new community resource centre, which is located in the grounds of the Morayfield State Primary School. This new building, affectionately named PLACE, which stands for parent liaison and community education, was proposed in the school's P&C submission to the state government's Caboolture South Community Renewal Program. At a total cost of $138,000 PLACE provides space for a meeting room, audio equipment, an office, professional services room, a children's play area and kitchen. It is proving to be an extremely useful asset. Already the local community is taking full advantage of the new facilities, delivering language lessons and traditional Aboriginal dance classes are also being offered. The opening of PLACE is yet another significant milestone for Morayfield and the Caboolture South community. The residents have now seen a number of projects implemented with the help of community renewal. Overall, 50 projects totalling $3.3 million have been either approved or completed in the past three and a half years. I am proud to be part of a government that initiated this working relationship between the community and the state government where residents are encouraged to propose their own ideas to improve their quality of life through better and more services and facilities. Like all community renewal projects, this new centre would not have been completed without the hard work of many people. I would like to take this opportunity to specifically thank local parent and parent liaison officer, Shelly Stratford, who has driven this project from the word go. I also give thanks to the many other parents who have been so determined to create a strong and vibrant school community. The school Principal, Petrus Habermehl, the community renewal staff and the Caboolture South community reference group, including chairperson Jody Reynolds, must also be recognised. There were many special moments at the official opening, but one in particular was a poem titled Room for a Dream, written, read and dedicated by Carmel Skelton of John Street, Caboolture South. I would like to share it with the members of the House tonight— Back in 2001 in the grounds of this school, a Dream started and it grew. A Parent Club Coordinator and a resourceful crew Pooled their ideas together to express that view. More room for the people, the message conceded. A 'Community Room' is urgently needed! A collection of signatures and letters of support From parents, care givers and teachers was sought. True Aussie commitment really shone through, as Members of parliament supported them too. They believed in the dream and helped it come true. For it would benefit the community and the people they knew. Waiting in anticipation for that Grant application Good things come to those who wait. And soon there was reason to celebrate A completed new building with room galore. The dream became reality in 2004. South Burnett-Maidenwell Astronomical Observatory Mrs PRATT (Nanango—Ind) (10.53 p.m.): What is it that Maidenwell, a small rural village with no streetlighting and no services, has that the cities, with all of their services—their buses, trains, high-rise buildings, traffic jams and smog—does not? The answer is stars, a perfect patch of sky, a window to the universe and something that astronomers such as Professor Fred Watson, the astronomer in charge of the Anglo-Australian Observatory at Coonabarabran in central New South Wales, values more than most. Maidenwell is a beautiful area situated in the Bunya Mountains. Although the area attracts many tourists who soak up its beauty and relax in its tranquillity, there is now a further reason for people to stay. On Monday, the South Burnett-Maidenwell Astronomical Observatory was officially opened. This is a long-time dream of astronomer Jim Barclay and his wife, Lyn. I first met Jim and Lyn two years ago when they, along with personnel from NASA, first proposed building the robotic observatory at Ellesmere and introduced the telescopes in education program, which allows students from Australia to tour the planets and stars during their hours in school by accessing telescopes in America, which can be positioned remotely. For me, being involved in this project in even the smallest of ways was an honour and a privilege as I dream to travel in space. I may yet go, as I was informed that for $30,000 my ashes can be jettisoned in space from a space shuttle. I just have to save up. Jim was almost reduced to tears during the opening of the facility, but perhaps it would be his wife, Lyn, who would be expected to shed a tear because, to fulfil their dream of building 17 Aug 2004 Adjournment 1855 the facility, Jim and Lyn sold their home in Brisbane. I do not believe that many women would allow that to happen. The facility houses three large 14-inch Schmidt Cassegrain telescopes housed in a purpose-built building of which the roof slides off. The telescopes are so powerful that at midday it is possible to view the star Sirius and the planet Jupiter—two images that I will never forget. The facility also has a traditional domed observatory from which a projection of the sun was relayed to screens and it was possible in real time to watch the surface of the sun and the formation of solar flares. This facility both educates and entertains. I also had the privilege of meeting Professor Fred Watson, who not only cut the ribbon to open the facility but also reinforced the view that astronomy is one of the sciences that inspires the imagination more than any of the other sciences. Anyone who has looked up to the stars has wondered who or what might be out there. The students from Tanderingie State Primary School were on hand to witness the proceedings as was the Leader of the Opposition, who admitted to also being an amateur astronomer. I have travelled to many parts of the world and looked up and not seen stars because of light pollution, smoke or smog. The location and opening of this facility is a huge step for Maidenwell as it is the perfect spot from which to see a million acres of sky. I invite all members to visit the South Burnett-Maidenwell Astronomical Observatory. I congratulate Jim and Lyn. They have done more than they will ever know for the people of Maidenwell, the shire and Queensland. But more importantly, they have opened another window to the heavens. I have always believed that it is the greatest arrogance to think that mankind has the highest intelligence in the universe. Today on earth we receive light that started its journey up to eight billion light years ago and that shows up at the birth of a galaxy— Time expired. North Queensland Cowboys Mr WALLACE (Thuringowa—ALP) (10.56 p.m.): I rise to draw the attention of honourable members to a piece of sporting history that will occur at 4 p.m. on Sunday, 29 August. No, it has nothing to do with the Olympic Games. As my colleague the member for Mundingburra said earlier, for only the second time in their history the mighty North Queensland Cowboys will have their game televised on free-to-air television. Yes, that is right: when they take on the West Tigers at Campbelltown it will be only their second game in a decade to be shown on non-subscriber television. I am sure that all honourable members would agree that that is an appalling record for Channel 9, which has the rights to broadcast these games. Members can imagine the outrage there would be here if the Broncos were treated in a similar manner. But north Queensland is fighting back. I am proud to say that many thousands of north Queenslanders have signed a petition directed at Channel 9 demanding more games. Ms Nelson-Carr: 12,000. Mr WALLACE: The member for Mundingburra informs me that 12,000 have signed a petition. I would like to congratulate publicly in this place the Townsville Bulletin for organising this massive show of support. Unfortunately, Channel 9 has been non-committal in its response. Therefore, may I offer a solution—and it is simple as ABC. Recently Cairns hosted its second test cricket match in as many years. Channel 9 showed much of the play. However, to its credit, on the Sunday of the test, Channel 9, which must have had more pressing commitments, gave the rights of the day's play to the ABC. Thus cricket enthusiasts were able to follow the play by watching the national broadcaster. If that can be done for cricket, why not for Cowboys games? Even if that coverage was across only regional Queensland, there is no doubt that the ABC's ratings would get a big lift. I am sure that the ABC would jump at the opportunity to get back into the broadcasting of the big game and Channel 9 would get a huge pat on the back from the residents of the north. I hope that Channel 9 will listen to this request and to the voices of thousands of north Queenslanders who want to watch their team, the Cowboys, on TV not only as they march towards this year's finals but also more than once over the coming decade. Moranbah Race Day Mr KNUTH (Charters Towers—NPA) (10.59 p.m.): On 28 August we see the running of the BMA Cattlemen's Cup at Moranbah, which is one of the many country clubs affected by the racing cutbacks. Queensland Racing informed Moranbah racing committee members that if they could find extra sponsorship, they could add to their allocated prize money as an added incentive to entice trainers, jockeys and owners to Moranbah. So Moranbah Race Club did as requested. However, Queensland Racing gave the Moranbah club a kick in the guts when it said that it cannot add any extra prize money. Queensland Racing never made any effort to consult with the Moranbah racing club on this issue, its 1856 Adjournment 17 Aug 2004 justification being that there is a TAB meet in Mackay four days later and that has a higher priority. Yet Middlemount held a race meeting on 14 August with total prize money of $30,000, which is $10,0000 over Queensland Racing's allocated race money. Three days later, Rockhampton hosted a TAB meeting. Queensland Racing said that the protection of the TAB meets is paramount. The prize money on offer at Mackay on 31 August is $76,000. Moranbah wanted to offer $32,000, less than half the prize money offered in Mackay. Surely the prize money in Mackay is protection enough. Moranbah has had all but two of its race meetings cut—one in August and one in November—so there is a 10-month wait between the last race meet of the year and the first race meet of the next year. Like all clubs it struggles to remain financially viable. The club has put in a huge effort to ensure that the race days it has retained are successful. The Cattlemen's Cup Association sponsors the August meeting. As well as providing the extra sponsorship, it also provides amusement rides for the children, a dinner for racegoers, entertainment after the races, $1,000 towards fashion of the field and a luncheon tent. Last year $28,000 was raised from the meeting. This money was donated to the Royal Flying Doctors, MacCauley House in Mackay and numerous local clubs. Everyone in the community benefits from the efforts of the race club and its generous sponsors. Surely if the sponsors are willing to part with their money, Queensland Racing should be willing to accept it, especially when a club waits 10 months for the next meeting, which is one of the mining town's major events of the year. I ask the Minister for Racing to intervene on behalf of the Moranbah community and redress the inconsistent statements given by Queensland Racing to the committee members, or give clubs like Moranbah the opportunity to offer extra prize money to entice more owners, trainers and jockeys to their race meetings which, in turn, will raise the profile of these racing clubs. Narangba Rural Fire Brigade Hon. K.W. HAYWARD (Kallangur—ALP) (11.01 p.m.): Last Saturday I had the pleasure of attending the open day conducted by the Narangba Rural Fire Brigade. Narangba is a class 2 brigade and was formed in May 1990. The brigade has a shed located in Roberts Road, Narangba, which was opened in June 2000. They have four fire truck appliances, which comprise two light attack vehicles and two medium attack vehicles. The service receives levies from both Caboolture and Pine Rivers councils, and the closest urban station is Petrie. The open day involved fire safety tips on how to put out fires in a household kitchen and a gas bottle. The fire trucks were on display and the Narangba rural volunteers conducted the event. The day was important because it enabled the Narangba community to see where the money goes. With the winds, temperatures and low humidity, the fire danger is high around Queensland. The area covered by the Narangba Rural Fire Brigade is no exception. Preparations for the fire season were given a boost recently with the delivery of a new fire truck worth $70,000, with the state contributing 80 per cent of the cost and the brigade raising the other 20 per cent from donations, levies and local fundraising activities. In fact, while the open day was in progress, one of the trucks was called out to assist in fighting a fire near Kilcoy. In recent years volunteers from the Narangba rural service have fought fires in New South Wales near Sydney and in Canberra. The commitment of the volunteers who support this service is strong. Training is undertaken every Wednesday evening and all volunteers are on hand to be called out should a fire unfortunately occur. Interestingly, the service not only covers rural areas in the Narangba district but, with population growth, now covers some of the built-up community of Narangba, comprising about 700 homes in total. Congratulations go to the service on its commitment to the local community. In the last 18 months, they have attended over 130 fire incidents. This includes 40 controlled burns, that is, back-burning, et cetera, and around 80 wildfires. Narangba is well served by its rural fire brigade. Fraser Coast Chronicle Mr McNAMARA (Hervey Bay—ALP) (11.04 p.m.): On Thursday of the last sitting week, I informed the House that my local newspaper, the Fraser Coast Chronicle, had not reported the state budget. In this I was wrong and, unlike the Fonz, I can admit it. The following day it was drawn to my attention that, in fact, the budget was reported on three occasions in the paper on that particular day. I wrote a letter to the paper to apologise, to withdraw my comments and to accept full responsibility for them. They chose not to publish that letter, which is a matter for them. However, I wish to correct the record in the House here tonight, to confirm that the paper did in fact report the budget. Motion agreed to. The House adjourned at 11.04 p.m.