Legislative Council

ADJOURNMENT ...... 24100 ANTI-POVERTY WEEK ...... 24014, 24103 ASSISTED BOARDING HOUSE REGULATION ...... 24044 AVIAN INFLUENZA OUTBREAK ...... 24038 BEACH ACCESS FOR DISABLED ...... 24046 BIRTH OF SWAMI VIVEKANADA ANNIVERSARY ...... 24018 BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE ...... 24014, 24016, 24020, 24020 CASUAL TEACHER STAFFING SYSTEM ...... 24049 CENTRAL COAST WATER SUPPLY ...... 24046 CHILD PROTECTION LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (OFFENDERS REGISTRATION AND PROHIBITION ORDERS) BILL 2013 ...... 24051 CRIMES (SENTENCING PROCEDURE) AMENDMENT (STANDARD NON-PAROLE PERIODS) BILL 2013 ...... 24099 CROWN LANDS AMENDMENT (MULTIPLE LAND USE) BILL 2013 ...... 24051 CROWN ROADS ACCESS AND RECREATIONAL FISHING TRUST FUNDS ...... 24050 DEVELOPMENT CONSTRUCTION GUIDELINES ...... 24050 DISTINGUISHED VISITORS ...... 24025 F3 TO M2 ORBITAL LINK ...... 24040 FIREARMS AND CRIMINAL GROUPS LEGISLATION ...... 24102 FOURTH AUSTRALIAN CONFERENCE ON CHILDREN AND THE MEDIA ...... 24017 GAME AND FERAL ANIMAL CONTROL AMENDMENT BILL 2013 ...... 24020, 24025, 24051 GRAINCORP TAKEOVER PROPOSAL ...... 24100 INDIAN AUSTRALIAN CULTURAL FAIR ...... 24015 IRREGULAR PETITION ...... 24020 KOGARAH STATE EMERGENCY SERVICE ...... 24039 LIQUOR AMENDMENT (KINGS CROSS PLAN OF MANAGEMENT) BILL 2013 ...... 24082 MIRANDA MUSICAL SOCIETY ...... 24018 MOBILE SPEED CAMERAS ...... 24040 MOTORCYCLE AWARENESS WEEK ...... 24045 MOTORISED BICYCLES ...... 24041 MR PAUL FEATHERSTONE RETIREMENT ...... 24014 NATIVE FORESTS MANAGEMENT ...... 24051 NATIVE VEGETATION LEGISLATION ...... 24050 NORTH WEST RAIL LINK ...... 24040 NSW GAY AND LESBIAN RIGHTS LOBBY TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY ...... 24101 NSW POLICE FORCE CHILD ABUSE SQUAD ...... 24050 PERU AMAZONICO EXHIBITION ...... 24016 PETITIONS ...... 24019 PLAGUE LOCUST OUTBREAKS ...... 24045 PUBLIC HOUSING BED TAX...... 24049, 24049 QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE ...... 24038 SANDAKAN MEMORIAL ...... 24103 SKILLS BOARD BILL 2013 ...... 24081 SOLAR ENERGY EXCHANGE INITIATIVE ...... 24019 ST GEORGE HOSPITAL PERITONECTOMY SURGERY ...... 24046 STRIKE FORCE EVESSON ...... 24043 SUMMER MUSIC FESTIVALS POLICING ...... 24048 SYDNEY CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT FIRE...... 24038 SYDNEY WATER CATCHMENT COAL AND GAS MINING ...... 24042 TOLL ROAD TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT ...... 24047 UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES SUNSWIFT SOLAR RACING TEAM ...... 24019 UNPROCLAIMED LEGISLATION ...... 24019 VISION-IMPAIRED PEDESTRIAN SAFETY...... 24041 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING CONTRACTS...... 24047 WARRANE COLLEGE ANNUAL LECTURE ...... 24017 WESTCONNEX MOTORWAY...... 24043 WHIAN WHIAN LOGGING SITE ...... 24041

24014

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

Wednesday 16 October 2013

______

The President (The Hon. Donald Thomas Harwin) took the chair at 11.00 a.m.

The President read the Prayers.

Pursuant to sessional orders Formal Business Notices of Motions proceeded with.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Formal Business Notices of Motions

Private Members' Business item No. 1506 outside the Order of Precedence objected to as being taken as formal business.

ANTI-POVERTY WEEK

Motion by Dr JOHN KAYE, on behalf of the Hon. Jan Barham, agreed to:

(1) That this House notes that:

(a) Anti-Poverty Week 2013 runs from 13 to 19 October; and

(b) the main aims of Anti-Poverty Week are to:

(i) strengthen public understanding of the causes and consequences of poverty and hardship; and

(ii) encourage research, discussion and action by individuals, communities, organisations and governments to address poverty.

(2) That this House notes that:

(a) 2.6 million Australians live below the poverty line;

(b) one quarter of the Australians living in poverty are children and young people under the age of 25; and

(c) Australia's poverty rate is higher than most other developed nations, ranking twenty-sixth out of the 34 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] countries.

(3) That this House notes the many recent reports documenting the causes and impacts of poverty, including:

(a) the Australian Council of Social Services and National Rural Health Alliance report released on 14 October 2013 entitled, "A snapshot of poverty in rural and regional Australia";

(b) the UnitingCare report, prepared by the University of Canberra's National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling and released on 12 October 2013, entitled, "Poverty, Social Exclusion and Disadvantage in Australia"; and

(4) That this House:

(a) acknowledges the importance of government and Parliament working to reduce poverty; and

(b) commits to addressing the causes and impacts of social and economic disadvantage.

MR PAUL FEATHERSTONE RETIREMENT

Motion by the Hon. MARIE FICARRA agreed to:

(1) That this House notes that:

(a) Mr Paul Featherstone joined the NSW Ambulance Service as a paramedic in 1972; and

(b) Mr Featherstone is retiring after 41 years of service to the people of New South Wales.

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(2) That this House acknowledges that:

(a) Mr Featherstone pioneered and developed the Special Casualty Access Team [SCAT] in 1986;

(b) Mr Featherstone played an integral role in developing new patient access methods and improving the treatment methods of patients in hostile rescue situations;

(i) Granville rail crash in 1977;

(ii) Thredbo landslide in 1997;

(iii) Bali bombings in 2002;

(iv) Waterfall rail crash in 2003;

(v) Beaconsfield Mine rescue in 2006, among many other emergency events; and

(d) Mr Featherstone has been decorated with many accolades during his service, including:

(i) The Australian Bravery Medal;

(ii) 2007 Sutherland Shire Citizen of the Year; and

(iii) The Distinguished Service Medal, which he received twice.

(3) That this House:

(a) commends Mr Featherstone for his tireless efforts to protect the lives of those who have become victims of emergency accidents and disasters in New South Wales and abroad;

(b) commends Mr Featherstone for his immense bravery and courage during times of mental and physical difficulty during his 41 years of service with the NSW Ambulance Service; and

INDIAN AUSTRALIAN CULTURAL FAIR

Motion by the Hon. DAVID CLARKE agreed to:

(1) That this House notes that:

(a) on 11 August 2013, the Indian Australian Association of New South Wales under the Presidency of Dr Yadu Singh held a highly successful Indian Australian Cultural Fair at Rosehill Race Course, Rosehill, to commemorate Indian Independence Day and to celebrate integration, harmony and multiculturalism within the Australian community; and

(b) those who attended as guests included:

(i) Mr Arun Goel, Consul General for India;

(ii) the Hon. Victor Dominello, MP, Minister for Citizenship and Communities;

(iii) the Hon. Greg Smith, MP, Attorney General and Minister for Justice;

(iv) the Hon. David Clarke, MLC, Parliamentary Secretary for Justice;

(v) Mr Scott Morrison, MP, Federal shadow Minister for Immigration;

(vi) Mr Laurie Ferguson, MP, Federal member for Werriwa;

(vii) Ms Julie Owens, MP, Federal member for Parramatta;

(viii) Mr Kevin Conolly, MP, member for Riverstone;

(ix) Mr David Elliott, MP, member for Baulkham Hills;

(x) Mr Matt Kean, MP, member for Hornsby;

(xi) Dr Geoff Lee, MP, member for Parramatta;

(xii) Mr Dominic Perrottet, MP, member for Castle Hill;

(xiii) Dr Stepan Kerkyasharian, AO, Chairman of the NSW Community Relations Committee; and

(xiv) representatives of many Indian Australian community organisations.

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(2) That this House:

(a) congratulates the Indian Australian Association of New South Wales on its initiative in organising the Cultural Fair; and

(b) commends the Association for its ongoing service to the Indian Australian Community and to the wider community of New South Wales.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Formal Business Notices of Motions

Private Members' Business item No. 1516 outside the order of precedence objected to as being taken as formal business.

PERU AMAZONICO EXHIBITION

The Hon. DAVID CLARKE (Parliamentary Secretary) [11.04 a.m.]: I seek leave to amend Private Members' Business item No. 1520 outside the Order of Precedence for today of which I have given notice by omitting paragraph 1 (c) (vi).

Leave granted.

Motion by the Hon. DAVID CLARKE agreed to:

(1) That this House notes that:

(a) on 12 September 2013, an exhibition of photographs entitled, "Peru Amazonico", hosted by the Consul-General of Peru in Sydney, Ms Elizabeth Castro Benavides, was launched in Customs House, Sydney as part of a series of activities to commemorate 50 years of diplomatic relations between Peru and Australia;

(b) the exhibition featured the photographic works of a number of leading contemporary Peruvian artists dealing with the Amazon rainforest and its indigenous people and related issues of ecology; and

(i) Mr John Sidoti, MP, member for Drummoyne, representing the Premier of New South Wales, the Hon. Barry O'Farrell, MP;

(ii) Mr Daniel Reategui, Cultural Affairs Officer of the Peruvian Embassy representing the Peruvian Ambassador to Australia, Mr Luis Quesada;

(iii) Ms Verity Lomax from the NSW Department of Citizenship and Communities representing the NSW Minister for Citizenship and Communities, the Hon. Victor Dominello, MP;

(iv) the Hon. Marie Ficarra, MLC, Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier of New South Wales;

(v) the Hon. David Clarke, MLC, Parliamentary Secretary for Justice;

(vi) Mr Daryl Maguire, MP, member for Wagga Wagga and Government Whip in the Legislative Assembly;

(vii) Mr Chris Spence, MP, member for The Entrance;

(viii) Dr Stepan Kerkyasharian, AO, Chairman of the NSW Community Relations Commission;

(ix) Councillor John Mant, Sydney City Council;

(x) Acting Deputy Director of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Mr Almaza Farag;

(xi) Mr Alonso Cueto, noted Peruvian writer, one of whose books has been chosen by the NSW Department of Education as part of the Spanish course for Year 12 students in New South Wales high schools;

(xii) Mr Alejandro Saravia, noted Peruvian Australian chef; and

(xiii) members of the Peruvian Australian community.

(2) That this House:

(a) notes that the year 2013 marks 50 years of diplomatic relations between Australia and Peru;

(b) extends its best wishes to the Peruvian Australian community on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of diplomatic relations; and

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FOURTH AUSTRALIAN CONFERENCE ON CHILDREN AND THE MEDIA

Motion by the Hon. GREG DONNELLY agreed to:

(1) That this House notes that:

(a) on 4 October 2013, the Fourth Australian Conference on Children and the Media was held at the Parliament of New South Wales Theatrette;

(b) the theme of the conference was "Media, Minds and Neuroscience: The Developing Brain in a Media-rich Environment"; and

(c) the conference was jointly organised by the Australian Council for Children and the Media and the Children and Families Research Centre at Macquarie University.

(2) That this House notes that:

(a) a range of experts gave presentations on the day including:

(i) Associate Professor Michael Nagel, University of the Sunshine Coast;

(ii) Dr Wayne Warburton, Macquarie University;

(iii) Baroness Susan Greenfield, Oxford University;

(iv) Dr Philip Tam, University of Sydney;

(v) Dr Kate Highfield, Macquarie University;

(vi) Professor Graham Vimpani, AM, University of Newcastle; and

(b) the conference examined cutting-edge research and information on the impact of media on the neural development of children and young people.

(3) That this House congratulates Barbara Biggins, OAM, Honorary Chief Executive Officer and Professor Elizabeth Handsley, President of the Australian Council for Children and the Media, Dr Wayne Warburton from the Children and Families Research Centre at Macquarie University and their staff for the outstanding work done in organising and running the conference.

WARRANE COLLEGE ANNUAL LECTURE

Motion by the Hon. DAVID CLARKE agreed to:

(1) That this House notes that:

(a) on 18 September 2013, Warrane College hosted the annual Warrane Lecture which was delivered by Mr Neville Roach, AO, a prominent member of the Indian Australian community, on the topic of "Australian Multiculturalism in the Asian Century";

(b) those who attended as guests included:

(i) the Hon. David Clarke, MLC, representing the Premier of New South Wales, the Hon. Barry O'Farrell, MP;

(ii) the Hon. Greg Smith, SC, MP, Attorney General and Minister for Justice;

(iii) the Hon. Justice Geoff Lindsay, SC, of the Supreme Court of New South Wales;

(iv) the Hon. Justice Francois Kunc, SC, of the Supreme Court of New South Wales;

(v) the Hon. John Aquilina, AM, former New South Wales Minister for Education and former Speaker of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly; and

(d) eminent persons who have delivered the annual lecture include:

(i) Sir Zelman Cowan, former Governor-General of Australia;

(ii) the Hon. James Spigelman, AC, QC, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales;

(iii) the Hon. Tim Fischer, AC, former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia;

24018 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

(iv) His Eminence Cardinal George Pell, AC, Archbishop of Sydney;

(v) the Hon. John Dyson Heydon, AC, QC, former Justice of the High Court of Australia;

(vi) Professor Marie Bashir, Governor of New South Wales;

(vii) the Hon. Thomas Bathurst, QC, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales; and

(e) Warrane College is an independent residential college for men affiliated to the University of New South Wales, with an ethos based on values of the Catholic Church and was officially opened in 1971 by Sir Roden Cutler, Governor of New South Wales, and

(f) Warrane College promotes a spirit of community service with voluntary service projects both in Australia and overseas.

(2) That this House commends Warrane College for:

(a) its 22 years of service to tertiary education;

(b) its promotion of student voluntary community service projects; and

BIRTH OF SWAMI VIVEKANADA ANNIVERSARY

Motion by the Hon. DAVID CLARKE agreed to:

(1) That this House notes that:

(a) 12 January 2013 marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of Swami Vivekanada, a major figure within the Hindu faith, recognised not only for his enunciation of Hindu values but also for his promotion of interfaith dialogue and harmony and his message that there is universal goodness found within all the major faith traditions; and

(b) during 2013 the Hindu Council of Australia is holding a series of activities and celebrations to mark the 150th anniversary of Swami Vivekanada's birth and to promote his universal message of religious interfaith harmony.

(2) That this House:

(a) extends its best wishes to the Hindu Council of Australia and to the wider Australian Hindu community on the 150th anniversary year of Swami Vivekanada's birth; and

(b) commends the Australian Hindu community for its ongoing contribution in promoting interfaith harmony in Australia and particularly the State of New South Wales.

MIRANDA MUSICAL SOCIETY

Motion by the Hon. MARIE FICARRA agreed to:

(1) That this House notes that the Miranda Musical Society staged performances of the Phantom of the Opera on 20 to 21 October and 25 to 29 October at the Sutherland Entertainment Centre.

(2) That this House acknowledges the following individuals for the success of the production in their respective roles:

(a) members of the cast: Gavin Leahy, Rebecca Carter, Tamasin Howard, Jack Dawson, Chae Rogan, Christopher Hamilton, April Neho, Chiz Watson, Garth Saville, Sarah Furnari, James Worner, James Jonathon, Malcolm Gregory, David Cartwright, Melissa Lammers, Tim Wotherspoon, Tyler Hoggard, James Yan, Peter Sampson, George Bakaris, Karen Moseley and Margaret Short;

(b) members of the ensemble: Hannah Alexander, Michael Astill, Mark Bird, Elizabeth Bridges, Yvette Burrow, Monique Calarco, David Cartwright, Rory Chatterton, Sam Cowles, Andrew Fabris, Joanna Furnari, Adele Gillies, David Glance, Michelle Harley, Tyler Hoggard, Sarah Hoggard, Susie Hoggard, James Jonathon, Isabel Jonathon, Amber Kinnear, Melissa Lammers, Elyssa May, Karen Moseley, Paul Oscuro, Gabrielle Robinson, Peter Sampson, Margaret Short, Bernadette Wallace, Lucienne Weber and Tim Wotherspoon;

(c) members of the corps de ballet: George Bakaris, Pamela Diaz, Anja Giddings, Madison Hendry, Amy Jex, Robyn Masters, Louise Moseley, Charlie Powell and Skye Roberts;

(d) members of the orchestra: Andy Peterson, Jacinta Mikus, Melinda Hole, Jolyn Hersch, Greg Jones, Tanya Campbell, Suzanne Wright, Annalisa Gatt, Sarah Hobson, Lindsay Smith, Evan Field, Darren Thurlin, Andrew Howie, Jayne Hamilton, Hayden Barltrop, Peter Hayward, Felicity Doukakis, Ynpink Mak, Elisabetta Sonego, Valerie Gutenev-Hale, Carol Tang, Jennifer Greering, Rebecca Reeks-Jaques, Juliana Doukakis, David Angell, Medhat Boulos, Sam Greer and James Heazlewood-Dale;

16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24019

(e) members of the committee: Andrew Symes, David Glance, Tim Wotherspoon, Kerry Jackson, Cheryl O'Brien, Bob Peet, James Jonathon, Mavia Timmer, Di Mifsud, Wayne Thomas, Barbara Glance, Karen Moseley, Peter Munn, Loretta Glance, Andrew Wilson and Brian Brown; and

(f) the patron of the Miranda Musical Society, Councillor Steve Simpson, Mayor of Sutherland Shire Council.

(3) That this House congratulates the members and supporters of the Miranda Musical Society who have been involved in the production of the Phantom of the Opera for their time, dedication and skill in bringing the musical to the stage, and commends these individuals for their ongoing contribution in the field of creative arts in the local area over the many years of their operations.

SOLAR ENERGY EXCHANGE INITIATIVE

Motion by Dr JOHN KAYE agreed to:

(1) That this House notes that:

(a) the proposal to build community-scale solar thermal plants and install solar photovoltaic panels in Western New South Wales, known as the Solar Energy eXchange Initiative, has received in-principle support from 16 councils in the target area, including the unincorporated area; and

(b) the initiative would boost local economies, create local jobs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce the need for investment in transmission and distribution infrastructure and in the long run reduce power bills.

(2) That this House:

(a) congratulates those councils involved on the initiative,

(b) recognises the value of such projects to long-term energy security and economy in New South Wales; and

(c) encourages all levels of government to work cooperatively to see plans such as the initiative harness the power of the sun in inland New South Wales to the benefit of ratepayers and residents, the economy and the environment.

UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES SUNSWIFT SOLAR RACING TEAM

Motion by Dr JOHN KAYE agreed to:

(1) That this House notes that:

(a) the University of New South Wales solar racing team Sunswift has designed and built a solar-powered car, which recently competed in the 2013 Bridgestone Solar Challenge;

(b) the Bridgestone Solar Challenge involves solar power vehicles travelling from Darwin to Adelaide, covering some 3,000 kilometres;

(c) the Sunswift team's entrant in the race, "Eve", was designed and built by the students of the University of New South Wales in Sydney; and

(d) Sunswift's car "Eve" was the fastest car across the desert, achieving line honours in the cruiser class of the race.

(2) That this House congratulates:

(a) all those involved in the Bridgestone Solar Challenge, especially the University of New South Wales solar racing team Sunswift; and

(b) the Australian engineering community on its continued efforts in developing effective and innovative technologies to address current social and environmental challenges.

UNPROCLAIMED LEGISLATION

The Hon. Duncan Gay tabled a list detailing all legislation unproclaimed 90 calendar days after assent as at 15 October 2013.

PETITIONS

Hearing Impaired Access to Emergency Services

A petition stating that it is imperative that deaf and hearing-impaired residents in flood-prone and bushfire-prone locations have access to emergency services and information to enable them to make informed 24020 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

decisions about their families' wellbeing and safety, and calling on the Government to ensure that all televised emergency announcements are open captioned and simultaneously interpreted into Auslan, received from the Hon. Helen Westwood.

IRREGULAR PETITION

Leave granted for the suspension of standing orders to allow Mr David Shoebridge to present an irregular petition.

Hunting on Public Land

Petition stating that the Premier struck an unprincipled deal with the Shooters and Fishers Party to expand recreational hunting from State forests into national parks; that allowing recreational shooters to hunt in national parks will endanger other public users, native animals and rangers and that amateur recreational hunting is an ineffective and inhumane method of feral animal control which does not measurably impact on feral animal populations; that the Game Council was set up in 2002 as part of another unprincipled deal between the shooters and the then Labor Government, and requesting an end to amateur hunting on public land in New South Wales and increased resources for professional, humane and targeted eradication strategies for feral animal control, received from Mr David Shoebridge.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Withdrawal of Business

Business of the House Notice of Motion No. 1506 outside the Order of Precedence withdrawn by the Hon. Penny Sharpe.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Postponement of Business

Government Business Orders of the Day Nos 1 and 2 postponed on motion by the Hon. Duncan Gay and set down as an order of the day for a later hour.

Business of the House Notice of Motion No. 1 postponed on motion by Dr John Kaye and set down as an order of the day for a future day.

GAME AND FERAL ANIMAL CONTROL AMENDMENT BILL 2013

Second Reading

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY (Minister for Roads and Ports) [11.23 a.m.]: I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

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

Leave granted.

The purpose of this bill is to amend the Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002 to:

• abolish the Game Council;

• have the regulatory functions of the Game Council undertaken by the Director General of the Department of Trade and Investment, to be known as the Regulatory Authority; and

• establish a Game and Pest Management Advisory Board.

The Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill will give effect to the primary recommendations of the review into the governance arrangements of the Game Council, which was conducted by Steve Dunn.

Mr Dunn was commissioned to undertake this review following allegations of unlawful behaviour in relation to an employee of the Game Council Division, and less than favourable audit reports, and community interest about hunting on public lands.

16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24021

Mr Dunn's Governance Review of the Game Council of NSW found that over the past 10 years the Game Council has taken a number of governance risks and has prioritised resources into operational activities, at the expense of internal governance systems.

Mr Dunn found that the Game Council lacked a proper framework for governance, strategic planning, internal regulatory compliance, enterprise-wide risk management and policy.

Mr Dunn also found that there was an inherent conflict of interest associated with the Game Council's function to represent the interests of hunters and its role as a hunting regulator.

The lack of clarity about individual and organisational accountability at both member and executive level within the Game Council, and the recent compliance breaches, did lead to questions about the Game Council's capacity to undertake its roles. The amendments proposed in the bill will restore public confidence in the regulation of hunting and allow for more effective use of hunting in pest management strategies.

The Dunn review includes 55 recommendations to improve the way in which hunting is regulated in New South Wales. The most important of these recommendations is that the Game Council should be abolished and that the advisory and advocacy functions under the Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002 should be carried out by a new advisory board, while licensing, hunter education and compliance and enforcement functions should be transferred to a government department.

Although the Dunn review recognised the achievements of the Game Council and the efforts of the staff within the Game Council Division under trying conditions, it concluded that the inadequate governance framework for the regulation of hunting in New South Wales posed unacceptable risks.

The review concluded that the Game Council has expanded its governance role beyond its statutory functions, and attempted to reinvent its statutory objects with a focus on "conservation hunting".

That is why the amendments prescribed in this bill are necessary.

I now turn to the amendments outlined in the bill.

The bill will abolish the Game Council and the Committee of Management presently established under the Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002, and instead provide for the licensing, enforcement and other regulatory functions to be delivered by the Director General of the Department of Trade and Investment, who will be referred to as the Regulatory Authority. These amendments will directly address the governance issues identified by Mr Dunn.

Functionally, these services will be delivered by the Department of Primary Industries, an office of the Department of Trade and Investment, creating effective alignment of hunting with other pest animal management strategies delivered under the NSW Biosecurity Strategy.

The absorption of functional responsibilities for hunter regulation into the Department of Primary Industries will ensure effective governance oversight of regulatory functions by leveraging off Department of Primary Industries' existing compliance framework which provides for well-established systems for accountability and transparency.

The bill also establishes a Game and Pest Management Advisory Board. The board is to consist of eight members appointed by the Minister, including representatives from regional New South Wales.

The advisory board will represent the interests of hunters, and it will also provide advice to the Minister on game and feral animal control, and other important matters such as hunter education and expenditure priorities for research. The new advisory board will play an important role by advising on the integration of hunters in the development of effective pest animal programs across both public and private land as part of the NSW Biosecurity Strategy.

However, the bill has ensured that governance oversight of the advisory board is retained by the Government, by providing that the board remains subject to the control and direction of the Minister, except in relation to the content of any advice it provides. The bill also provides that the advisory board must report to the Minister annually in relation to its activities.

Advisory board members will be appointed on merit. In order to ensure that the advice provided by the board properly reflects the concerns of stakeholders directly affected by the impacts of pest animals, the advisory board must include representatives of regional New South Wales.

Together, members will also be required to have expertise, skills and knowledge in the area of pest management, wildlife, veterinary science, hunting, education and community engagement.

In this way, the amendments proposed in the bill will ensure that the board will deliver balanced, evidence-based advice on pest animal control which properly represents the interests of all stakeholders in pest animal management.

Another of the governance initiatives introduced in the bill is the establishment of a Game and Pest Management Trust Fund.

The trust fund will be under the control of the Minister and may only be used for the purposes authorised by the Act.

These purposes include the funding of research into game and feral animal control, and the funding of the costs of the Game and Pest Management Advisory Board. The fund will also be used to fund the costs of enforcing compliance with the provisions of the Act. Effective compliance and enforcement programs are essential to ensure that hunting activities are carried out safely and responsibly.

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The fund will primarily consist of a mix of Government funding and also a proportion of game hunting licence fees collected under the Act. All monies currently held in the Game Council Account will also be transferred into the Game and Pest Management Trust Fund upon the dissolution of the Game Council.

The final amendments in the bill relate to a number of consequential matters. These amendments will ensure the smooth transition of functional responsibilities from the Game Council to the new Game and Pest Management Advisory Board and the Regulatory Authority.

Firstly, the bill will transfer all staff employed in the Game Council Division of the Government Service before the dissolution of the Game Council to the New South Wales Department of Trade and Investment where they will be located within the Department of Primary Industries. The bill will also transfer all assets, rights and liabilities of the Game Council to the Crown. These amendments are proposed to ensure that the Department of Primary Industries will be able to deliver best practice licensing services and to ensure the safety of hunting for both hunters and the public.

The bill also makes clear that any licence granted by the Game Council will be taken to be a game hunting licence issued by the Regulatory Authority. Similarly, a decision to suspend a licence or disqualify a person from holding a hunting licence will be taken to be a decision imposed by the Regulatory Authority.

The Government is committed to reducing red tape, and these amendments will ensure that hunters do not need to needlessly apply for new licences from the new Regulatory Authority.

The bill also makes clear that the inspectors appointed by the Game Council are taken to be appointed by the Regulatory Authority, avoiding the need to appoint a new round of inspectors to monitor compliance with the provisions of the Act once the bill is passed. As such, game managers employed at the Game Council will be transferred to the Department of Primary Industries compliance unit, where they will cross-skill with existing Department of Primary Industries compliance officers.

The final set of amendments I wish to discuss relate to the formation of the Native Game Bird Management Committee.

The Native Game Bird Management Committee was established in 2012 by the Game and Feral Animal Control (Further Amendment) Act 2012. The intention of this 2012 amendment Act was to transfer responsibility for hunting of native birds for sustainable agricultural purposes to the Game Council from the Office of the Environment and Heritage. However, the 2012 further amendment Act has not yet commenced.

The Native Game Bird Management Committee was established by the 2012 further amendment Act to determine matters relating to hunting native game birds, including hunting quotas, the species to be hunted and the periods and areas during which hunting may occur.

The committee was to consist of three representatives: a representative from the Department of Primary Industries, a representative from the Office of the Environment and Heritage, and a representative from the Game Council.

However, as a consequence of dissolving the Game Council, the committee would consist of just two members, a representative from the Department of Primary Industries and the Office of Environment and Heritage.

Establishing a separate committee in those circumstances is unnecessary and administratively burdensome, and the amendments will remove this requirement.

Instead, the bill provides for the Regulatory Authority, that is, the Director General of the Department of Trade and Investment, to consult with the head of the Office of the Environment and Heritage when determining native game bird hunting quotas and other matters specified in the 2012 further amendment Act.

This is a sensible amendment, and one that will help ensure that the economic impact of these species on our regional and rural landholders, industries and communities is balanced against considerations about the management of our native fauna.

The bill before the House today introduces important governance reforms in relation to the administration of the Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002. These amendments will help to ensure that hunting activities are carried out responsibly, safely and in accordance with the objects of the Act and the expectations of the people of New South Wales.

The abolition of the Game Council and the effective transfer of the licensing, enforcement and education functions under the Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002 to the Department of Primary Industries will make an important contribution to the effective management of pest animals in New South Wales, through the option of integrating hunting into existing and new pest management programs developed by the Department of Primary Industries and the Office of Environment and Heritage.

The Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill will give effect to the key recommendations of the review into the governance arrangements of the Game Council.

I commend the bill to the House.

The Hon. STEVE WHAN [11.24 a.m.]: The Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill 2013 comes to the House as a result of a review into the Game Council by Mr Dunn, which revealed some very real concerns about conflicts between the Game Council's regulatory role and its promotional and educational role. It also comes to the House after a series of very poorly handled processes by this Government, which started with deals with the Shooters and Fishers Party that led to a commitment to allow amateur hunting in national parks, which has since been watered down. I will start by making a few matters very clear in relation to this legislation. 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24023

The Australian Labor Party both in government and now in Opposition recognises that the vast majority of our State's recreational shooters and hunters are responsible law-abiding citizens. They are not rednecks or cowboys and our regulation and enforcement should not treat all shooters as if they are a very small minority who might do the wrong thing. But when Labor was in government it created the Game Council and introduced regulated amateur shooting in our State forests and it does not resile from those positions. Labor did not, despite some considerable lobbying, agree in government to amateur shooters being allowed into our national parks and will not agree to it. Although Labor created the Game Council it also shared the concern that has arisen more recently that a very real conflict had arisen between the regulatory functions and the promotional functions of the council, and that they did need to be separated.

We have seen a sorry tale from this Government in its efforts to curry favour with the Shooters and Fishers Party, and it is in part because of the Government's mishandling that we come to the situation today where shooting in State forests is suspended and a bill is being put through the Parliament to abolish rather than just fix the Game Council. The public remembers very well the deceptive way the O'Farrell Government has handled the issue of shooting in national parks. Prior to the election the Premier promised there would be no amateur shooting in national parks. After the election he did a deal to allow shooting in exchange for passage of some of his legislation through the upper House. Labor made it absolutely clear at the time that it opposed this deal and would reverse it when we came back into government. Labor remains firm in that position.

National parks have that status because they have a unique and special value that puts them above other forms of reservation and above working State forests. I held that position when Labor was in government. Indeed I am on the public record in government as opposing shooting in national parks. There is no doubt that pest species control is vital in national parks but it should be carried out by properly trained and resourced professional staff and contractors. Earlier in the process of discussing some of these issues, we saw reports that it would cost nearly $20 million to administer amateur shooting in national parks. Labor at the time raised the fact that an amount of funding like that, applied properly to professional pest control, could make a real impact on populations of feral pest species. It could significantly remove the threat posed by wild dogs to many landholders adjoining reserves and parks, for example.

Pest species control in national parks, particularly vertebrate pests like wild dogs, needs to be about a range of measures—trapping, ground and aerial bating and shooting, to name just a few. It is not just about shooting or allowing shooting in the parks to assist. Labor has consistently said that national parks are special; they should not become venues for amateur shooting. State forests are not in the same category. Yes, State forests have important conservation values in their own right but they are also working forests with logging going on alongside measures to protect the environment and biodiversity.

When Labor was in government it recognised that shooting was occurring in State forests but prior to its measures it was occurring essentially in an unregulated and unlawful way. Labor introduced regulation, standards and licensing to allow amateur shooters into some State forests, and it continues to stand by that decision. That does not mean that the Forestry Corporation, formerly State Forests, should be able to renege on its obligations to properly manage pests on its own land. Unfortunately, it seems to me that since corporatisation the Government has overseen a significant narrowing of activities from the Forestry Corporation in areas that it does not see as core and the Opposition is concerned that this might also affect pest control in the future.

The place we are at today, though, with this legislation is in large measure the result of the cynical and politically motivated treatment of shooting issues by the Government. However, some legitimate issues need to be dealt with. It is clear that the dual roles of regulator and promoter had become the source of real and potential conflict of interest for the Game Council. In that sense Labor acknowledges that putting the regulatory functions in the hands of the Game Council, which the Dunn report described as getting "as close as we ever want to get in Australia to what has started to look increasingly like a private regulatory agency" should not continue. Labor notes the Dunn report comment that "despite lots of hard work and well-meaning effort by councillors and staff, and the ad-hoc support of the other government agencies, the Game Council has become further and further isolated from mainstream government administration."

It is clear that the problems Mr Dunn highlighted have developed over time and, indeed, when the Dunn report was released Labor made it clear that the regulatory functions should be taken back into the department. The bill proposes to move all the operations of the Game Council into the department. It proposes establishing an advisory committee, appointed by the Minister, which would provide advice to the Minister and recommendations on expenditure of those parts of funds that relate to promotion and educational functions. The legislation lacks detail on who would be represented on the Minister's advisory committee. It says it must 24024 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

include persons who together have expertise, skill or knowledge in the areas of pest management, wildlife, veterinary science, hunting, education and community engagement. However, it does not specify that any of the members should represent recreational shooters or indeed that anyone should have specific qualifications in pest species management.

In contrast, the old Game Council included eight persons nominated by hunting organisations, a nominee of the Australian Veterinary Association and two wildlife management scientists, among others. Labor's concern with this bill is that it moves all functions, including promotion and education, within the department. Labor believes it is entirely reasonable that functions relating to firearms training, education, support for organisations and even aspects of research into feral pest control should and could be managed by a representative, not one appointed at the discretion of the Minister. That does not mean that within government further work on research into feral pest control is not needed. Indeed, there needs to be far greater work in that area and I agree there is need for a serious review of the status of deer under existing legislation.

However, this work is needed in addition to a body that is primarily about representing the interests of recreational shooters. This is the significant concern I have with this bill; that it essentially is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It takes a body that had a representative component and turns it simply into a ministerially controlled body that provides only advice. All members, particularly those from rural New South Wales, would acknowledge that far more needs to be done on feral pest control in New South Wales. We have a massive problem with vertebrate pests, in particular wild dogs. In 2003 funding significantly increased for cooperative wild dog plans in the south-east of New South Wales, particularly around the Monaro electorate, which produced strong results in reductions of predation on stock in that area. It seems to me that this effort has fallen away somewhat. It is hard to identify now whether the original funds identified and provided for that program by the National Parks and Wildlife Service, administered in association with the livestock health and pest authorities, are still being provided.

I have received strong feedback from landholders near Kosciuszko National Park that the number of attacks on their sheep in paddocks on properties adjoining particularly the southern part of the national park and wilderness areas have increased to levels not seen for years. More effort must be put into feral pest control in New South Wales. I have had a lot of involvement in Kosciuszko National Park and I am concerned at the significant increase in the number of deer in that national park. One commonly sees deer in the park whereas 10 or 15 years ago that was not the case. One also sees evidence of many more pigs in the park, highlighting the need for renewed government effort and investment in feral pest control in our parks by professional pest controllers.

I stated earlier that the response in our national parks is more than just about shooting. When I was the member for Monaro we reintroduced aerial baiting for dogs as part of the arsenal of work being undertaken in parks to control feral pests and which made a significant difference. It was extremely difficult to reintroduce aerial baiting because of a number of Federal rules and it was to the credit of the then Ministers that they were able to achieve this. Aerial baiting needs to be continued and parks officers must be willing to bait in areas where dogs congregate to prevent them moving to the edges of the park.

The Government has a number of significant challenges to address and so far we have not seen a comprehensive move to do so. That needs to happen. It is a much bigger issue than simply responding to whether or not there should be amateur shooting in those areas. It is about proper management of the parks. Labor believes this bill is the result of a very poorly handled process by the Government. The Government made commitments before the election but later broke them. It made commitments to the Shooters and Fishers Party but has broken them also. Shooting, which was being regulated reasonably well, has halted in State forests, although I have acknowledged and highlighted the issues that need to be addressed with the Game Council. Labor believes that it would be entirely appropriate to keep a representative body such as the Game Council to deal with aspects of its current business that are not regulation; in other words, regulatory and promotional aspects should be separated to ensure there is not a conflict of interest. The bill does not achieve that aim and on that basis the Opposition continues to express its concern about the Government's approach.

The Hon. Dr Peter Phelps: Are you supporting the bill or not?

The Hon. STEVE WHAN: You will just have to wait and see.

[Business interrupted.] 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24025

DISTINGUISHED VISITORS

The ASSISTANT-PRESIDENT (Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile): I am very pleased to welcome to the President's gallery His Excellency Mr Enoch Nkuruho, High Commissioner of the Republic of Uganda, accompanied by his wife, Mrs Christine. They are both very welcome.

GAME AND FERAL ANIMAL CONTROL AMENDMENT BILL 2013

Second Reading

[Business resumed.]

Mr SCOT MacDONALD [11.38 a.m.]: I speak on the Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill 2013. The independent Dunn report is quite clear that the Government had a duty to respond to the inadequacies of the Game Council. Mr Dunn made it clear that the council had undertaken a lot of good work but its structure was flawed. Specifically, the council did not manage the conflict of representing game hunters and ensuring compliances required by the Act. It was a relatively small organisation and revenue raising was a priority to ensure its sustainability. This meant that some of its functions had a lower priority than a typical statutory agency.

There were very few prosecutions and case management for investigations was not as modern or efficient as it should have been. Clearly the organisation struggled with governance and operational obligations, not because of inadequacies of staff but weak, poorly defined statutory functions. I was signed up early to the strategy of conservation hunting. The arguments against volunteer feral animal control did not seem to me to be strong and were divorced from reality. Possibly the most credible was the proposition that hunting shifted the problem and had no measurable impact on feral numbers. But, the Victorian experience belies this. In that State the parks service works with shooting clubs to successfully control pests such as goats and pigs. They have literally saved some of the western parks in that State; vegetation is recovering and the ecosystem is restoring itself.

It was the Victorian system I had in mind when expressing my support for conservation hunting and this bill moves New South Wales to that style of operation. The operation and management responsibility moves to NSW Trade and Investment, Regional Infrastructure and Services. This avoids the tension with the old Game Council where the advocacy role was co-located with the compliance and licensing functions. Now, as in Victoria, park managers will control the volunteer shooters, where they go, when they go and what they hunt. This will give confidence to the public that our public lands are being managed responsibly and there is science behind feral animal control.

As a licensed shooter and registered firearm owner I have a lot of sympathy for those who participate in the sport of hunting. Shooters are overwhelmingly responsible and make a valuable contribution to regional New South Wales. Private landowners, let alone State governments, are overwhelmed by pests. Done properly hunting mitigates this pressure and helps preserve ecosystems and reduces damage to crops and other farm assets. I understand the passion to build and preserve the outgoing Game Council. But the question I ask myself is: What is the goal of conservation hunting? It is to improve the state of the environment, not build a bureaucracy. I believe the Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill 2013 delivers on that mission. It should be acknowledged the bill establishes a new advocacy body for game hunters. The Game and Pest Management Advisory Board is charged with representing conservation shooters and providing advice on appropriate research. In other words, these important stakeholders continue to have a serious role. I support the bill. I feel it strikes the right balance between statutory management and volunteer engagement, while keeping the goal of feral pest control uppermost. I commend the bill to the House.

The Hon. RICK COLLESS [11.41 a.m.]: I support the Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill 2013. The bill aims to abolish the Game Council NSW and to transfer to the head of the department responsible to the Minister the licensing, enforcement and other regulatory functions of the Game Council. It also establishes a Game and Pest Management Advisory Board to represent the interests of licensed game hunters in New South Wales. New South Wales primary industries have a fine reputation for producing quality food and fibre products. The agriculture, forestry and fishing industries make an important contribution to the economy of the State that is valued at some $12.2 billion. Agricultural industries alone are valued at just over $11.7 billion. Central to the ongoing productivity of those primary industries in this State is effective biosecurity. Biosecurity ensures that invasive species do not enter, spread or become established in New South Wales or Australia. 24026 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

Effective biosecurity is critical to protect our environment, farmland and the community from the impact of invasive pests. Pest animals such as foxes, pigs, rabbits and deer cause enormous damage to the soil and natural vegetation and compete with our native fauna for habitat and food. Pest animals also cause huge losses in agricultural production by feeding on crops and pastures and spreading diseases which can have devastating impacts on livestock health. In New South Wales alone pest animals cost our beef, lamb, wool and grain industries almost $70 million in lost production each year. The control of these pest animals is a key priority for this Government. In the last financial year the Department of Primary Industries, National Parks and Wildlife Service, the Livestock Health and Pest Authority, the Catchment Management Authority, NSW Forests and the Game Council spent over $30 million on pest management activities.

Pest animal control is a major cost to New South Wales farmers who spend more than $13 million each year on pest animal management initiatives. This Government is committed to developing an integrated and effective pest animal control strategy which will reduce these costs to the farmer. The nil tenure approach was recommended by General Purpose Standing Committee No. 5 during its inquiry into public lands. The nil tenure approach has been endorsed by the Government and the Government recognises that effective pest animal management involves integrated management initiatives on both public and private land. Public land managers must work together with private landowners to implement pest animal control measures which are cost effective and evidence based.

Hunting can play an important role to complement the Government's pest control programs and volunteer recreational hunters in New South Wales have made a significant contribution to reducing the population of pest animal species. According to the Game Council over 20,000 pest animals were eradicated on public land by recreational hunters in the last financial year. Included in that figure are 4,343 feral pigs, 4,126 feral goats and 1,789 foxes. The Government recognises the importance of effective pest control to our agricultural industries and the bill before the House today will improve our capacity to manage pest animals. The bill will do this by transferring the regulatory functions under the Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002 to the Director General of Trade and Investment, who will be supported operationally by the Department of Primary Industries. This is an important amendment and one that will enable the Government to develop and implement a consistent approach to the management of pest animals using the expertise of recreational hunters and government agencies.

It will create greater opportunities to incorporate hunting into targeted pest management programs and for the Government and the hunting community to work together to reduce the impact of pest animals. The amendments in the bill will strengthen the legislative framework relating to hunting on private and public land and enhance the Government's efforts to reduce pest animal populations. It is important that there is public confidence in the administration of the State's hunting legislation. The amendments will help to protect our environment and primary industries from the potentially devastating impacts of pest animals and improve our capacity to manage invasive species. I commend the bill to the House.

The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS [11.46 a.m.]: The Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002 provides for the effective management of game and pest animals on all lands, both public and private. The Act regulates hunting activities throughout New South Wales and provides a framework to promote the responsible and orderly hunting of pest animals such as deer, wild pigs, rabbits and foxes. The bill before the House seeks today to strengthen this regulatory framework and to improve our capacity to manage pest animals. The community expects that the regulation and management of recreational hunting will be conducted in a manner that is transparent, accountable and consistent with the obligations imposed by the 2002 Act.

The Government shares this expectation and it is clear that reforms are necessary to ensure confidence in the regulation of hunting activities. To this end the Government will abolish the Game Council and transfer all services associated with the licensing, education and enforcement functions under the 2002 Act to the Director General of NSW Trade and Investment. Within the trade and investment cluster the Department of Primary Industries will take on responsibility for the day-to-day management of hunting in New South Wales. The transfer of the management of hunting into the Department of Primary Industries will allow for greater accountability, transparency and oversight into the regulation of hunting activities. It is important there is public confidence in the administration of the State's hunting legislation.

Further, it will provide some enhanced opportunities to position hunting within the broad pest animal management programs which will be developed through the NSW Biosecurity Strategy. Through this strategy the Government will achieve effective pest management across all land tenures and, as the Hon. Rick Colless noted in his contribution to this debate, it was one of the strong recommendations unanimously supported by all 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24027

members of General Purpose Standing Committee No. 5: that a nil tenure approach be taken in relation to pest control across land within New South Wales. The bill will dissolve the Game Council and replace it with a Game and Pest Management Advisory Board for the purpose of representing the interests of hunters and providing advice to the Minister on game and feral animal control and other matters such as hunter education.

The Game and Pest Management Advisory board will comprise eight members who will be appointed by the Minister. Members appointed to the board will include representatives of regional New South Wales, and that is an important point. It is all well and good to sit in Erskineville and to pontificate about the natural beauty of the State, but living next door to a national park filled with feral animals gives one a different slant on the appreciation of untouched nature. One might be tempted to think that the approach taken to feral animals is not appropriate or, indeed, is detrimental to one's private interests. The board will comprise people with skills, expertise and knowledge relating to management, wildlife, veterinary science, hunting, education and community engagement. That broad skills base and experience will help to ensure that balanced, evidence-based advice on pest animal control hunting is provided to the Government.

Effective management of pests is an essential element in protecting our biodiversity and the productivity of our agriculture sector. This bill will improve our ability to manage game and feral animals by using the services of recreational hunters and help to reduce the impact of pest species on our environment and our valuable primary industries. I am sure some members—specifically those in the green corner—will question why we need to use recreational hunters to help reduce the number of invasive and feral animals in New South Wales. The answer is simple: There are simply not enough professional shooters in New South Wales to eradicate the many feral animals in this State. We would need to conduct a massive recruitment campaign—

The Hon. Robert Brown: Costing hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS: Yes, it would cost a huge amount to train and then to employ the required hunters—presumably at taxpayers' expense—to undertake this task in national parks and State forests. The more logical response would be to allow people who want to provide their services at no cost to taxpayers to be involved in feral animal eradication programs. That is blindingly obvious. Indeed, it was blindingly obvious to the governments of South Australia, Victoria, New Zealand and France that it would be sensible to allow that to happen. However, some people cannot countenance that notion. We have Labor State governments, even in Australia, which not only think it is a good idea but which also have evidentiary proof that it is a good idea, so much so that they have continued to use private recreational hunters as part of a coordinated feral animal control strategy.

The Hon. Lynda Voltz: What was your position again?

The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS: My position is simply that the Game and Feral Animal Control Act provides for the orderly, responsible and safe hunting of pest animals. This bill will further those objectives, and in doing so will strengthen the current governance framework applying to hunting in New South Wales. Operationally, the education, licensing and enforcement functions of the 2002 Act will be supported by the Department of Primary Industries. That is a good sign because one of the concerns raised during a number of General Purpose Standing Committee No. 5 inquiries is the problem facing primary producers who must deal with the consequences of a completely unmanaged and unregulated feral animal explosion in what are nominally called our national parks, but which probably should be called the breeding ground for wild dogs, wild pigs and wild goats.

Mr Scot Macdonald, Ms Cate Faehrmann and I took a helicopter ride over Toorale Station and every time the Hon. Scot Macdonald and I saw another herd of wild pigs or wild goats we would point it out to the Hon. Cate Faehrmann, who had said there was no feral animal problem at Toorale Station. Eventually she said, "Yes, yes, that's enough. You've proved your point." It was good of her to say that in private, and it makes the point clearly that the current regime is totally inadequate and that there is no realistic solution. It is not physically feasible in a reasonable timeframe to train the required shooters, nor is it economically feasible to employ them permanently or even semi-permanently.

Why not allow private people who are prepared to do it and, more importantly, who are already accredited and registered hunters to undertake this task? The hunter advocacy role, formerly performed by the Game Council, will now be carried out by the board, which will represent the interests of licensed game hunters in relation to matters relevant to the Act. The board will also provide advice to the Minister about game and feral animal control and expenditure on research and educational courses relating to game hunting. The bill contains consequential amendments that are necessary to complement the reforms I have identified. 24028 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

I now turn to two of those amendments. The first amendment will establish a Game and Pest Management Trust Fund. This is a practical amendment that will allow fees and moneys deposited in the trust fund to be used for particular purposes. Those purposes include the funding of activities associated with research and hunter education, as well as activity designed to enforce and prosecute breaches of the Act. The second proposed amendment will remove the requirement to establish a native game bird management committee. As I am sure all members are aware, the committee was to be established on the commencement of the Game and Feral Animal Control Further Amendment Act 2012 and was to determine certain matters relating to the hunting of native game birds. Those matters include the setting of quotas, the periods during which particular birds may be targeted and the particular species of birds that may be hunted at any time.

The committee was to consist of a representative of the Game Council, a representative of the Department of Primary Industries, and a representative of the Office of Environment and Heritage. Disbanding the Game Council will reduce the membership of the committee to two representatives, and establishing a committee in those circumstances is administratively cumbersome and unnecessary. The bill therefore removes the requirement to establish a native game bird committee. Instead, the new regulatory authority—the director general of NSW Trade and Investment as the overarching body for the Department of Primary Industries—will determine the quotas and other matters relevant to the hunting of native game birds provided for under the Act. Members will note that the Office of Environment and Heritage is no longer part of the regulatory authority and, as far as I am concerned, that is a good thing.

The bill will ensure that decisions relating to native game birds are taken with due regard to the importance of conservation of native species as well as the economic impact of those species on rural and regional communities. This approach will also provide a simpler and more efficient method of making decisions regarding the hunting of native game birds. This bill will improve the governance of hunting under the Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002. It will improve our capacity to develop an integrated and more effective approach to the management of pest animals across both public and private land. The amendments in this bill will also help to reduce the impact of pest animals on our environment and, more importantly, on our primary industries. I commend the bill to the House.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE [11.59 a.m.]: On behalf of The Greens I speak on the Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill 2013. I say at the outset that this legislation, to the extent that it repeals the Game Council, did not come from a sudden outbreak of rational thinking by the Government. Both this Government and the former Government have irrationally supported ineffective, ad hoc, ground-based recreational hunting on public land for more than a decade. This Government continues to want to lavish resources, spend millions of dollars, on a failed program of ad hoc recreational hunting, which has no impact on the overall feral animal population.

The program has no impact on saving native animals and it has no impact on protecting our primary industries and crops. An example of how irrational and ideological is this Government's approach to feral pest control would be including the pink-eared duck on the game bird mitigation program. The pink-eared duck apparently is being shot under laws promoted by this Government, because the duck is going to impact on rice crops. Anyone who has looked at the pink-eared duck knows that it does not eat any commercial grain crops. It is a native bird that is being shot under laws supported by the State Government, which means that it is taxpayer funded—

The Hon. Robert Borsak: They like to shoot them and eat them.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: It is being shot because they like to shoot them and they like to eat them. I support the Government's moves to date to abolish the Game Council and I commend the Government for abolishing it. The Game Council was a hunter-dominated State Government authority paid for by taxpayers. It sat in Orange and celebrated what, in its eyes, was the joyful killing of animals in the wild. It has been shut. It has been closed. It has had to take down the signs. The Game Council is gone; the Game Council is shut. I have respect for the Hon. Robert Borsak and the Hon. Robert Brown, a former chairman of the Game Council, on some matters, but their one-eyed approach to recreational hunting and to the organisation that they ran, the Game Council, in spending taxpayer dollars to promote hunting, to increase the public space for hunting and, in the ultimate betrayal of public trust last year, to join with the O'Farrell Government and open hunting in national parks shows why the Game Council never should have been on the statute books.

It is an indictment of the former Labor Government and the current Labor Opposition that they continue to support the Game Council. They continue to deny the fact of the matter, although it has been proven 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24029

chapter and verse in the Dunn report, that the Game Council was a canker on public administration in New South Wales. The report found that the Game Council had a direct conflict of interest in its purported regulating of hunting, while at the same time devoting the majority of its resources to promoting hunting. When the Game Council had access to the better part of $5 million of public funding, it spent taxpayer dollars on putting up stalls at gun shows and ammunition expos promoting pig hunting.

The Game Council spent taxpayer dollars on competitions offering the first person to bring the blood of six pigs to the Game Council a pig-hunting pack of armour for their dogs, a subscription to Babes and Boars magazine and a new bowie knife to stab feral pigs. The Game Council was an extraordinary mistake. I genuinely commend the Government for having already moved on the Dunn report and having shut down the Game Council. The staff of the Game Council have not lost their jobs: They have been moved to the Department of Primary Industries. As I said in a discussion with the Minister for Primary Industries last month, the Government is to be commended for having killed the Game Council. We know that the Game Council cannot be resurrected.

The Hon. Robert Borsak: It will come back.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: I hear the Hon. Robert Borsak and the Hon. Robert Brown saying that that the Game Council will come back. The Game Council is dead and dusted, just like the pink-eared duck under the Government's game bird mitigation program. That is a shameful example, but the demise of the Game Council has been broadly welcomed across New South Wales. We commend the Government for having abolished the Game Council. We support this legislation to the extent that it tidies up the statute books and removes the Game Council from the statute books as a formal legal matter. We advised the Government that we support that aspect of the bill, but there is a raft of measures in this bill that are deeply problematic.

The first thing that troubles us about this bill is that in practice it will re-establish hunting in State forests, having already got rid of the Game Council. Without this bill and the machinery put in place for this bill, the further failed program of hunting in State forests cannot get started. We know it has failed, because after the better part of a decade of hunting in State forests not a single feral pest species in a single State forest has been controlled in any meaningful way by ad hoc recreational hunting in State forests. The Game Council's report gives figures extolling the fact that in the 2011-12 financial year recreational hunters had killed 285 feral cats in New South Wales. They said that was an achievement, but the Game Council said they thought there were about 18 million feral cats in New South Wales. Killing 265 feral cats would have no impact at all on the overall feral cat population.

The Game Council figures showed that in a good year hunters would kill about 16,000 rabbits in New South Wales. Killing 16,000 rabbits from a population of millions of rabbits in New South Wales would have no effect. One of the primary reasons that there are feral pest species—whether they be cats, rabbits, pigs, dogs or foxes—is that they are extraordinarily fecund. They have massive reproduction rates and enormous litters. The great bulk of any generation of those feral pests is described by experts who look at feral pest control as the "doomed surplus". They die in any given year because of natural causes—disease, lack of access to food or other predators. If we want to have an ongoing impact on those populations of feral pest species, sending untrained amateurs with no skills to wander around State forests and take a few pot shots will have no impact at all.

If we want to reduce feral pest numbers meaningfully we have to go beyond taking a few pot shots at the doomed surplus. That surplus will die over the course of the next year from those causes. One would need to reduce the numbers to fewer than 15 per cent, otherwise the massive reproduction rate any remnant has would mean that the next year just as many feral pests would exist as existed the year before. A couple of random, unplanned, ad hoc, ground-based shooters taking pot shots at pigs, rabbits or foxes in State forests or national parks has no meaningful impact on the overall number of feral pests in New South Wales.

We know that not a single feral pest species has been controlled in a single State forest in New South Wales. This bill is required to re-establish that failed program in State forests. True it is that it will no longer be regulated by the Game Council, because we know that the Game Council is long gone, but it will be regulated by the Department of Primary Industries under a Minister in the form of Katrina Hodgkinson, who is blind to firearm safety, animal welfare and sensible population-based feral pest control, and who is looking to provide a sop to the shooters in New South Wales through the promotion of hunting in State forests.

Part 2 of the bill proposes establishing a new advisory board, the membership of which is to include representatives of regional New South Wales who—and this is the key point—are persons who together have 24030 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

expertise, skill or knowledge in pest management, wildlife veterinary science, hunting, education and community engagement. The proposed membership does not include two key positions: representatives to deal with animal welfare and representatives to deal with firearm safety. Months ago we proposed to the Government an amendment to insert those additional essential skills into the membership of the advisory board. The Government stalled and prevaricated. If the Government was willing to engage with us on sensible reforms and to do population-based feral pest control, we were willing to talk to and work with the Government to achieve a better outcome for this bill. But today we have learned that the Government rejects the amendments relating to animal welfare and firearm safety.

We informed the Government that we were very concerned that the function of the advisory board is to represent the interests of game hunters, to provide advice on game and feral animal control, and to tell the Government how to spend money from the Game and Pest Management Trust Fund. Our amendments proposed that the functions include the important factors of looking at animal welfare and population-based controls for feral animals. Again the Government completely refused to engage. Another significant concern is the objects of the Game and Feral Animal Control Act, which are to provide for the effective management of introduced species of game animals and to promote responsible and orderly hunting of those game animals on public and private land, and of certain pest animals on public land.

The Hon. Robert Borsak: Highly commendable.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: I note the interjection of the Hon. Robert Borsak, who says it is "highly commendable". That is promoting hunting. This is legislation designed to promote hunting. We propose that the objects be aligned with what can only be described as sensible population-based feral pest management control. Rather than promoting hunting, this bill should be about controlling feral pests effectively. We propose that the objects of the Act be amended to provide for the effective, safe and humane control and eradication of introduced species of feral pest animals, and to regulate the responsible, orderly and safe hunting of those animals on public and private land.

Although our policy position is against any hunting on public land, we recognise that we must engage with both the Government and the Opposition, which are mad set on promoting hunting. We realise that even though we have a policy position that recreational hunting should not occur on public land, the clear intent of the majority of members in this House is to have hunting on public land. But we should not be spending money promoting game hunting; we should be spending public money regulating the responsible, orderly and safe hunting of feral animals on public and private land. Again, out of pure blind ideology, the Government has been wedded to legislation on the statute books that promotes hunting in New South Wales.

Another significant concern we have about the entire Game and Feral Animal Act, which is replicated in these amendments, is the whole concept of game: The idea that there would be a large population of animals in New South Wales—foxes, rabbits, deer, pigs—that are not treated as feral pests to be controlled and, where possible, eradicated or at least reduced to negligible numbers wherever possible on public land, but instead are protected and treated as harvestable game animals with entire species being promoted. We know that recreational hunters have been prosecuted for seeding pig populations and releasing deer onto public land to get their game populations together. We know from genetic studies that have been done by at least one decent government department—the Department of Primary Industries in Western Australia—that the genetic pattern of feral pigs in Western Australia can only be explained by the active promoting and seeding of populations there.

This Government is not interested in looking at that issue because that would highlight the obvious conflict in its policy of promoting game animal hunting and what the great bulk of landowners and the general public in New South Wales want—rational feral pest control. We say: Treat feral pests as feral pests, deal with them as feral pests and control them at a population level, but do not treat them as sets of game species to be actively managed, actively harvested and actively promoted so that a very small minority of shooters in New South Wales can have their sport on public land. We have proposed amendments that would amend the Game and Feral Animal Act to remove the reference to game animals and game hunting licences and instead insert what should have always been there—references to feral pest hunting licences and to feral pest animals.

But the Government, in its ideologically hidebound commitment to the Shooters and Fishers Party, has refused to even consider it. We have circulated amendments, which are opposed by the Government, that would wind back the ridiculous June 2012 amendments, which resulted in widespread genuine concern across the breadth of the community at the Government's initial proposal to let a whole bunch of recreational shooters— 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24031

with no competency tests, no proof that they could distinguish a feral pest animal from a native animal, no eyesight tests, no nothing—be released into national parks to hunt feral pests, notwithstanding that those national parks are places where millions and millions of New South Wales residents and international visitors want to be able to go in safety, free from the risks of having recreational hunters take pot shots—accidental pot shots—at them.

If there are no eyesight tests and no competency tests then heaven help the rest of the public if this Government goes ahead with its proposal to unleash recreational hunters in New South Wales national parks. Despite the Government's promises that it was going to introduce world's best practice on regulating a supervised hunting regime in national parks, as with so many of the Government's promises there is nothing in the legislation about that. At least the Shooters and Fishers Party is right: This mob is not to be trusted. [Time expired.]

The Hon. ROBERT BROWN [12.09 p.m.]: Mr Assistant-President—

The Hon. Rick Colless: I'm not used to you addressing from that side, Bob.

The Hon. Luke Foley: He wants to look at you, Matthew.

The Hon. ROBERT BROWN: I want to look at all of them.

The Hon. Amanda Fazio: Why? Go and have your lunch.

The Hon. ROBERT BROWN: I had to take two blood pressure tablets this morning. Do not put me over the limit.

The Hon. Amanda Fazio: Okay.

The Hon. ROBERT BROWN: I am having trouble enough coping with this as it is. It will surprise no-one that the 150,000-plus hunters in New South Wales were appalled at what the Premier has done to the Game Council. It appears to us that the Premier is on a one-man crusade against the shooters and the fishers of this State and made his decision unilaterally; or, at least, none of those who might have made it with him are now game to put their hands up and admit they did. The Premier effectively commissioned a review knowing full well that he would get the answer he wanted, and then used it to shut down hunting on public land. This is the most disgraceful piece of political bastardry I have seen since I have been in this place. From nearly two years of working with Mr O'Farrell we believed that he was an honourable man and a man of his word. We now know, as far as we are concerned, that he is untrustworthy; and that is sad for the people of New South Wales.

The Dunn review—a copy of its 58 pages is on the table—is an imperfect document; and I am being very polite. It is full of bald, unsupported assertions; it is full of errors and omissions. Indeed, Mr Dunn believed the Game Council was a body of 18 members including the chief executive officer. He had not even read the Act, which clearly shows that the council consists of 17 members appointed by the Minister, with the chief executive officer not being a member but rather an employee. As Homer Simpson would say, "Doh!" I would have thought this was fairly basic stuff. This is just one of the many errors made by Mr Dunn, and raises questions as to his competence to undertake such an inquiry.

I know the Game Council welcomed the Dunn review. In fact, I went on national television and said I knew Steve Dunn, and that we had at the time an expectation that he would be able to do the report—because we had an undertaking from the Premier that we would look at that report before it went to Cabinet and could advise him on perhaps the best way to move forward. We were skunked. I know the Game Council welcomed the Dunn review when it was announced, because it believed an honest independent appraisal of its activities would show the council and its staff were well governed, were performing their duties well and were achieving great results, in spite of the fact that they were deliberately under-resourced.

The Hon. Robert Borsak: A plan.

The Hon. ROBERT BROWN: It was a plan. Some aspects of Dunn's report support this view of the Game Council; but, unfortunately, he goes well beyond his terms of reference and seems to ignore his very own evidence, if I could call it that. The way the report has been constructed—based solely on assertion and hyperbole—inevitably presumes in favour of the recommendations it ultimately makes, including disbanding the 24032 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

Game Council itself and a complete restructure of the Game Council division's functions and organisation. I note Mr David Shoebridge is present at the moment in the gallery. Have no fear, Mr Shoebridge: The Government has designed its proposal to fail. If the Government sticks to its guns and disperses the staff of the Game Council amongst those idiots in the Department of Primary Industries, and if the Game Council becomes a Game Board that is only advisory, you can kiss it goodbye. The Greens have won.

The Dunn report is in no way the honest independent review that we rightly expected, but rather a contrivance to deliver a premeditated outcome. It is built on contradictions, omissions and in some instances observations that are contrary to the evidence provided to Dunn. Even when Dunn's report identifies work the council has done well, he finds a way to present those achievements as negatives. It is a fact that Game Council managed hunting was occurring successfully for more than seven years on public lands in New South Wales, and Dunn conceded this in his report. So why has it been stopped? Cessation of public land hunting was not recommended by Dunn. The way the Minister did it was the clumsiest, silliest way that she could have done it: She de-declared or undeclared all of those State forests. That gives us a very clear message indeed. For those who have not read this piece of garbage—the review—nowhere does it recommend disbanding the Game Council immediately, but rather an orderly transition of services to the Department of Primary Industries. That was the understanding we had with the Premier.

The Hon. Luke Foley: You can't trust that bloke.

The Hon. ROBERT BROWN: You cannot trust him now. Why has the Government acted beyond the recommendations of its own commissioned report? It has gone well beyond those recommendations. Furthermore, where are The Nationals members of the Coalition on this issue? I know you are all mates in the House, and I respect you and I like you, but you should have stood up for your constituents on this; you should have told the Liberals to put it where the sun don't shine. Is Barry doing to you what he is trying to do to us and our constituents? Let me tell you, there are a lot of angry people out there west of the Great Divide. In its 10-year history the performance of the Game Council was by all measures extraordinary. I repeat: The Game Council's performance by all measures was extraordinary. It should have been used as a model of how public service should be run in New South Wales and not allowed to be pulled down by the faceless bureaucrats and betraying, untrustworthy politicians.

The Game Council's performance should have earned the council the right to continue in its legislated form, particularly when the results are compared with a parallel "bureaucratic/departmental" equivalent such as the National Parks and Wildlife Service feral animal control programs. I refer to some comments made by Mr David Shoebridge in relation to the effectiveness of the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Minister Parker proudly announced in the lower House recently a per unit cost of $1,000 per animal cull, roughly 12 times the public cost of animals culled using the Game Council paradigm. It has also been stated by the Minister for the Environment that national parks cull hunts by recreational hunters will be rolled out in 12 national parks under onerous and unrealistic conditions that are practically guaranteed to result in failure.

I repeat for Mr David Shoebridge's edification: It will result in failure. Why set up the process for failure? Why even go there? Why condemn an activity that has proven successful over seven years and instead adopt the model that is guaranteed to fail? If Dunn's report is accurate, those who qualified for and purchased an R-licence in anticipation of being able to hunt on public land have seen the Government remove their ability to conduct their chosen legal and ethical pursuit for no valid reason. The report is the reason quoted—foundations of straw, foundations of sand. This report is an abomination. Will conservation hunting in State forests be reinstated unchanged with minimal delay, and if not will hunters be financially compensated for their loss, both now and in the future? To us, it does not look like that will happen.

I find it interesting that the Minister speaks of a risk assessment process for State forest and Crown land hunting, which, according to the Dunn report, is unnecessary. We agree. Extensive risk assessments were carried out from 2003 to 2006, before the first State forest was declared. That is how long it took to do those risk assessments. It also took a couple of chief executives' scalps to do it; but finally they came to heel. Seven years later, there have been no public safety incidents—zero, nil, nothing. I can only wonder why this unnecessary delaying tactic is being adopted. I know why it is being adopted: so that the issue will go away quietly, Game Council staff will be dissipated within the Department of Primary Industries, and no-one will notice. I have news for you there, boys! We will make sure everybody notices. Dunn also states:

The Game Council has not been able to resolve the inherent conflict of interest associated with its functions to both represent the interests of hunters and to regulate their activities.

16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24033

In fact, that is the foundation assumption put forward in the Dunn report on which he builds all else. But it is just an assertion. No evidence is presented to support it. How does he determine that representing the interests of law-abiding hunters and regulating their activities is an inherent conflict of interest? In fact, there was no conflict of interest. The division, which are the employees, did one job; the Game Council, being the elected representatives, did the other. This is just another of Dunn's unsupported assumptions, based on a lack of understanding of the basic issues.

The guy did not have the experience or, it appears, the wit to be able to determine the difference. It is important to clarify the separation of the advocacy role, which rests with the council, and the compliance role, which is delivered by inspectors employed by the Game Council Division. Employees of the Game Council Division are not employees of the Game Council. Surely, if there were a problem relating to conflict of interest, there would be tangible evidence to support this after 10 years of operation. No such evidence was presented; nor does Mr Dunn consider other statutory examples—both compliance and advocacy roles operate together successfully.

Has he ever heard about the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals [RSPCA], which is a non-government body that advocates on animal welfare issues, runs its own state-sanctioned compliance and prosecutions, and is funded by community donations and taxpayer grants? Apparently Mr Dunn had not. Or what about NSW Fisheries, which has its staff take part in events and deliver training to promote legally compliant fishing and yet is also responsible for compliance? Mr Dunn should have known that because he has a background in Fisheries. The Auditor-General's annual review of the Game Council did not once raise this issue of conflict. Are two successive governments, Labor and Liberal, and Parliamentary Counsel and the Office of the Auditor-General all wrong? I do not think so. Clearly, this very basic assumption of an inherent conflict of interest, which forms the very foundation of the Dunn review, is pure fiction—it is something he decided himself—or else is borne of Dunn's complete lack of experience with what I call government corporations.

When Mr Dunn came to interview me I suggested that he interview the board of NSW Marine Rescue, which is a company limited by guarantee—not even a statutory authority—but he did not want to do that. Furthermore, Mr Dunn states, "The risks to Government associated with these governance deficiencies should be regarded as unacceptable." Again I ask: In what way does a marketing campaign with a marketing slogan— conservation hunting—designed to engage the hunting community and sell licences, create an unacceptable risk to government? It does not. All Game Council advertising was approved by the Government before it was implemented, so either the people in the Department of Premier and Cabinet responsible for approving government advertising are incompetent and incapable of identifying risk to government or Mr Dunn is wrong. What did Mr Dunn say in his own report in relation to the Game Council? He said:

Game Council was never given the resources to set itself up as a mini government department. The council had a clear choice; focus on bureaucracy or focus on delivering a safe public land hunting model. Game Council delivered 7 years of incident free public land hunting.

Does the report reflect that? No, it does not. So why would the Premier unilaterally shut it down? We in the Shooters and Fishers Party have our own views and I will not go too far down that track. Mr Dunn was also critical of council administration. He stated:

Specifically, more than a decade after it was established the Game Council has no overarching governance framework, and lacks a strategic planning framework ...

That is the doozy of all lies. Well surprise, surprise! That was because the Game Council had always relied on the Department of Primary Industries for its overarching governance framework for which access was suddenly denied by the Director General, Mr Patterson—who should be dumped or sacked—in December 2011, and the council was not able, given the resources available to it, to replace that service which, by the way, was a commercial arrangement with the department. The Game Council was paying the Department of Trade and Investment, Regional Infrastructure and Services [DTIRIS] for those services. Mr Patterson unilaterally decided in 2011 that that was enough and denied them access.

Mr Dunn did not even ring the chief executive officer of the Game Council or tell the chairman. It took a data entry girl who could not get access to ring someone in IT. The IT person told her to get her boss to ring the director general. It is disgraceful. Yet Mr Dunn's principal recommendation was that the services associated with the licensing, education and enforcement functions for the Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002 should be delivered by an appropriate department, along with policy and legislative functions. However, 24034 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

Mr Dunn has not identified just which term of reference this recommendation falls under, so it is clear that he was given riding instructions by the Premier to shut down the council. There is no other way for us to look at it. Another point made by Mr Dunn was:

Despite lots of hard work and well-meaning effort by councillors and staff, and the ad-hoc support of other government agencies, the Game Council has become further and further isolated from mainstream government administration.

It is little wonder as it was putting them to shame. I advise the House of a few facts. The council never sought to isolate itself from the mainstream government administration. In fact, the council was met with hostility from within government departments from day one. I recall that during the preparation stages of the bill with the former Labor Government the Department of Primary Industries fought tooth and nail to kill it. When it could not kill it, it then fought tooth and nail to bring it in under its own umbrella and it looks like it has got its own way at long last.

The Rural Lands Protection Boards, now the Livestock Pest and Health Authorities, are a case in point. The Game Council's operations manager addressed its annual conference to explain what the council was about and how the two groups could work together. What happened? The manager was booed and heckled by staff who saw the use of licensed volunteer hunters as a direct threat to their jobs, but that did not eventuate. Despite many attempts, the council could never establish a memorandum of understanding with the Rural Lands Protection Boards. And that is not all. A similar issue was experienced with New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service, which holds a very entrenched anti-hunting position, and views the council as a threat. Again, that is Mr David Shoebridge's assurance that this will never work. The National Parks and Wildlife Service will never let this work. It is a set-up and a stitch up from day one.

The National Parks and Wildlife Service was then, and is still, unable to comprehend the benefits of including licensed conservation hunters to control feral animals as it is contrary to its green agenda. One has only to look at the way it has developed its model for hunting on public land to see that it is an absolute crock of something. Clearly, the Game Council at no time refused to engage or work with other agencies. That was just a damned lie. Licensed firearm owners are members of the most law-abiding sector of the community, because according to the firearms licence, they are fit and proper persons. Will employees of the Game Council Division, now taken on by the Department of Primary Industries, be integral and valued in the administration and implementation of hunting on public land in New South Wales, in view of the Dunn report praising their experience and conscientious efforts to date? Pigs might fly. Or will they be sidelined and denied relevance in the new order of the Department of Primary Industries?

What assurances will the Government give that their contribution and energy will not be wasted? What guarantees will the Government give that their employment conditions will be maintained? On current experience it appears as though the Department of Primary Industries is trying to strip them of their conditions as fast as it can. What guarantee will the Government give that the division will be retained as a single working unit, located together? Again, one would have to look at what it has done in the past. It has spread the Game Council over about four or five different streams of reporting functions, which is the way the public service thinks businesses are run. It does not work that way. We know, and Mr David Shoebridge has confirmed today, that The Greens have a stated aim of abolishing all hunting, for no reason other than ideology. The O'Farrell Government is now proving to be also leaning this way.

There are more than 150,000 hunters in New South Wales. Is the O'Farrell Government determined to curtail the activities of those citizens to pander to The Greens? One can only look at the facts as they are presented at the moment. I ask why the Minister has put the Game Council Division under the control of a published anti-hunter in the form of Dr Glen Saunders. How can a backroom bureaucrat/scientist possibly manage the Game Council Division to achieve continued growth and success? The number of licensed hunters has increased from zero in 2006 to more than 20,000 in 2013, which is a phenomenal success. More than 35,000 licences have been issued in that time. Will the Government guarantee that that phenomenal performance in licence sales growth will continue? In accordance with what the Government has done with the division it cannot, and I will put $1,000 on the table if anybody wants to bet with me that it can.

If the O'Farrell Government was genuinely supportive of the concept of conservation hunting in national parks during the whole time of the public debate on this issue, why did it not more extensively publicise that such hunting was to be conducted in remote locations, with minimal existing visitation under the successful State Forests model? It did not. In fact, I had to chastise the Premier for getting on the Parker bandwagon and talking about supervised hunting. I walked out of a conference held by the NSW Farmers Association so that I would not embarrass myself and the Premier. [Time expired.] 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24035

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK [12.40 p.m.]: It was not my intention initially to speak on the Game Council and Feral Animal Control Bill 2013. However, it touches on an issue about which I have had various interactions over the past four years, some at considerable personal cost. I had taken the general view that I should sit back and just listen to the debate. However, the contribution of the Hon. Steve Whan, whose version of events was one of the most amazing, monumental rewritings of history, has prompted me to stand up.

Mr David Shoebridge: An ugly distortion.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: A complete distortion of what occurred and amazing hypocrisy. It has prompted me to place some accurate historical facts on the record. I note that the Hon. Steve Whan served as a Minister in the Labor Cabinet that bungled this issue in the first place. I draw the attention of members to the blindingly obvious fact that what I consider to be a debacle not just for the upper House and the Parliament but also for its impact on governance for the entire State did not suddenly erupt on 27 March 2011 when the O'Farrell Government took office. Feral animals did not suddenly explode into our national parks on 27 March 2011, as almost seemed to be the suggestion of the Hon. Steve Whan.

The Hon. Steve Whan: You didn't listen to what I said, Catherine. Stop misleading people about what I said. Maybe you should go and do your homework for a change.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: I certainly did listen to you.

The Hon. Matthew Mason-Cox: Point of order: The Hon. Steve Whan is interjecting and he knows that is disorderly. I ask you to call him to order.

The ASSISTANT-PRESIDENT (Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile): Order! Interjections are disorderly at all times. Members will not harass the member with the call.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: The Hon. Steve Whan indicated in his contribution that major problems now exist in Kosciuszko National Park that did not exist 10 years ago. That is not because of an event that occurred on 27 March 2011. The problem is the result of the previous Labor Government's mismanagement of feral animals. The O'Farrell Government inherited this legacy, which is why the problem has become so complex and intractable today. I note that the Game Council did not come into existence on 27 March 2011; this was not the first time that New South Wales voters have returned a hung upper House nor is it the date that the Shooters and Fishers Party suddenly found themselves in a disproportionate position of power.

All of these factors pre-date the O'Farrell Government, which had to deal with this legacy—legislation Labor had passed about the Game Council and custom and practice that had developed on how the Government dealt with the Shooters and Fishers Party. The Government has been dealing with these established factors while applying its own style and initiatives, feeding its own desired outcomes into the process. I make the blindingly obvious point that the Government has been working with a vital and completely established set of arrangements.

Mr David Shoebridge: Unlike them. They get behind closed doors and introduce backroom deals.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: And the way that previous Labor Minister Ian Macdonald and others in the Legislative Council, now disgraced, were conducting these negotiations and arrangements needs to be factored into how people came to understand the way business is to be conducted. When a new Government wishes to negotiate its priorities in an up-front way as opposed to a behind closed doors way—

The Hon. Amanda Fazio: That is the most outrageous statement made today.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: I note the interjection of the Hon. Amanda Fazio, who says that is an outrageous allegation. Perhaps I should begin by correcting the record on how the issue of hunting in national parks was dealt with by the former Rees Government. I state a position of respect for the Shooters and Fishers Party because they have always dealt with these issues in a very up-front way. They have always been very clear about what they want and have spent years in this place negotiating these arrangements. There has been nothing secret or hidden in there and there is nothing irrational or illogical about what they have sought to do. They have sought to exercise their mandate in a way that they believe is most proper to advance the interests of their members. I do not have any problem with that. 24036 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

The problem I have is with the way the initial legislation was negotiated by the former Labor Government. The Hon. Amanda Fazio says these things were not done behind closed doors. She has to be kidding. The entire legislation was negotiated to the point where it was being supported and that would have occurred at a time when the Hon. Steve Whan was a member of the Cabinet—this all went to Cabinet. The Shooters and Fishers Party believed that it was given the green light by the Labor Party to introduce the bill. In fact, it was the Labor Government that used the forms of the House to allow the Shooters and Fishers Party to give the second reading speech for its bill. I was not the lead speaker for the Opposition—it was the Hon. Duncan Gay—but we worked together on this issue. We saw flaws in the then Government's arrangements with that legislation. We foreshadowed numerous amendments that we believed were essential to make the legislation work.

Mr David Shoebridge: You proposed hunting in national parks back then, Catherine.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: No, I did not.

Mr David Shoebridge: Not you, but your lot.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: I did not. I accept that The Greens have been consistent in their position all the way along as well, so I am not seeking to rebut them but in government one needs to work with the crossbench to have a functional upper House. I accept, and many people—even those in the conservation movement—accept that something needed to be done for the benefit of national parks and so that we could have a functional Parliament. I do not think anyone who has to deal with the practicalities of government could disagree with that.

I return to the legislation that the Shooters and Fishers Party believed was going to be supported by the Labor Party. That is all on the public record, including all the amendments that we sought to move. For Labor, least of all the Hon. Steve Whan, to suggest, "the Labor Party has always been opposed to hunting in national parks; it is a principled position that I have held all the way" made me want to stand up here and move a motion condemning him for misleading this Chamber. I went down to his electorate, stood outside his electorate office and held a press conference, calling on him to state his position in relation to Kosciuszko National Park. The Hon. Steve Whan has not stated his position. His comments in this Chamber today are an absolute disgrace.

Labor is trying to clothe itself in some cloak of piousness. Labor's role and the way it conducted business have led to the shambles here today. In 2009 a statutory review was undertaken of the Game Council that sounded warning bells about the necessity for improvements. Those warnings were not heeded by the then Labor Government. On Labor's watch the Auditor-General repeatedly raised governance issues in relation to the finances of the Game Council. Not one of those matters was addressed. Indeed, when the Game Council fully expended its budget and required additional funding, it held a special meeting outside all the normal Treasury processes and the Hon. Eric Roozendaal forgave the debt and gave the Game Council money. No other government agency was dealt with in that way.

I do not blame the Shooters and Fishers Party for that arrangement; I blame the former Labor Government for ignoring the matter. I repeatedly tried to sound the warning bell about what some might regard as small governance issues. As a result, the proverbial golden goose—if I can describe it that way—laid one too many golden eggs and the entire future of the organisation was placed in jeopardy. That is what occurred. I have read the Dunn report. I shall not go through the detail of that report, except to say that the way it has been written does look pretty bad.

The Hon. Robert Brown: You should see the rebuttal.

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: I understand there is a rebuttal and I am not going to canvass that. What I read in the report was behaviour associated with custom and practice and no-one exhibited an intention to act in a corrupt way. That custom and practice ought not to have taken shape or root in the first place. It was allowed to continue for many years and many opportunities to reform the council were missed. There is now a situation where the O'Farrell Government has been presented with a report containing those recommendations. I wish to make the simple point to the Labor Party and the House that this issue did not erupt on 27 March 2011. It is complicated and difficult for this Government because it was mismanaged for many years prior to our election.

I also make the point that the current predicament whereby the upper House is not really working cooperatively on Government legislation and passing it is, in my view, a situation that needs to be repaired. 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24037

I note that the debate has demonstrated that a great deal of damage has been done to the relationships that are necessary to make this House work effectively. I know the O'Farrell Government is working patiently through those issues. I believe that in the case of the Rees Government, when it was faced with a similar issue of going a bridge too far and then back-flipping, the upper House ended up in a situation where it literally was shut down as a result of a Minister running out of the Chamber and the House rising for months until the ringing of a long bell. That was a disgraceful way to handle that problem. That is obviously not the approach that this Government is taking. I do not underestimate the size of the task to repair those relationships and I commend the efforts of the Ministers who are doing that.

My final word is that we need to continue to focus on our higher duty. No matter what people in another place, the media or community think of the behaviours of the upper House it has an important role under the Constitution and that needs to be respected. It is not going to dissolve or go away. It is important that it be made to work in the interest of good governance of the State. Each member has sworn an oath to serve the public and the Constitution of this State. If members focus on the higher duty that we all have I am hopeful that the problems before us at the moment can be resolved. I put it to the House that the only pathway to a solution is by members refocusing on those greater duties we owe to the community that we serve.

The Hon. PAUL GREEN [12.52 p.m.]: I speak to the Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill 2013 on behalf of the Christian Democratic Party. The purpose of the Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill 2013 is to amend the Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002 by abolishing the Game Council and having the regulatory functions of the Game Council undertaken by the Director General of NSW Trade and Investment—to be known as the regulatory authority—and to establish a Game and Pest Management Advisory Board.

This bill is almost entirely based on the recommendations of the Dunn review. I note, as other members who heard the contribution by the Hon. Robert Brown would have, that the Shooters and Fishers Party express blatant disgust for the Dunn review and much of its content. The Christian Democratic Party supports a multifaceted approach to feral animal control—whether baiting, trapping or shooting, every form of control is necessary. Trained recreational hunters are merely part of that bigger picture and form a necessary part of feral animal control. I disagree that recreational hunters do not have an impact. That is my experience in addressing some of these issues in the Shoalhaven area. The council hired a professional shooter to reduce the number of foxes. He discreetly moved around properties and people would not know he was there. A resident could enter a fox report via the internet onto the Shoalhaven council website and the shooter would come along and take out the fox.

My point is not about the professional shooter, it is that shooting is part of the solution that works in that situation and for the fox it is a quick and humane death. It is probably better and more effective than baiting and it achieves the same result. I note that Mr Shoebridge stated that the killing of a few hundred feral cats would not have an impact on feral animal numbers. What needs to be considered is that there are thousands, tens of thousands, probably millions—I heard on the radio recently—of endangered native birds and animals killed by feral cats. I could not believe what the global number was. I believe it was 70 million.

What needs to be considered is that feral animals are having a devastating effect on our national parks, State forests and private properties. Every feral animal destroyed is a win for the environment and native and endangered species. There are millions of vulnerable native and endangered species in the world. Approximately 75 per cent of the Shoalhaven is national parks and some people pay a lot of money— specifically the twitchers—to see these birds.

The Hon. Luke Foley: Nathan Rees.

The Hon. PAUL GREEN: I acknowledge that interjection. Twitchers come from all over the world to watch birds in the Shoalhaven shire, particularly the little tern at Shoalhaven Heads and Culburra Beach. That is also where the foxes hunt and kill these native and endangered species. There is a place for hunting and a need to reduce feral animals in this way. I note the comments from the Hon. Robert Brown that it costs the National Parks and Wildlife Service 12 times more per feral animal killed compared to the cost per feral animal killed by recreational hunters. I further note that in seven years there have been zero reports of human fatalities associated with hunting in New South Wales State forests. To date recreational hunters have sensibly hunted within designated State forests and provided—

The Hon. Dr Peter Phelps: Effectively and safely. 24038 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

The Hon. PAUL GREEN: I acknowledge that interjection by the Hon. Dr Peter Phelps. Safety is important. In my time as a member of the Legislative Council the issue of hunting in national parks has been one of the most controversial to the community. Many people are not aware that there is already hunting in State forests. I was not aware until the Shooters and Fishers Party enlightened me about the other methods in place and that the Game Council was in control of the system. I was amazed that there was shooting in State forests. I was asked how I justified our decision and when I responded it became apparent that a lot of people did not know that there was a current safe active system for hunting in State forests. Members have to explain the situation.

At the end of the day, the system in State forests provided by the Game Council was effective. People were locked out of the parks appropriately when the parks were booked for recreational shooting. The Game Council has obviously had some issues, but its seven-year track record in terms of State forests and the way they work shows that the program can be run effectively. I acknowledge the various voices and opinions in the Chamber; they are important. No-one in this Chamber wants anyone to be hurt through any sport or for there to be a fatality. This is another area where people enjoy expressing their love for a certain sport. There is no doubt that we need to be cautious when implementing such programs.

I have no doubt that if State Forests records showed that feral animal numbers were reduced for the good of the environment and native species that would demonstrate how recreational shooting can be part of the solution. Everyone wants to get it right. The Christian Democratic Party is very mindful that we have a duty to be good stewards of what God has given us and to be faithful to that cause. It is an interesting discussion that will continue whilst passionate people have different views. The Christian Democratic Party looks forward to the Committee discussion concerning this bill.

[The Assistant-President (Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile) left the chair at 1.01 p.m. The House resumed at 2.30 p.m.]

Pursuant to sessional orders business interrupted at 2.30 p.m. for questions.

Item of business set down as an order of the day for a later hour.

SYDNEY CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT FIRE

Ministerial Statement

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY (Minister for Roads and Ports) [2.30 p.m.]: Earlier today fire crews were called to reports of a fire in a building on the corner of Pitt and Bathurst streets in the central business district. The fire was in the basement of the building, which has been earmarked for demolition. More than 50 people were evacuated from neighbouring buildings and more than 30 fire crews are working to bring the fire under control. Several streets including Pitt, Bathurst and Castlereagh streets were closed to allow emergency services to get to the scene and for safety reasons.

Castlereagh Street has since been reopened, but Bathurst Street remains closed as does Pitt Street to Liverpool Street. These closures have caused some traffic delays in the city—in fact, I have just experienced them—and in some parts of the city they are major. Fire crews believe it will be some time before the incident is under control and are warning that traffic delays might continue until the peak this afternoon. The Traffic Management Centre is urging motorists to stay out of the central business district if possible. Regular updates from the Traffic Management Centre are being broadcast on radio and are on the Live Traffic NSW website.

QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE ______

AVIAN INFLUENZA OUTBREAK

The Hon. LUKE FOLEY: My question is directed to the Deputy Leader of the Government, representing the Minister for Primary Industries. There has been an outbreak of the H7 avian influenza strain on a property near Young in the State's Central West. What is the Government doing to contain the outbreak? What support and assistance is the Government providing to the affected producer?

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: I thank the honourable Leader of the Opposition. I know the Hon. Mick Veitch also has an interest in this matter. Avian influenza at an egg farm near Young is an important issue. The 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24039

Department of Primary Industries is currently managing a case of H7 avian influenza A1 in an egg farm in the Young area. The Department of Primary Industries' Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute and the CSIRO's Australian Animal Health Laboratory have confirmed H7 avian influenza in a flock of 400,000 cage and free-range layer hens in the area.

I emphasise that this is not the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain that has gained worldwide attention, nor is it closely related to this strain. It is important for the community, the grower and the general public to emphasise that this is not the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain. The property has been placed under strict quarantine, and movements on and off it are being controlled. A 10-kilometre control area has been set up and a one-kilometre restricted zone is being enforced. A nearby affiliated property has also been quarantined. The Department of Primary Industries and the Livestock Health and Pest Authorities are working closely with the property and bird owners. Surveillance and tracing are continuing to confirm the virus has not spread.

The NSW Food Authority has confirmed that there are no food safety issues, and that poultry and eggs are safe to eat. State and Commonwealth biosecurity authorities will meet today to discuss eradication and depopulation of the remaining birds. Australia has previously had a small number of outbreaks of H7 avian influenza virus. These were quickly and successfully eradicated. The Department of Primary Industries is working closely with the NSW Food Authority, the Australian Egg Corporation Limited and NSW Health. All bird owners should have good biosecurity measures in place.

Simple biosecurity measures that will help prevent disease outbreaks include restricting contact between poultry and wild birds, preventing food and water contamination by faeces or other animal waste, keeping equipment and poultry yards or aviaries clean, practising good hygiene if attending bird shows, limiting visitors to birds and quarantining new birds. Bird owners should, as a general routine, wash their hands before and after handling birds. A State coordination centre has been set up in Orange, and a local control centre is overseeing the operation in Young.

Importantly, if anyone notices sick or dead birds they should contact their local veterinarian or call the emergency Animal Disease Watch Hotline on 1800 675 888. For further information on avian influenza I suggest that people visit www.dpi.nsw.gov.au. I thank the Leader of the Opposition and one of the local members, the Hon. Mick Veitch, for their concern. I am assured that the Minister and the department have a watching brief. The key message is not to overreact. The proper controls have been put in place. While some people might identify it immediately with some of the more rampant viruses varieties from overseas, this is not one of them.

KOGARAH STATE EMERGENCY SERVICE

The Hon. MARIE FICARRA: My question is directed to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. Will the Minister inform the House about improvements to the NSW State Emergency Service Kogarah unit?

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: I most certainly will. I thank the honourable member for her question, which gives me an opportunity to recognise the latest events at the NSW State Emergency Service Kogarah unit. My hardworking Parliamentary Secretary, Mr Geoff Provest, had the important task on Tuesday 10 September of opening new and improved facilities at the Kogarah unit headquarters. The unit, which was first opened in 1958, now has a four-berth garage with a mezzanine level, which allows the unit to keep its vehicles on site.

The garage was funded jointly by a State Emergency Service subsidy and matching funds from Kogarah City Council, with the mezzanine paid for by community fundraising conducted by unit members. This capability to house vehicles on site will enhance the capacity of the Kogarah unit to assist the community in times of floods, storms and other emergencies. It is not the only reason that the good people of Kogarah are celebrating. Kogarah City Council has also generously gifted the unit with five response vehicles and a flood boat, which was officially handed over by Mayor Nickolas Varvaris during the event on 10 September.

The Hon. Marie Ficarra: A great member.

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: So I believe. With its vehicles housed on site thanks to the new extension to its premises, the NSW State Emergency Service Kogarah unit is equipped to respond even more efficiently and safely to community needs during a variety of emergency situations. The Kogarah unit is 24040 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

one of 15 units comprising the Sydney Southern region of the NSW State Emergency Service. With 40 active volunteers and 10 reserve volunteers, the unit is very active in rescue and recovery operations. Like other NSW State Emergency Service units it has assisted throughout the State wherever and whenever help has been needed.

The Kogarah unit has provided volunteers and resources to assist colleagues in Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory, Queensland and Western Australia during recent flood and storm events. During the past 12 months the Kogarah unit has contributed more than 12,000 operational hours to the service primarily in the areas of community engagement, storm response and the all-important training of its volunteers. These people do fine work, as do the volunteers and members of all NSW State Emergency Service units. I wish the Kogarah unit well with its new facilities. I know that people in the Sydney southern region in particular will continue to benefit from the hard work of these dedicated volunteers whenever the forces of nature and wild weather rise up to challenge them.

MOBILE SPEED CAMERAS

The Hon. ADAM SEARLE: My question is directed to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. Yesterday the Victorian Government announced changes to the rules for mobile speed cameras. Are there any plans to allow mobile speed cameras in New South Wales to be hidden behind trees, bushes and roadside signs, and at the bottom of hills, as is now the case in Victoria?

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: The answer to that question is no. The Hon. Walt Secord does not have to put out the latest scare press release; he can withdraw that one.

The Hon. Walt Secord: I've already hit "send".

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: He has already hit "send". There is an admission if ever I have heard one. He has already put the scare press release out there. Now he is going to have to issue a retraction saying yet again that he was wrong as he continues to try to frighten the motorists of New South Wales. What an admission; he verballed himself.

NORTH WEST RAIL LINK

The Hon. ROBERT BORSAK: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, representing the Minister for Planning and Infrastructure. Is it a fact that the North West Rail Link will use more steel than the Sydney Harbour Bridge but that the O'Farrell Government has not yet committed to using Australian steel? Is it true that the use of local content in the project, including 400,000 cubic metres of concrete, 15 train sets, materials for eight new train stations and 23 kilometres of double track will be a matter for tenderers? If so, will the North West Rail Link be another example of public money being spent on a major project that delivers critical infrastructure components in flat packs from overseas workshops?

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: As the member has requested, I will direct the question to the Minister for Planning and Infrastructure to seek a response.

F3 TO M2 ORBITAL LINK

The Hon. DAVID CLARKE: My question is directed to the Minister for Roads and Ports. Will the Minister update the House on the F3 to M2 proposal?

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: I thank the member for his question. I am disappointed that it is something the Opposition is not interested in. Only Government members care. The Opposition does not care about infrastructure. I am pleased to inform the House that good progress is being made on the F3 to M2 unsolicited proposal with the commencement of the planning process.

The Hon. Lynda Voltz: It's the F1.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: It is the M1. I have a list here and I am going to ask some questions later. Last month we submitted a State Significant Infrastructure application to the Department of Planning and Infrastructure in line with the New South Wales planning requirements. The application describes the proposed project and 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24041

identifies the potential environmental issues to be assessed. This is one of the largest infrastructure projects in New South Wales and, like all of our projects, significant effort is being put into ensuring environmental impacts are minimised should the project proceed once bids are received. In 2012, Transurban and the Westlink M7 shareholders approached the Government with an unsolicited proposal to design, build, operate, maintain and finance a motorway linking the M1 Pacific Motorway at Wahroonga with The Hills M2 at West Pennant Hills.

The Government has committed $405 million to the project, with matching funding coming from the Federal Government. Tony Abbott and Warren Truss know how important this project will be for New South Wales and they are backing it. A request for tender was issued to a short list of three consortia in August for the design and construction of the project. As I have advised the House previously, the tenderers have been asked to develop the design, systems and services based on performance requirements, and tenders must come in under an announced target price of $2.65 billion. The tenderers must also ensure the design minimises and mitigates any potential environmental impact. Final tenders are due at the end of November 2013. Once they have been received the design will be used in the environmental impact statement, which will go on public display early next year.

If approved, the proposed link will be funded jointly by Transurban, Westlink M7 shareholders, the New South Wales Government and the Federal Government, and it will include tolls. The F3 to M2 will be virtually a Sydney bypass, enabling motorists to avoid 22 sets of traffic lights, taking as much as 15 minutes off the time it takes to get from the M2 interchange to the start of the F3, as well as removing up to 7,000 trucks a day off Pennant Hills Road. It will provide a continuous motorway between western and south-western Sydney and the Central Coast and the Hunter and it will reduce congestion in Sydney's northern suburbs. With projects like this and WestConnex we are getting on with the job of delivering the infrastructure that New South Wales needs and our communities deserve.

WHIAN WHIAN LOGGING SITE

The Hon. ROBERT BROWN: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. Have police made any arrests over the vandalism of logging machinery owned by a private contractor who had been commissioned by the Forestry Corporation to undertake logging on a private property at Whian Whian, near Lismore, where protesters had been staging demonstrations at the site for about a fortnight?

The Hon. Lynda Voltz: It is an operational issue.

The Hon. Jeremy Buckingham: Where were you Jan?

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: Even The Greens are asking where Jan Barham was. Admit to nothing. I will make some inquiries of the police and I will get a suitable response. As the Hon. Lynda Voltz rightly interjected, it is an operational issue.

MOTORISED BICYCLES

The Hon. SOPHIE COTSIS: My question is directed to the Minister for Roads and Ports. When will the Minister respond to community concerns and introduce restrictions on motorised bicycles following two tragic accidents in western and south-western Sydney, one of which resulted in a fatality?

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: When will I respond and introduce restrictions? Restrictions are already in place: motorised bicycles are illegal. Currently, Staysafe, the Joint Standing Committee on Road Safety, is looking at this issue and any changes or further restrictions—although it is hard to further restrict something that is illegal—will be looked at following the completion of the committee's inquiry. It will be a bipartisan report. I referred the issue to the Staysafe committee some time ago, before this tragic accident occurred. I am surprised there has not been a leak from the committee—it normally has a case of bad rusty pipes—but some people probably have been accessing holiday destinations in the interim. This is a serious question about a tragic accident, but the short answer is that restrictions apply to the power that the engines of motorised bicycles produce and the issue has been referred to Staysafe.

VISION-IMPAIRED PEDESTRIAN SAFETY

The Hon. TREVOR KHAN: My question is directed to the Minister for Ageing, and Minister for Disability Services. Will the Minister update the House on the Watch Out, Cane About road safety awareness campaign on White Cane Day? 24042 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

The Hon. JOHN AJAKA: I thank the honourable member for his question. Together with the Hon. Duncan Gay, the Minister for Roads and Ports, I was privileged to have participated in the launch of the Guide Dogs NSW/ACT Watch Out, Cane About road safety awareness campaign this year. This event took place on International White Cane Day, which is held every year on 15 October to raise awareness of the issues facing people who use white canes, guide dogs and other mobility aids. This year's campaign calls on motorists and other road users to be more aware of the road safety needs of pedestrians who are blind or vision impaired. Many pedestrians who are blind or vision impaired have experienced a near collision that significantly affected their confidence in crossing roads and participating in the community. This impacts on their quality of life, independence, and social and emotional wellbeing.

A number of Guide Dogs NSW/ACT members who use white canes and guide dogs also attended the campaign launch to share their stories about and experiences of road safety. As part of the campaign, Guide Dogs NSW/ACT is developing a number of awareness-raising initiatives, including key dos and don'ts for community members about people who use white canes, guide dogs or other mobility aids. Removing the barriers to people with disability getting around with confidence and acceptance in their community moves us towards a strong and inclusive New South Wales. The ability to move around safely in the community is essential to living life, getting to work, getting to school, meeting friends, enjoying social activities and all the day-to-day things we do in our lives.

Last year this Government launched the first New South Wales plan to implement the National Disability Strategy. This plan includes actions across all New South Wales departments that will break down barriers to participation for people with disability. The plan supports the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Government is committed to shifting structural barriers so that people with disability can enjoy the same rights and opportunities that other people take for granted, including access to education, entertainment, transport, housing and everyday community services. The Living Life My Way Framework is preparing New South Wales for the full implementation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme in 2018. These reforms focus on improving flexibility, choice and control to empower people with disability to live their life and achieve their life goals.

In 2013-14, Ageing, Disability and Home Care will allocate $11.9 million for services that target people with sensory disabilities, including people who are blind or vision impaired. This funding will be used for a range of services including independent living, drop-in support, individual therapy, community education, advocacy and peer support. Ageing, Disability and Home Care supports the White Cane Day and the Watch Out, Cane About road safety campaign. Increasing the awareness of community members and mainstream community services of the needs of people who are blind or vision impaired is vital, and will enable and empower individuals to independently access and participate in community life with confidence.

The Watch Out, Cane About campaign provides an opportunity for us to hear road safety experiences directly from individuals who use white canes every day. I am honoured to have participated in the launch of White Cane Day and the Watch Out, Cane About road safety campaign. Again I thank the Hon. Duncan Gay and Roads and Maritime Services for all of their assistance and work in relation to this matter. All motorists and community members have an important role to play in the road safety needs of pedestrians who are blind or vision impaired.

SYDNEY WATER CATCHMENT COAL AND GAS MINING

The Hon. JEREMY BUCKINGHAM: My question is directed to the Minister for Roads and Ports, representing the Minister for Resources and Energy. In October 2011 the Minister said, "The Sydney Catchment Authority has the role of protecting Sydney water. If it has a concern it is up to it to act. The Government will totally support decisions it has made." In light of the position of the Sydney Catchment Authority in its submission to the resource significance mining State environmental planning policy that it wants mining and gas development banned, will the Government commit to banning coal and gas mining in the drinking water catchment of 4.5 million people?

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: Another day, another scare campaign from this member. The only thing that can be guaranteed is that whilst some days it is the same campaign, eventually he moves on to another. He has been trying to scare the people of Tamworth, the Pilliga and the Hunter—all for political gain. But they have woken up to him; they avoided The Greens in their thousands.

The Hon. Jeremy Buckingham: Point of order: The point of order relates to relevance. The question related to the drinking water catchment of 4.5 million people. I submit the Minister is not being generally relevant in his answer. 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24043

The PRESIDENT: Order! There is no point of order.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: His last words indicate the mother of all campaigns: He wants to scare everyone who drinks water—

The Hon. Jeremy Buckingham: Point of order: The Minister is making personal imputations against me in saying that I am running a scare campaign. I simply asked a question that is of relevance to 4.5 million people. That is how many people drink the water in Sydney.

The PRESIDENT: Order! The member will resume his seat. Whatever substance may have been in his point of order was cast aside by his use of it to make a debating point. The Minister has the call.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: The member is obviously running a scare campaign. The Premier gave a reassurance that he will not approve anything that interferes with Sydney's water. One does not get a better guarantee than that. I would rather take the Premier's guarantee than the word of the scaremonger any day of the week.

WESTCONNEX MOTORWAY

The Hon. PENNY SHARPE: My question is directed to the Minister for Roads and Ports. In light of the Government's claim that the public consultation on WestConnex—

The Hon. Catherine Cusack: It's a hard word, Penny. It needs practice.

The Hon. PENNY SHARPE: It does. The public consultation on WestConnex constitutes "one of the broadest community consultation programs of any infrastructure project in Australia", why has the Minister rejected a proposal by inner-west councils to establish a joint consultative task force, forcing the mayor of Leichhardt to label the consultation process a "farce"?

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: I am disappointed that any mayor of Leichhardt would take that attitude. I recently had some meaningful discussions with the mayor of Leichhardt on other matters, and I can only assume that this might be a distortion of what he said. We do not necessarily want local government running a construction site. What we want is proper consultation with community representatives, which is local government, and they are an important part of our consultation. We may well have a difference; there are some councils in this State that we do not want running a multi-billion dollar process. What we do want—

The Hon. Mick Veitch: If you are going to acknowledge interjections, acknowledge those ones.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: I could well acknowledge a lot of interjections, but I am not going to acknowledge any, because we are doing the right thing: We are, through the councils, consulting with the community. We may have slight differences, because sometimes the councils really would like to run these projects—

The Hon. Dr Peter Phelps: But not pay for them.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: But not pay for them, as the member said. It is a little bit like the Labor Party: They like the project, but they like to be critical. All I can say is that if the member is able to get through a couple of pre-selections in the next 10 years she will get plenty of practice pronouncing WestConnex.

STRIKE FORCE EVESSON

The Hon. JENNIFER GARDINER: My question is addressed to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. Will the Minister update the House on the recent raids by Strike Force Evesson of the NSW Police Force?

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: Strike Force Evesson of the NSW Police Force is continuing to target criminal activities of the Assyrian crime group the Last Hour, bringing gang members before the courts and disrupting their criminal activities. We hear so often about the criminal exploits of bikies, but we should remember that they are not the only gangs out to make money from crime. Recent police raids have dealt a crushing blow to this violent and dangerous band of thugs. The Commissioner of Police, Andrew Scipione, has 24044 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

said that Dlasthr, the Last Hour, is a violent, organised gang that has been involved in public-place shootings, vicious assaults, drug dealing and extortion. I am advised that Dlasthr is said to have originated from another gang called the Assyrian Kings. I am advised that the Assyrian Kings were implicated in the horrific murder of off-duty police officer David Carty in 1997.

On 23 September 2013 more than 340 police carried out 22 simultaneous, highly coordinated raids across south-western Sydney at locations including Fairfield, Bonnyrigg, Horningsea Park, Canley Vale, Rossmore, Bossley Park, Hoxton Park, Campbelltown, Wetherill Park, Warwick Farm, Cartwright, Smithfield, Hinchinbrook, Greenfield Park and Liverpool. The raids were carried out at residential properties, two car dealerships, a real estate office directly opposite the Liverpool Police Station and a semi-rural property. Each of the properties has been linked to the Dlasthr gang. Police knew how dangerous members of the Dlasthr gang can be and took no chances, using their best trained officers and the best equipment at their disposal.

At the semi-rural property in Rossmore, police stormed the premises using two Bearcat armoured personnel carriers, carrying heavily armed officers from the Tactical Operations Unit. Police seized three replica pistols, a stun gun, capsicum spray, batons, nunchaku, a butterfly knife, two bullet-proof vests, more than 19 grams of cocaine, more than eight kilograms of cannabis, 130 vials of steroids, 42 ecstasy pills, 80 amphetamine capsules, a pill press and other drug manufacturing equipment, $25,000 in cash, four jet skis, a boat and a luxury Lotus sports car.

Police arrested 15 people, who have been charged with a variety of offences. One of those arrested has been charged with some of the most serious of the new criminal group offences that the Government introduced last year. That man was charged with knowingly directing the activities of a criminal group and recruiting others to assist in criminal activities. The man has been charged with supply prohibited drug and conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery. He has been bail refused and will appear in court next month. Charges against other persons ranged from drug supply, drug possession, dealing in the proceeds of crime, causing grievous bodily harm with intent, conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery, affray and participating in a criminal group. So far Strike Force Evesson investigators have arrested a total of 35 people for a variety of offences. The Government supports the ongoing efforts of the NSW Police Force against organised crime.

ASSISTED BOARDING HOUSE REGULATION

The Hon. JAN BARHAM: My question is directed to the Minister for Ageing, Minister for Disability Services, and Minister for the Illawarra. Will the Minister outline what measures the Government is taking to address concerns of non-government disability advocacy organisations about the Boarding House Regulation 2013? Specifically, how will the Government ensure only operators with sufficient training and necessary commitment to person-centred disability service delivery operate assisted boarding houses? How will assisted boarding house operators be made to ensure communal spaces are located indoors? How will annual reporting requirements ensure the protection of the human rights of residents?

The Hon. JOHN AJAKA: The aims of the Government's boarding houses reforms, which came into full force from 1 July this year, are to strengthen the protection of vulnerable people living in boarding houses and instil higher standards within the industry. The previous legislation had been virtually unchanged for nearly 40 years, despite reports from the New South Wales Ombudsman expressing concern for the safety and wellbeing of vulnerable boarding house residents. As a result of these reforms, an enhanced licensing system is in full operation, and has been since 1 January. The new legislation is intended to raise standards for boarding house residents without jeopardising the availability of low-cost, affordable housing in a challenging private rental market. This system puts in place a centralised licensing system, administered by Fair Trading, for all assisted and general boarding houses in New South Wales. It is a collaborative effort between Ageing, Disability and Home Care, Fair Trading and local government.

A person wishing to operate a general boarding house must be registered with New South Wales Fair Trading and comply with local government standards. In addition to being registered, anyone who wants to operate an assisted boarding house must apply for an authorisation or licence from the Department of Family and Community Services in accordance with the Boarding Houses Act. It is an offence to operate an assisted boarding house without an authorisation. Under section 46 of the Act the director general may refuse to grant a licence if he or she is of the opinion that the proposed licensee, an individual proposed as the approved manager or any close associate of the applicant is not a suitable person to be involved in the management or operation of the assisted boarding house, or the applicant does not have the financial capacity to operate the proposed licensed boarding house. Many of the standards in the new regulations existed in the previous Youth and Community Services Act 1973 and 2010 regulations. 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24045

The additional standards authorised to protect vulnerable people living in boarding houses in the 2013 regulations include the introduction of new accommodation standards, in particular, standards six and seven, requiring premises to provide for single occupancy rooms and the establishment of a limit of 30 residents applies to assisted boarding houses; the requirement for recreational space equipped with a balance of indoor and outdoor equipment to meet the recreational needs of the residents; minimum staffing levels and a process to assess sufficient levels; requirements for staff to undergo criminal record checks; required qualifications and skills of staff to exercise those functions and be competent in exercising their functions; requirement for managers of authorised boarding houses to have the abilities to provide services to people with additional needs in boarding houses and the capacity to exercise overall supervision of an assisted boarding house; and a requirement for managers of authorised boarding houses to hold a degree or diploma in social work, or in health or community work, of a kind approved by the director general or relevant experience in the management of assisted boarding houses.

Ageing, Disability and Home Care is committed to ensuring that staff of assisted boarding houses have the skills to provide quality services to residents and has committed $2 million to implement the Boarding Houses Act and regulation, some of which will be used to provide training for boarding house managers in matters such as the administration of medication, infection control and good health management. Ageing, Disability and Home Care is preparing a program of regular training forums for assisted boarding house managers and operators on issues including contemporary disability support practice. [Time expired.]

PLAGUE LOCUST OUTBREAKS

The Hon. STEVE WHAN: My question is directed to the Minister for Roads and Ports, representing the Minister for Primary Industries. The Australian Plague Locust Commission has warned Central West farmers to be vigilant with localised hotspots for locust outbreaks during spring. Will the Minister give a commitment that under the new Local Land Services funding arrangements the cost of fighting larger scale locust outbreaks will continue to be shared around New South Wales and will not fall only on those areas subject to the outbreak, as the draft Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal report into Local Land Services Funding is suggesting?

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: As someone who has been involved in farming industries for a large part of my life, I know there is nothing worse than plague locusts—except perhaps in some areas wingless grasshoppers that continue to stay and cause problems. My understanding, given this is such a serious issue, is that the member was asking whether the Government was doing something that he did not do. I am sure whatever funding is put in place it will be appropriate. I will check with my colleague the Minister for Primary Industries and get a detailed answer.

MOTORCYCLE AWARENESS WEEK

The Hon. RICK COLLESS: My question is addressed to the Minister for Roads and Ports. Will the Minister update the House on Motorcycle Awareness Week?

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: It is obvious as one wanders around our city that motorcycles are becoming more and more popular on our roads. Over the past five years motorcycle registrations have increased 35 per cent compared with an 11 per cent increase in other passenger vehicle registrations. I am pleased to inform the House that earlier today Motorcycle Awareness Week, a public awareness campaign organised by the Motorcycle Council of New South Wales, was officially launched. Unfortunately, I was attending another function today; it was the first one I have missed. However, my ever diligent and one of the best Parliamentary Secretaries I have had attended in my stead. The campaign aims to ensure that all road users are aware of issues surrounding motorcycle riders and their safety.

The Government is sponsoring Motorcycle Awareness Week as it has education and awareness aims in common with the New South Wales Motorcycle Safety Strategy, which was developed in close partnership with the motorcycling community and was released in March this year. The strategy aims to reduce the number of motorcycle fatalities and injuries on New South Wales roads, raise awareness of the need for motorists to check twice for motorcycles and make motorcycle riding safer. Unfortunately—and this is the key killer fact— motorcyclists accounted for 17 per cent of all fatalities and 12 per cent of all injuries in New South Wales last year while accounting for less than only 4 per cent of vehicle registrations. That is a disproportionate situation that we need to address. 24046 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

Sadly, motorcycle fatalities have increased in 2013. So far this year there have been 58 motorcycle fatalities, including a spike in motorcycle fatalities in October. There were 10 motorcycle fatalities in the first two weeks of this month, many of them single vehicle accidents. Tragically, the latest of these was a 22-year-old Sydney man who died this morning following a crash on Mowbray Road yesterday. His family is personally known to some of us here from the transport cluster. The devastating effect this young man's death has had on that family has been felt by too many families, and we all need to do more to reduce the growing number of motorcycle crashes.

In light of these statistics the awareness messages delivered during Motorcycle Awareness Week are as important as ever. The Motorcycle Council of New South Wales—a great bunch of people—has issued strong safety messages to motorcyclists, reiterating that safety is not just about other vehicles or drivers. Riders need to take care as well, be better risk managers and get home safely. Drivers also have a responsibility. They need to keep a better look out for motorcycles, which can be hard to spot at times. Drivers need to take on board the "check twice for bikes" message when looking in their mirrors. The Government has released the "Making Roads More Motorcycle Friendly" guide, which promotes motorcycle safety for those who build, design and maintain roads. In addition, the New South Wales Safer Roads program has a targeted motorcycle safety program to develop on-road treatments to improve safety for motorcycle riders.

ST GEORGE HOSPITAL PERITONECTOMY SURGERY

The Hon. PAUL GREEN: My question is directed to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, representing the Minister for Health. I refer to recent media reports regarding Nicole Perko, a mother of five, who is awaiting a life-saving peritonectomy to remove a rare cancer of the appendix. Given that St George Hospital is the only New South Wales hospital that performs this procedure, that there are more than 38 people awaiting this life-saving surgery, and that Nicole is still on the waiting list despite being told in July that she was on a one-month priority waiting list, why has Dr Morris been asked to reduce his surgery days from three to two days per week? Why, when there was capacity to perform 12 surgeries per month, has a limit of six been imposed? Why is Nicole still awaiting surgery when she has an approximately 97 per cent chance of recovery with surgery?

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: I believe that yesterday the Minister for Health extensively answered this question in the other place and I believe that she may well have been talking about it as we were proceeding to question time today. In fairness to the member, if there is something in his question that has otherwise not been addressed by the Minister for Health in her statements to the other House over the past two days I will refer it to the Minister as requested. To possibly save time and to allay any concerns that he may have about the matter, I suggest that the member take the opportunity to read the answers from yesterday and today as they may satisfy his interesting questions.

CENTRAL COAST WATER SUPPLY

The Hon. WALT SECORD: My question is directed to the Minister for Roads and Ports, representing the Minister for Primary Industries. After experiencing the hottest winter on record, what is the Government doing to protect Central Coast drinking water supplies after dam levels have dropped to 60.9 per cent?

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: We have found yet another holiday destination of the member. I suspect he is doing it without a wedding invitation in sight. Do I also have an indication from the Opposition spokesman on Water that he is seeking a commitment for the development of a large number of new dams across New South Wales?

The Hon. Michael Gallacher: He said it is not true.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: He said it is not true. I am not sure what he is on about, but I will pass the question on to the relevant Minister and obtain a detailed answer.

BEACH ACCESS FOR DISABLED

The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK: My question is directed to the Minister for Ageing, and Minister for Disability Services. Will the Minister outline what is being done to support Surf Life Saving New South Wales to make beach experiences more accessible for people with disability? 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24047

The Hon. JOHN AJAKA: This is a timely question as we are heading into summer. Going to the beach is an iconic experience that Australians associate with their way of life. It is fun and can benefit one's health. In addition, it provides the opportunity to be part of the broader community. Both the National Disability Strategy: NSW Implementation Plan 2012-14 and NSW 2021, the New South Wales Government's 10-year plan, seek to break down the barriers that prevent people with disability from accessing their communities. These plans recognise the importance of access to mainstream opportunities so that people with disability can enjoy equal rights and the opportunities that others take for granted. Participation in recreational opportunities is an important way for people to be with their family, build friendship and develop social connections.

I am pleased that in 2013 the Government provided $1.5 million to Surf Life Saving New South Wales for the development of inclusive surfing activities, including the purchase of beach wheelchairs to make it easier for people to get on to the sand and into the water. Surf Life Saving New South Wales is working in partnership with the Department of Family and Community Services, Ageing, Disability and Home Care, people with disability and non-government and community-based organisations across the State to determine what will make beachside experiences more accessible.

I am certain that all members, including those opposite, take these issues very seriously. This will build on programs such as the Special Nippers and Little Nippers that already develop capacity and offer inclusive beach and water activities in a mainstream setting for those with disability. The support from this Government will help Surf Life Saving New South Wales develop pathways for people between recreational opportunities in the mainstream and those that more specifically cater for people with disability. The actions from Surf Life Saving New South Wales to make the beach experience more accessible will link the efforts under the National Disability Strategy as New South Wales implements its plan.

These include, first, increasing participation in mainstream sport and recreation and improving access to sport and recreation facilities; second, increasing information available on sport and physical activity options available to people with disability; third, making transport, buildings and toilets more accessible; fourth, promoting sporting opportunities for people in rehabilitation; fifth, providing more than $1 million to the Special Olympics for the 2013 Asia Pacific Games; and, sixth, increasing the number of people with disability participating in volunteering activities in New South Wales, which may include pathways to employment.

The plan builds on initiatives through local government such as development of a master plan for the Collaroy precinct that seeks to deliver public infrastructure upgrades to provide the highest standard of accessibility for all members of the community. I am conscious of the focus of this Government on accessibility for people with disability, which has a wider benefit for older people and families with young children who also struggle with physical barriers in their community. This initiative reaffirms the Government's commitment to shifting the structural barriers that impact on the lives of people with disability.

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING CONTRACTS

Dr JOHN KAYE: I direct my question without notice to the Minister for Ageing, representing the Minister for Education. Will the Minister confirm that the William Angliss Institute was awarded the exclusive contract to provide qualification upgrades for teachers of vocational education and training in New South Wales public schools in the hospitality area to maintain the accreditation required to continue to deliver hospitality courses beyond 2013? If so, on what basis was this work awarded to William Angliss? Were any institutes of TAFE NSW invited to bid for this work? If not, why not?

The Hon. JOHN AJAKA: I thank the member for his question. I will refer it to the Minister for Education for a response.

TOLL ROAD TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT

The Hon. LYNDA VOLTZ: My question is directed to the Minister for Roads and Ports. Yesterday the Minister provided an answer in relation to the Parramatta Road median strip stating that, "The existing median was not designed as a pedestrian refuge." Will the Minister confirm that the original median strip was designed by the previous Liberal Government to funnel traffic onto the then tolled M4? What are the Government's plans to funnel traffic onto tolled sections of the WestConnex?

The Hon. Amanda Fazio: Come clean. We know you have some shifty plans. 24048 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: While I know that interjections are disorderly under the standing orders, I cannot let that one go. The queen of hypocrisy in this place has just spoken. The group of people that invented the tunnel funnel—

The Hon. Lynda Voltz: Point of order: My point of order is relevance. The Minister should not address his comments across the Chamber. The question specifically refers to the median strip on Parramatta Road and the previous Liberal Government's installation of that median strip to funnel cars onto the toll roads.

The PRESIDENT: Order! I remind all members that interjections are disorderly at all times. The Minister has the call.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: I also suggest that they get a question time committee. The organisation that invented the tunnel funnel is the organisation—

The Hon. Steve Whan: How about you get some answers.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: Just be quiet and you will finally learn something.

The PRESIDENT: Order! I call the Hon. Steve Whan to order for the first time. I call the Hon. Amanda Fazio to order for the first time.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: The organisation that developed the tunnel funnel was the New South Wales Labor Party. When it was in government it really dudded the travelling public of New South Wales. I can guarantee that there will be no tunnel funnels on WestConnex. The Government has learnt the lessons of the discredited members opposite. The community will make the decisions with respect to what happens on Parramatta Road. Opposition members are bleating on because they have been left behind in this Government's dust. Those opposite have not got a feather to fly with. They are trying to play catch-up politics because the community has seen this Government go out and do something to address the future of this city. The Government has done it in an honourable way, open and upright, and without the use of the discredited tunnel funnel that the Australian Labor Party invented and developed into an art form.

The PRESIDENT: Order! I call the Hon. Dr Peter Phelps to order for the first time.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: The Opposition should get a question time committee before it disgraces itself any further.

SUMMER MUSIC FESTIVALS POLICING

The Hon. SARAH MITCHELL: My question is directed to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. Will the Minister inform the House of the work police are doing to reduce crime and unsafe behaviour at festivals this spring?

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: I thank the honourable member for her timely question and welcome her interest in this important issue.

The Hon. Steve Whan: From that smile, I think it has to be one in Byron Bay.

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: No. I am disappointed, Mr President. I will have to leave that for another day. Police are maintaining a presence at all major events, such as dance and music festivals, to ensure people's safety, prevent drug-related crime, and reduce crime and antisocial behaviour. It is an unfortunate fact of life that some partygoers continue to ignore the numerous warnings about the dangers of illegal drugs. A particularly sad example occurred in mid-September in Penrith at a party called Defqon.1. I am advised that a 23-year-old Victorian man died after taking three pills at the party. I am advised that he was admitted to Nepean Hospital after collapsing and suffering seizures, and that he died later that day after going into cardiac arrest several times. Fourteen other attendees at the same festival were taken to hospital suffering from apparent drug overdoses. As the Premier has said, "… people who call these substances 'recreational drugs' are dead wrong".

More than 100 police were operating at the festival and conducted searches on more than 430 people following indications by drug detection dogs. Police arrested 84 people for drug offences and three for public 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24049

order offences. This was certainly a sad state of affairs. The Listen Out festival, held at Centennial parklands in late September, had more than 9,000 revellers in attendance. Police were there targeting alcohol-related and drug-related crime as well as antisocial behaviour. Police arrested 95 people: 92 for drug possession, one for breach of bail and two for drug supply.

The Hon. Steve Whan: Anyone we know?

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: No. This is a large number of arrests. Police have reported that the majority of revellers at the Listen Out festival were well behaved and alcohol-related and antisocial behaviour was at a minimum. I am advised that police attribute this to a good working relationship with the festival's promoters. It is important that promoters and organisers of these events cooperate with police and that they put in place security staff and checks to keep illicit drugs out of events wherever possible. The community needs to be assured that organised events such as dance parties are safe for patrons who do not engage in dangerous behaviour associated with these dangerous drugs. Police will continue to maintain a strong presence at major events in spring and throughout the summer. Persons who fail to heed warnings, and who insist on carrying, selling or taking these dangerous illegal drugs run a very high risk of being caught and being on the receiving end of significant criminal penalties.

As I indicated, they also run a high risk of ending up in an accident and emergency department needing medical assistance, as happened at Penrith. The same applies to those who choose to drink to excess and to indulge in violent and antisocial behaviour. They, too, will be targeted by police because the community and law-abiding partygoers have had enough. I congratulate and thank the police officers of New South Wales for their continued commitment and hard work in ensuring the safety and wellbeing of others. If people attending these festivals see something happening that they know is criminal, they should draw it to the attention of the police. In doing so they could save someone they love from ending up in hospital or worse.

PUBLIC HOUSING BED TAX

The Hon. ERNEST WONG: I direct my question to the—

The PRESIDENT: Order! The President gives members the call. The Hon. Ernest Wong will resume his seat. Are there any questions?

CASUAL TEACHER STAFFING SYSTEM

Reverend the Hon. FRED NILE: I direct my question to the Minister for Ageing and Disability Services, representing the Minister for Education. Is the Government aware that a recent Auditor-General's report into the management of casual teachers found that the register used by the Department of Education and Communities to assign casual teachers to schools should be reviewed? Is the Government aware that 25 per cent of the 49,300 casual teachers registered with the call centre have not worked recently and that some are no longer seeking casual work? When will the Government report on how it intends to do more to support rural and remote schools that struggle to attract casual teachers, to collect and use feedback about teacher performance when deciding which casual teachers to assign, and to remove inactive teachers from the register so that casual teachers can be assigned more efficiently?

The Hon. JOHN AJAKA: I will refer the member's question to the Minister for Education and provide a response as soon as possible.

PUBLIC HOUSING BED TAX

The Hon. ERNEST WONG: I direct my question to the Minister for Ageing and Disability Services, representing the Minister for Family and Community Services. Given that the Government has moved to impose a bed tax on older public housing residents on the basis of a reported shortage of multi-bedroom properties, why are the two public housing properties at 41 and 43 Waikanda Crescent in Whalan currently unoccupied?

The Hon. JOHN AJAKA: I will refer the question to the Minister for a response.

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: Our generosity has concluded and the time for questions has expired. If members have any further questions, I suggest that they place them on notice. 24050 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

DEVELOPMENT CONSTRUCTION GUIDELINES

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: Dr John Kaye asked a question about mine subsidence on 12 September 2013. I have been provided with the following response:

The Hunter Mine Subsidence Taskforce is tasked with improving the information available to developers on the land subsidence constraints that impact the Newcastle city centre, and for investigating possible models for carrying out remediation works.

In March 2012, the Taskforce worked with the Mine Subsidence Board [MSB] to publish land subsidence constraint maps for the Newcastle city centre on the MSB website at www.minesub.nsw.gov.au (following link to 'Maps'). The mapping sets out:

• zones within the city centre with subsidence constraints of varying significance,

• the minimum geotechnical investigations required of prospective developers seeking to develop within the zone,

• minimum site investigation and remedial grouting requirements within those zones.

The nature of remedial action required of developers will depend on the level of subsidence constraint identified on individual construction sites, and the category of surface development proposed. Therefore the mapping and guidance information on the Board website serves as a trigger for detailed consultation of the MSB on the needs of individual sites.

NSW POLICE FORCE CHILD ABUSE SQUAD

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: The Hon. Peter Primrose asked a question about the NSW Police Force Child Abuse Squad on 12 September 2013. I have been provided with the following response:

I am advised:

24 of the 30 positions allocated to the Child Abuse Squad have now been filled. Preferred applicants have been identified for a further three positions and recruitment processes are underway for the remaining three positions.

CROWN ROADS ACCESS AND RECREATIONAL FISHING TRUST FUNDS

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: The Hon. Steve Whan asked a question about Crown roads access and the Recreational Fishing Trust on 12 September 2013. I have been provided with the following response:

Access to waterways is an important issue for recreational anglers and over the past years, the Department of Primary Industries [DPI] has been working with fishers and fishing clubs to identify, maintain, enhance and promote access to waterways throughout New South Wales for the benefit of recreational fishers and the community.

This ongoing program has been implemented using funds from the Recreational Fishing Trust, as the benefits accrue primarily to recreational fishers.

A program announced by the New South Wales Government to speed up the significant backlog of applications has resulted in DPI assessing over 1600 applications, and referring over 600 to fishing organisations wherever these Crown roads may provide access to waterways.

DPI and Crown Lands officers in consultation with angling groups have worked together very effectively for the benefit of recreational fishers and have not only preserved existing angler access but have identified additional access to water courses for both anglers and the broader community.

NATIVE VEGETATION LEGISLATION

The Hon. JOHN AJAKA: The Hon. Paul Green asked the Minister for the Environment about native vegetation on 12 September 2013. I have been provided with the following response:

The matter of feral native species is separate from the situation described.

The Minister for the Environment can list, by order, a native plant as feral native species under clause 37 of the Native Vegetation Regulation 2013. The listing of a feral native species enables landholders to clear the plant without approval from their catchment management authority, provided they adhere to relevant conditions.

In the situation described, it is likely that revegetated native grass is regrowth and can be cleared without approval from the catchment management authority. For advice on a specific case, more information such as dates of the cropping and revegetation would be required. Catchment management authorities can assist landholders with information about what native vegetation can be cleared without approval.

The Native Vegetation Regulation 2013 delivers a commonsense approach for landholders by delivering a balanced regime of environmental protection and efficient agricultural management, while removing unnecessary regulation.

16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24051

NATIVE FORESTS MANAGEMENT

The Hon. JOHN AJAKA: Dr John Kaye asked the Minister for the Environment a question about native forests management on 12 September 2013. I have been provided with the following response:

The proposed amendments do not change the conditions that apply to native forestry under the Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals.

Question time concluded.

CROWN LANDS AMENDMENT (MULTIPLE LAND USE) BILL 2013

CHILD PROTECTION LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (OFFENDERS REGISTRATION AND PROHIBITION ORDERS) BILL 2013

Bills received from the Legislative Assembly.

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

Motion by the Hon. Duncan Gay agreed to:

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

Bills read a first time and ordered to be printed.

Second readings set down as orders of the day for a later hour.

GAME AND FERAL ANIMAL CONTROL AMENDMENT BILL 2013

Second Reading

Debate resumed from an earlier hour.

Dr MEHREEN FARUQI [3.37 p.m.]: I congratulate the Government on having the courage to abolish the Game Council in July. It was an example of the worst type of pandering to special groups by the Labor Party and the O'Farrell Government. In this politically expedient deal the Shooters and Fishers Party was handed a heavily government-subsidised body that wasted money and endangered public safety and had a negligible, if not negative, effective on invasive species and feral animal control. Although intended to be a self-financing body, the Game Council ended up being subsidised to the tune of about 70 per cent in 2011-12 with absolutely no—in fact some say adverse—outcomes for the public and the environment.

The Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill 2013 seeks to clean up the law in regard to the abolition of the Game Council. It also seeks to implement a range of other recommendations of the Dunn review. That includes establishing a hunter-dominated game and pest management advisory board and reinstituting hunting in State forests. A major reform is missing from this bill. The Dunn report noted that the terms of reference do not cover the effectiveness of the Game Council in terms of feral animal or invasive species control. The Greens unambiguously stand up for the environment, public safety and protecting native animals. We also work to ensure that the most effective and humane methods of feral animal control are enacted. The advisory board proposed in the bill will have representatives from the pest management, veterinary science, wildlife, education and hunting sectors. Where are the experts on firearm safety? Where are the workplace representatives or occupational health and safety experts? Where are the animal welfare experts? They are all missing.

Given the persistence of the term "game" in the advisory board's name and functions, and the deliberate attempt to conflate the terms "game" and "feral animals" when they are very different things, it is clear that this board is a consolation prize for the Shooters and Fishers. The board will also conduct research into game and feral animal control. No doubt this will be of the same calibre produced by the Game Council, which conveniently enough produced work allegedly validating its work in reducing feral animal numbers. 24052 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

This has been seriously called into question by invasive species experts. I am yet to see a serious pest control expert with no affiliation to hunting, shooting or gun groups saying that the Game Council model of ad hoc amateur hunting is an effective feral animal control measure. In fact, it can play a counterproductive role focusing on removing only some animals that are prized as trophies, such as male deer. Recreational hunting can remove competition in the food chain and therefore encourage population growth in animals that otherwise would have died naturally. The Victorian situation has been mentioned many times. The Victorian National Parks Association has evidence that the recreational hunting program does not work. I quote from the fact sheet, "Pest control and shooting in Victoria's parks" in relation to just one example, the Sambar deer population:

… recreational hunting for Sambar Deer has shown no capacity at all to reduce the numbers of this animal, even though there is now no bag limit on Sambar:

• Recreational hunters are primarily motivated to 'farm' Sambar, making sure there remains a sustainable, or preferably increasing, population.

• The frequent and random disturbance of Sambar (or other target species) results in more wary animals that are more difficult to control in the future.

• Hunters tend to avoid areas where the probability of finding their target is low, thus leaving a population able to expand again.

The report goes on to contrast this with targeted hunting for strategic pest control, which focuses on the use of professional hunters or, in some cases, utilises the voluntary skills of professional-level hunters under very strict conditions as outlined in a comprehensive memorandum of understanding. This is completely different from the amateur shooting approach which has no underlying strategy. This argument is also about opportunity cost, the financial resources and the political energy that have been invested in the Game Council and, according to this bill, will be invested in the proposed advisory board. These funds could go into research for more effective and humane methods of invasive species controls and be put towards professional National Parks and Wildlife Service officers. The proponents of the Game Council seek to offer the services of amateur hunters as a free service to the people of New South Wales, but as noted by the Invasive Species Council this free service has cost millions of dollars of taxpayer money which would be better spent by professionals using scientifically proven methods of invasive species control.

The Hon. Robert Borsak: That highly reputable body.

DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Natasha Maclaren-Jones): Order! There is too much audible conversation in the Chamber.

Dr MEHREEN FARUQI: As it stands, the bill seeks to repeat the mistakes of the past. The idea that amateur, ad hoc hunting for game is conservation hunting needs to be extinguished once and for all. The Greens have consulted very widely on this proposed bill within scientific and environmental communities. If this were just a bill to abolish the Game Council and tidy up the laws then we would have no problem supporting it. However, the bill in this form does not remove the link between game and feral animal control. Game hunting has an inherent conflict with invasive species management. Game hunters have an active interest in perpetuating feral animal numbers.

This bill also reinstates hunting in State forests. It would be naive to think that the age of State governments pandering to the Shooters and Fishers Party is over. The Greens have in good faith, and to ensure public safety and environmental protection, suggested sensible amendments as outlined by my colleague David Shoebridge, but the Government has refused to engage with us on any of these amendments to date. This leaves our communities and our environment open to massive risk under this bill in its current form.

The Hon. LUKE FOLEY (Leader of the Opposition) [3.44 p.m.]: I want to make some remarks about the history of shooting in New South Wales State forests to challenge the assertion that is made so often, sometimes but not always by representatives of The Greens, that it was the Carr Labor Government that introduced shooting to New South Wales State forests. That is not the case. Shooting in New South Wales State forests has a long history, and I would like to address some of that history in this debate. In 1978 the Wran Government's Minister for Conservation and Minister for Water Resources, the Hon. Lin Gordon, introduced the Forestry (Amendment) Bill. I knew Lin Gordon as a great old-style Labor man. 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24053

Dr John Kaye: So it was not the Carr Labor Government; it was the Wran Labor Government. That is a lot better.

The Hon. LUKE FOLEY: I spoke to Labor Party members in Griffith about Lin Gordon after he passed away. When Lin Gordon introduced the Forestry (Amendment) Bill in 1978 he made it clear that the bill sought to regulate shooters in New South Wales State forests, amongst other things. Dr John Kaye interjected that it must have been the Wran Government not the Carr Government that introduced shooting in State forests. That is not true. Shooters have been in State forests for many, many, many decades. The Wran Labor Government and the Carr Labor Government regulated the activities of shooters in our State forests. For The Greens to assert that the Carr Labor Government introduced shooters to our State forests, as they so often do, is dead wrong. For them to move today to the position that it was the Wran Labor Government that introduced it is just as wrong. That is not the case. The Wran Government in 1978 and the Carr Government in its time in office regulated what shooters could get up to in the State forests of New South Wales.

The Hon. Catherine Cusack: Are you saying there was shooting in State forests before that deal was done?

The Hon. LUKE FOLEY: That is exactly what I am saying. I quote what Lin Gordon said on 16 March 1978 in the second reading debate on the Forestry (Amendment) Bill:

… I am pleased that through the legislation of 1970 and 1972 the principle of multiple use of the State forests—involving recreation considerations—was firmly enshrined in the Forestry Act.

The Hon. Catherine Cusack before she opens her mouth again might want to recall that a coalition government was in power in 1970 and 1972. If people want to challenge the very long history of multiple-use activities in our State forests let them do so, but do not pretend that this was introduced by Bob Carr's Government. It was not.

The Hon. Catherine Cusack: Was the Game Council introduced?

The Hon. LUKE FOLEY: I will get to the question of the Game Council, but I want to correct some of the history. I quote some of the reasons of the then Minister in the other place when the Forestry (Amendment) Bill was debated and passed in 1978. He said:

The Forestry Act vests the control and management of the State forests in the Forestry Commission. It enables the commission to prosecute persons stealing timber or destroying or damaging trees on those lands and for depasturing animals on or otherwise occupying them without authority.

The Act is singularly deficient in powers for the commission to enforce other types of controls.

Think about that. The fact is what shooters got up to in State forests could not be policed or governed appropriately prior to the 1978 amendments. In 1978 the Parliament introduced changes to the forestry laws of the State to ensure that when people are shooting on a recreational basis in the State forests of New South Wales there was some regulation of what they got up to. They did not exist prior to the 1978 reforms. The Minister, Lin Gordon, said:

The Act is singularly deficient in powers for the commission to enforce other types of controls.

He went on to say:

A major feature of the bill corrects a very serious deficiency: it will overcome the lack of strong powers to deal with the carrying of firearms, indiscriminate shooting and the unauthorized trapping of animals in State forests. As honourable members are aware, State forests are kept open to the greatest degree possible, and the Forestry Commission is actively pursuing a policy, supported by the Government, of encouraging the public to make use of the forests as a recreation wherever this is consistent with the primary purpose for which these lands were dedicated. I assure honourable members that the bill is in no way intended to bring about a change in that policy. Rather it will enable the recreational-use policy to be followed and further developed, with greater protection and safety for the public and for the forest environment.

That is a very important statement from the Minister who introduced the reforms to the Forestry Act in 1978. He referred to "the lack of strong powers to deal with the carrying of firearms, indiscriminate shooting and the unauthorized trapping of animals in State forests"; yet one never hears this from The Greens, who like to pretend that New South Wales parliamentary politics only commenced when they entered this Parliament. There are a few parties that have been around a lot longer than The Greens political party. In the 1970s, coalition governments and Labor governments amended the forestry laws of this State to regulate the 24054 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

activities of recreational users of those State forests, and it was a Labor government in 1978 that dealt with the fact that the forestry laws did not contain strong powers to deal with the carrying of firearms. Let us have some honesty in this debate: It was a Labor government in 1978 that regulated what shooters could get up to in our State forests. In the second reading debate on 16 March 1978 Lin Gordon made a long commentary about the sorts of recreational activities that were considered to be appropriate within our State forests. He said:

The matter of unauthorized shooting, the carrying of firearms and the trapping or capturing of birds and animals is also dealt with in the bill. The current regulation-making powers in relation to shooting and the carrying of weapons in state forests have been found to be inadequate to provide the necessary deterrent to these practices. Quite apart from the danger to human and animal life, from time to time considerable damage is sustained to plant and equipment belonging to the commission and its licensees.

He went on to say:

The new provisions, besides providing for substantial penalties of $500 or six months' imprisonment or both, will empower the police or authorized staff of the commission to seize weapons, traps or snares suspected on reasonable grounds of being used in the commission of an offence.

The amendment provides for the issuing of hunting permits to authorize persons to shoot or capture birds and animals when it is desirable to allow this activity. The hunting permit is to replace the outmoded game permit, which is currently provided for in the regulations. The administration of this provision will be subject to any relevant constraints contained in the National Parks and Wildlife Act with respect to protected fauna or endangered fauna under that Act.

The history of Labor's approach to shooting in State forests is to regulate it, to police it, to put it on a proper footing and to distinguish between legitimate, responsible recreational shooters and those who are irresponsible or environmental vandals or cruel and to throw the book at them. A Labor government in 1978 introduced tough laws that did not exist prior to those reforms to regulate the activities of recreational shooters in our State forests. Let us not proceed in this debate under a mistaken notion that amateur shooters were only let into our State forests by Bob Carr's government when the Game Council was established. That is dead wrong. I have quoted at length from Lin Gordon's contributions in the other place in 1978 to set the record straight.

As has been said many times in this debate, the Labor Party established the Game Council when Bob Carr was Premier. We stand by that decision and we will vote against the abolition of the Game Council today. We stand by our establishment of the Game Council. Having said that, the review that has occurred under this Government—whatever the motivations of the Premier for initiating that review—gives us all reason for concern. We in the Labor Party are concerned by some of the findings in that report. We think that the issues raised ought to be dealt with by reform of the Game Council, not its abolition. We think that reform ought to separate the regulatory activities from the advocacy and representative role that the Game Council has also played. I believe the report of Mr Dunn puts forward a reasonable argument that the regulatory and the representative functions ought to be in different hands. The Labor Party can accept that. But we on this side of the House support representative bodies; we support collective bodies.

We are a labour movement; we believe that by our common endeavour we are stronger than as individuals simply acting as individuals. We are a party based on a collective labour movement. Whether it is environmental groups, groups of sporting shooters, groups of workers, we support collective organisation and representation. That is why the notion of a Game Council as a representative body, as an advocacy body for recreational shooters is a concept that we are entirely comfortable with and we will continue to support its existence. We will oppose this bill's attempt to abolish a representative body for this State's recreational shooters. We think reform is in order but we think abolition is a bridge too far. The Government made a fine mess for itself when it announced that recreational shooters would be allowed into national parks and we had a ding-dong debate in June last year in this place over that. I will not canvass all of the matters raised then; suffice to say that the Shooters and Fishers Party and the Labor Party disagree on this.

The Hon. Duncan Gay: You are still against it.

The Hon. LUKE FOLEY: We are still against it.

The Hon. Duncan Gay: You are not protecting the parks or the pastoralists.

The Hon. LUKE FOLEY: The Deputy Leader of the Government asks me whether we are still against it. We were against amateur hunting in national parks when we were in government and we are against it in opposition. We stood against it in government, to our political cost in this place. We took a decision based on principle, based on our view of the importance of the national park estate. We opposed amateur hunting in 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24055

national parks and that came at a political cost to the then Labor Government. We have continued that principled opposition in our move to this side of the House. We have opposed amateur hunting in national parks in government and in opposition. The Liberal Party and The Nationals have managed to both support and oppose amateur hunting in national parks in this term of this Parliament.

DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Natasha Maclaren-Jones): Order! I call the Hon. Steve Whan to order for the first time.

The Hon. LUKE FOLEY: In the short time remaining I will make some remarks about the challenging policy question of how we deal with introduced species, how we deal with feral animals. I made some remarks last year about my father-in-law's experiences as a farmer with foxes playing havoc with his farm animals, and of the sight of lambs and sheep being devoured by foxes. I am somewhat familiar with the challenge faced by farmers from predatory feral animals. I also note that Australian native animals in our national park estate are at serious threat from feral animal populations. On the past two Sunday nights I watched the ABC documentary about Kakadu. That contained disturbing evidence of extinctions in Kakadu of native animals due to introduced cane toads, which continue to spread south and west from north-eastern Australia.

In thinking about how to respond to the problem of feral animals, I am forced to consider both my concern for conservation of the natural world and my concern for the welfare of animals, because each animal's life is of value I believe. Whether it be a cow on a farm, a goat in western New South Wales, a native bird, a native marsupial or a whale off the coast of this State, each animal is the subject of a life. But at times our concern for the natural environment and our concern for the welfare of animals rub up against each other. I will quote from the 2013 Voiceless Anthology, from the essay of Liana Joy Christensen, a writer and a member of the Australian Animal Studies Group. She wrote:

Bilbies, like so many native Australian species, are close to extinction. Part of the cause is introduced animals. Methods of controlling introduced species are often extremely cruel. Such stark facts can generate fixed positions—if you care for the science of ecology, you must close your eyes to the suffering of some animals; if your heart cannot abide the suffering of animals, you must shut your ears to the evidence of science. It doesn't help. There can be no simple answers to complex issues.

I agree with what she wrote. These are complex and challenging issues. Despite my concern for the welfare of animals and my association with groups such as Voiceless, I cannot support a position that says you can never kill an animal. My concern for the natural environment and for the plight of farmers brings me to the position of thinking that feral animal populations have to be controlled. Labor established a Game Council. We will maintain that position today. We think the Government has overreached. I hope in the past 20 minutes I have at least cleared up one great falsehood in this debate: Labor did not introduce amateur hunters to our State forests; our history is to regulate what they can get up to.

Dr JOHN KAYE [4.03 p.m.]: I associate myself with the speeches of my colleagues Mr David Shoebridge and Dr Mehreen Faruqi and their position on this bill. I will raise one issue about the contribution of the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. Luke Foley. It is easy to selectively quote facts and then create a narrative around that which in effect rewrites history. That is exactly what happened. I do not know where the member was or what he was doing in the period between June 2006 and December 2006 when 16,000 licensed hunters were given access to an increasing number of State forests. From 1996, with the introduction of the Firearms Act, shooting without a licence in a State forest was illegal. It was not until 2006that the then four-year-old Game Council, a publicly funded body, introduced shooting in State forests. In fact, it was Minister Ian Macdonald who introduced the Game and Feral Animal Control Act under which much of this happened.

The Hon. Robert Borsak: The Forestry Act 1916.

Dr JOHN KAYE: The member who seems to want to interject constantly talks about the Forestry Act of 1916.

The Hon. Robert Borsak: As amended.

Dr JOHN KAYE: As amended and whatever. What the member does not take into account is what happened after the Firearms Act was introduced in 1996. One can selectively rewrite these matters, but one knows the reality from one's own experience. I spent an awful lot of time riding pushbikes through State forests but never saw or heard a weapon being discharged in a State forest—until 1996, in Brooman State Forest, when the signs went up and the guns started going off. 24056 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

The Hon. Dr Peter Phelps: Oh, the signs went up! So you only noticed when the signs went up?

Dr JOHN KAYE: And the guns started going off. I have to tell you that for many of us it changed the use of State forests. The Hon. Luke Foley can say what he likes about Carr and Iemma and who did what and when; the reality is that it was under a Labor Government that the Game and Feral Animal Control Act came in, and it was under a Labor Government that the Game Council, the State-funded propaganda organ of the shooters, was introduced and became an active participant; and it was under former Minister Ian Macdonald that State forests were opened up and shooters started appearing in them. I defy all in the shooters party and those in the Labor Party to find out where the 16,000 shooters were before 2006. Maybe there was some recreational hunting, but it was boutique and by invitation only; it was not widespread.

The huge difference was what the Iemma Labor Government did in 2006, when it declared open season on non-violent recreational users of State forests. That is the history, and Labor should own up to its history. It should own up to the history of Ian Macdonald and the way he toadied to John Tingle of the Shooters Party and now the Hon. Robert Brown. Labor should own up to the way Ian Macdonald constantly dealt with them to get their vote in this Chamber and deliver for Labor a vehicle that was a State-funded political promotion of recreational hunting. The reality of the bill before us today is more important than the history, but the history has to be corrected because the Hon. Luke Foley has put on record matters which are substantially incorrect. But, leaving that aside, the legislation before this Chamber today contains a number of substantial flaws. One is that it reopens State forests to amateur hunting. As a regular user of State forests, I can tell the House that prior to 2006 I was in State forests regularly riding a pushbike. I was there with bushwalkers.

The Hon. Robert Borsak: Which one?

Dr JOHN KAYE: I will not list them all now but, in particular, Brooman State Forest and forests on the South Coast. On those bike riding expeditions I met ornithologists, bushwalkers, campers and people who were enjoying State forests because they felt they were safe and in an ecological zone although it was constantly threatened by logging. They were in an area of passive recreation but after 2006 it changed dramatically and for the worse. Nobody could go into those State forests where the signs were posted without the threat of a gun going off. I have had that experience with silly people with their orange hats on.

DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Natasha Maclaren-Jones): Order! I call the Hon. Dr Peter Phelps to order for the first time.

Dr JOHN KAYE: People with orange hats were blasting away, occupying State forests and driving out other users. I do not think those people drove out a single feral animal but they certainly drove out other passive users of State forests. We have had a reprieve in New South Wales since the cancellation of the Game Council. This legislation creates a new regulatory regime that will allow recreational hunters back into State forests to dominate them and drive out other recreational users. It is the minority driving out the majority. This legislation has one redeeming feature; that is, it finally puts paid to the Game Council.

In the theory of public enterprise it has been known for at least a century that combining regulation and promotion within the one body is a silly idea. The former Labor Government's 2002 legislation combined the promotion and regulation of recreational shooting into the one body. In doing so it created a perverse incentive on the regulators and on the promotional function. That does not work and will never work. It will always produce outcomes, as identified by Mr Dunn, that are not in the best interests of New South Wales, of the forests or of the shooters. That part of this legislation is worthwhile, although I note, as my colleague Dr Mehreen Faruqi pointed out, the Government has already effectively killed the Game Council by taking away its resources, funding and people. In that regard this legislation does nothing more than finalise the act.

This bill replaces the Game Council with another body that will put the same aggressive promotion of recreational hunting right into the heart of the bureaucracy and that of itself is a matter of grave concern. It will be a biased body that purely exists to create more opportunities for recreational hunters right in the heart of the State bureaucracy. That body is not based on science and does not care for the other recreational users of public land. Just like the Game Council, the sole objective of this body is to get more and more people involved in owning and using weapons in public spaces.

To that extent there are major issues associated with this legislation. I understand that my colleague Mr David Shoebridge has foreshadowed amendments to fix that. I hope the House will give serious 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24057

consideration to them. As the legislation stands at the moment, its only benefit is it completes the work done to get rid of the Game Council. But it will re-create shooting in State forests and take us back to the bad days that began in 2006 under the Iemma Labor Government. For six or seven years passive recreational users, who did not take anything out of or into those parks but enjoyed those public lands, were driven out of them by the threat of someone blasting away with a rifle.

The Hon. Robert Brown: Pure hyperbole, John.

Dr JOHN KAYE: I acknowledge that interjection from a man whose contribution to this bill put hyperbole to shame. He made hyperbole look like an understatement.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY (Minister for Roads and Ports) [4.15 p.m.], in reply: I thank all members for their spirited, exciting, entertaining and passionate contributions to the debate. Certainly no-one has been left in any doubt about their attitudes to this bill, and that is as it should be. The Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002 provides for responsible and orderly hunting of game animals on private and public land. This bill will promote this objective, as correctly stated by Dr John Kaye. The damage caused by pest animals is a serious concern in New South Wales, costing the economy $70 million each year. The reduction of game and feral animals is important to our agricultural sector, and to the economy of this State.

Hunting can and should make an important contribution to the control of our pest animal populations. Figures provided by the Game Council estimate that more than 20,000 pest animals were eradicated on public land by recreational hunters during the past financial year, which is 20,000 fewer feral animals killing native and farm animals. That is a major contribution which the Government wants to continue. The Government is committed to restoring public confidence in the regulation of hunting in New South Wales. The bill therefore strengthens the framework under which services relating to public and hunter safety, licensing, education and enforcement will be delivered. The bill will introduce a more effective, transparent and accountable framework for the regulation of hunting in New South Wales. The bill will allow for the involvement of hunters in more effective pest animal management programs—programs which reduce the impact of pest animals on the New South Wales economy. It strikes the right balance on this important issue and, accordingly, I commend the bill to the House.

I agree with the Hon. Steve Whan about the need for reform of the Game Council. I also agree with him that that feral pest management is an important issue and that feral pest management in National Parks must be addressed. This bill will address many of the concerns of the Hon. Steve Whan by ensuring that there is a modern and accountable governance framework for hunting and a more streamlined advisory board to provide evidence-based advice to government about feral pest management. The bill will enable Department of Primary Industries and National Parks to work together to address feral pest management in national parks. In relation to the issues raised by Mr David Shoebridge, the reforms proposed by this bill will allow for a coordinated and effective approach to feral pest management in New South Wales. It will allow for evidence-based approaches to the role of recreational hunting in feral animal management to be developed.

The amendments to the bill foreshadowed by Mr David Shoebridge effectively seek to ensure that recreational hunting cannot be permitted in national parks. The House has already heard from a number of members today about the importance of feral pest management in national parks, and the Government considers that recreational hunters will be able to play a role in initiatives to improve management of those pests. But this bill is not about hunting in national parks. It is about giving effect to Mr Dunn's key recommendations: firstly, disbanding the Game Council; secondly, establishing a new advisory board to represent the interests of licensed game hunters and to provide advice to the Minister about the best ways to involve recreational hunters in effective pest management programs; and, thirdly, transferring licensing and compliance functions for hunting to the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries.

The Greens have also proposed that all references to the word "game" should be replaced with references to "feral pest animals". It seems that the intent of this amendment is to change the focus of the Game and Feral Animal Control Act from recreational hunting to just feral pest management. Frankly, we believe this amendment is unnecessary. New South Wales already has a comprehensive pest management strategy and process in place. This bill is about involving recreational hunters in that strategy as another tool to achieve feral animal control. Removing the word "game" would not properly represent the Government's intent.

The Greens have also proposed amendments to include an emphasis on safety and animal welfare. These amendments are also unnecessary. The new Game and Pest Animal Advisory Board will include 24058 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

members with expertise in wildlife and veterinary science. Hunting safety is already adequately dealt with by the Firearms Act 1996 and Firearms Regulation, licensing under the Game and Feral Animal Control Act, the mandatory code of practice for licensed game hunters and regulatory oversight from the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, which will be introduced in this bill. Animal welfare, including in hunting situations, is also comprehensively dealt with under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. Animal welfare conditions are also included in hunting licences.

The repeal of the Game and Feral Animal Control Further Amendment Act 2012 proposed by Mr David Shoebridge frankly is not needed. That Act has not yet commenced but it was enacted to allow the Game Council to manage hunting ducks, which do significant damage to agricultural productivity. Under this bill responsibility for duck hunting will be appropriately managed by the Department of Primary Industries in collaboration with the Office of Environment and Heritage. There are a number of other proposed amendments but they do not deliver meaningful regulatory improvements. They may well be harmless but they do not really develop the matter to any significant degree. Therefore, the amendments proposed by Mr David Shoebridge will be opposed.

Unfortunately, I was not present in the Chamber to hear the contribution of the Hon. Robert Brown but I acknowledge that there are strongly held views in this House and passionate views in the community about the matters dealt with in the bill. However, it is common ground among most members of this House who have spoken on the bill today that feral animal management is important for the economy, for the environment and for rural and regional communities. The Government believes that this bill will enable the development of more effective pest control programs across all land in New South Wales, both public and private. It recognises the important role that recreational hunters play in feral pest management. The bill does not diminish that role. It simply introduces a different governance system for recreational hunting in New South Wales and creates a new advisory body to provide the Government with targeted and evidence-based advice needed to squarely address feral pest management.

The Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill 2013 is an important reform that the Government wishes had not been necessary but which strengthens the regulatory framework for hunting. It will help to ensure that hunting activities are carried out safely, responsibly and effectively. As a farmer who spent a large part of his life in the industry and still has rural property in New South Wales that is affected by feral animals, I have seen the damage done to animals by feral animals from national parks—dog packs, cats and foxes. It is horrendous. It is not beyond a large cat to bring down a lamb these days. They do significant damage to native animals, particularly endangered species, in our national parks.

I give credit to the Shooters and Fishers Party. It was no great hardship for me to deal with them and to allow organised hunting in national parks; it is a passion that we share to help the environment and to look after farm animals. During conference after conference The Nationals passed policies in favour of such measures so we certainly agree with them. However, there are moments when even friends disagree and this is one of those moments where we have a disagreement in process. I do not think there is any disagreement in what we see as an outcome for a better environment by allowing proper control of recreational hunting to remove feral animals from national parks. I commend the bill to the House.

Question—That this bill be now read a second time—put.

The House divided.

Ayes, 22

Mr Ajaka Mr Gallacher Mrs Mitchell Ms Barham Miss Gardiner Mrs Pavey Mr Blair Mr Gay Mr Pearce Mr Buckingham Dr Kaye Mr Shoebridge Mr Clarke Mr Khan Ms Cusack Mr MacDonald Tellers, Dr Faruqi Mrs Maclaren-Jones Mr Colless Ms Ficarra Mr Mason-Cox Dr Phelps 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24059

Noes, 17

Mr Borsak Mr Moselmane Ms Westwood Mr Brown Reverend Nile Mr Whan Ms Cotsis Mr Primrose Mr Wong Mr Donnelly Mr Searle Tellers, Mr Foley Mr Secord Ms Fazio Mr Green Mr Veitch Ms Voltz

Pair

Mr Lynn Ms Sharpe

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

In Committee

Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE [4.37 p.m.]: I move The Greens amendment No. 1 on sheet 2013-128B:

No. 1 Page 3, schedule 1 [1], line 4. Omit all words on that line. Insert instead:

Omit "hunting of game; to establish a Game Council".

Insert instead "hunting of feral pest animals".

This amendment would amend the bill by deleting the reference on page 3, schedule 1 [1], line 4, to "hunting of game; to establish a Game Council" and inserting instead the "hunting of feral pest animals." If these amendments are carried the bill will no longer be about establishing a Game Council. The bill should not be about hunting game. The whole concept of game is anathema to anyone interested in feral pest control in New South Wales. Classifying damaging feral pests such as pigs, deer, foxes and cats as game simply encourages the continuation of those populations, and in many circumstances the establishment and promotion of those populations so that they continue to be available for recreational hunters.

The Hon. Amanda Fazio: Crap.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: I acknowledge the interjection from the Hon. Amanda Fazio.

The Hon. Amanda Fazio: I am not interjecting, I am commenting on rubbish.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: I note her continued interjections, and her angry and unfocused approach in support of recreational hunting and the concept of game animals. Anyone who has looked at it from a professional viewpoint and is genuinely concerned about the ongoing impact of those highly damaging animals on agricultural crops, and critically endangered flora and fauna would support this amendment. It would take the focus of this legislation away from game and from treating those animals as a population that should be managed, fostered and encouraged so that people can hunt them recreationally, and shift it towards treating those populations of animals as feral pests that should be managed humanely, effectively and on a population basis to minimise the damage to our native flora and fauna and agricultural crops. I commend the amendment to the House.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY (Minister for Roads and Ports) [4.40 p.m.]: The Government opposes this amendment. It understands the concerns raised by the honourable member; they are consistent with the argument that using the word "game" gives people the opportunity to promote the notion that feral animals are game. I do not accept that point of view. It would be like saying that all supporters of The Greens drop rare and endangered species at road construction sites. I am sure that does not happen: I have great faith in the humanity of people of all political persuasions. 24060 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

It is important for recreational hunters to be able to hunt, and this legislation delivers a win-win solution. If it is helpful for the community and the environment for those who enjoy hunting to do so—and I accept that many members do not—why should we pretend it does not exist and remove the reference to game from the legislation? It would negate the fact that we are encouraging recreational hunting as part of our feral animal eradication campaign. I understand the honourable member's point of view, and many people believe it is valid. However, the Government does not believe this is a major concern and therefore will not support the amendment.

The Hon. STEVE WHAN [4.41 p.m.]: The Opposition also will not support this amendment. I agree with some of the honourable member's sentiments. As I said in my contribution to the second reading debate, effective control of pest animal species is critical across New South Wales. I have been concerned for some years about the cost of pest animal species control that the Minister mentioned in his reply. We must tackle this issue more effectively. However, omitting the word "game" does nothing more than have a dig at those who enjoy hunting. I deplore the notion of people spreading feral pest species around New South Wales to ensure that they have animals to hunt, and that practice should be condemned by all members. However, this amendment does nothing to address it; it is simply a blatant attack on people who enjoy hunting and who see feral animals as game animals. It does nothing practical to address the way in which this legislation deals with pest species. Therefore there is no reason to support this amendment.

The Hon. ROBERT BROWN [4.43 p.m.]: The Shooters and Fishers Party will not support this amendment. I remind honourable members that when the Game and Feral Animal Control Bill was passed by this House in 2002 it had already been passed by the lower House as the Game Bill 2001. Game animals are defined in the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 to include ducks, quail, kangaroos and so on. The use of cultural hunters—which is what we are—to cull feral animal populations is referred to as the "use of collateral benefit". Hunters in Tasmania who want to gain access to private property to hunt deer—which are prized game animals—must participate in a number of wallaby hunts on the property concerned under permit. Why would they want to kill wallabies under permit? It is because if they do not then the dreaded 1080 is rolled out. Its use in Tasmania has almost completely ceased and animal welfare has dramatically improved as a result. I will save the honourable member's time and declare that the Shooters and Fishers Party will not support any of The Greens amendments.

Question—That The Greens amendment No. 1 [2013-128B] be agreed to—put and resolved in the negative.

The Greens amendment No. 1 [2013-128B] negatived.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE [4.45 p.m.], by leave: I move The Greens amendments Nos 2 [2] and [3], 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24 on sheet 2013-128B in globo:

No. 2 Page 3, schedule 1. Insert after line 4:

[2] The whole Act (except where otherwise amended by this Act)

Omit "game animal", "game animals", "game hunting licence", "game hunting licences" and "Game hunting licences" wherever occurring.

Insert instead "feral pest animal", "feral pest animals", "feral pest hunting licence", "feral pest hunting licences" and "Feral pest hunting licences", respectively.

[3] Section 1 Name of Act

Omit "Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002".

Insert instead "Feral Pest Animal Control Act 2002".

No. 3 Page 3, schedule 1 [3], line 9. Omit "Game and Pest". Insert instead "Feral Pest".

No. 4 Page 3, schedule 1 [3], line 10. Omit "Game and Pest". Insert instead "Feral Pest".

No. 5 Page 3, schedule 1 [4], line 15. Omit "Game and Pest". Insert instead "Feral Pest".

No. 6 Page 3, schedule 1 [4], line 17. Omit "Game and Pest". Insert instead "Feral Pest".

No. 8 Page 3, schedule 1 [4], line 35. Omit "game". Insert instead "feral pest".

16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24061

No. 9 Page 3, schedule 1 [4], line 38. Omit "game and feral". Insert instead "feral pest".

No. 11 Page 3, schedule 1 [4], line 40. Omit "Game and Pest". Insert instead "Feral Pest".

No. 13 Page 4, schedule 1 [4], line 2. Omit "game hunting". Insert instead "the hunting of feral pest animals".

No. 15 Page 4, schedule 1 [8], line 25. Omit "Game and Pest". Insert instead "Feral Pest".

No. 16 Page 4, schedule 1 [8], line 27. Omit "Game and Pest". Insert instead "Feral Pest".

No. 17 Page 4, schedule 1 [8], line 32. Omit "game". Insert instead "feral pest".

No. 18 Page 4, schedule 1 [8], line 39. Omit "game and feral". Insert instead "feral pest".

No. 20 Page 4, schedule 1 [8], line 41. Omit "game hunting". Insert instead "the hunting of feral pest animals".

No. 21 Page 4, schedule 1 [8], line 42. Omit "Game and Pest". Insert instead "Feral Pest".

No. 22 Page 5, schedule 1 [10], line 11. Omit "Game and Pest". Insert instead "Feral Pest".

No. 23 Page 8, schedule 1 [13], line 33. Omit "Game and Pest". Insert instead "Feral Pest".

No. 24 Page 8, schedule 1 [13], line 36. Omit "game". Insert instead "feral pest".

These amendments have a similar effect to the previous amendment. They delete references to game animal, game animals, game hunting licence and game hunting licences and replaces them with references to feral pest animal, feral pest animals, feral pest hunting licence and feral pest hunting licences. They also remove references to game and pest in many parts of the legislation and replace them with the term "feral pest". As I said, the focus of this legislation and any rational legislation dealing with feral pest species should be feral pest species, and it should treat them as such. They should not be given a privileged position as game animals. This bill does a number of damaging things because of the way it treats these pests as game animals. I will provide an example to clarify my point. The bill puts deer—a particularly damaging feral pest—in a particularly privileged position. New South Wales has half a dozen or so species of deer, some of which are more fecund—that is, they breed more readily than others. Some of them have relatively short breeding seasons and others have relatively long breeding seasons.

The Game and Feral Animal Control Act restricts the times during which recreational hunters can hunt. As a result of the June 2012 amendments, even professional hunters are prevented from culling deer using the most effective methods and at the most effective times—that is, during key times in the breeding season. If the Government wants to control feral deer, why include provisions that prevent highly skilled and trained professional hunters from hunting during those times? They are sure marksmen and according to their licence conditions must abide by animal welfare regulations. Why would we prevent them from using spotlights to identify feral deer and to ensure a clean kill? This legislation with the regulations requires those professional shooters to get a Game Council licence. That was one of the amendments made in June last year.

Previously, professional shooters did not have to get a Game Council licence in order to shoot deer. We are talking about very substantial public land management programs, as occurred in the Illawarra. Major landholders in the Illawarra—councils, the livestock management authority, universities and the like—got together and worked out a pest deer management strategy in the Illawarra. They contracted with professional shooters for a meaningful reduction in the number of feral deer. I have seen the damage feral deer do in that area. They have eaten up the understorey of much of the littoral rainforest on the edge of the escarpment. They have done major damage to the rainforest understorey and on the edge of the national park. Feral deer have become so problematic that landowners in Figtree and parts of Wollongong near the escarpment—

The Hon. Trevor Khan: Try Keiraville.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: As the member said, and Keiraville. Those landowners have had to put electric fences at the front of their suburban properties to stop deer from coming in and eating their petunias. The council and other major land management authorities put in place a deer management program and contracted with professional shooters with higher qualifications.

The DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Jennifer Gardiner): Order! Mr Shoebridge has the call. Other members who wish to contribute may seek the call at the appropriate time. 24062 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: By the middle of last year they had just started the program. They had done it for about 12 months and had taken out a couple of hundred deer. They had serious programs with funding to have a meaningful impact. What happened? In June last year this Government supported the Shooters and Fishers Party proposal to require those professional shooters to get a game licence. The standard conditions in the game licence mean that those professional shooters cannot use spotlights, cannot shoot off the back of utes and cannot use attraction devices.

The Hon. Trevor Khan: Do you know what that land is like? Back of a ute?

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: I have been on the back of a ute with professional shooters dealing with the problems there. I have seen how professional and careful they are. They identify a target and stop. They guarantee that they have properly identified the target and that they have a safe line of sight. They are professional and they are careful about making sure that it will be a humane kill. They can no longer do that work, because what they have been doing is now prohibited. They will need to get a Game Council licence, which will not only cost professional shooters thousands of dollars but the standard conditions in the regulations will make their practice illegal, make what they do unlawful. They cannot use spotlights, they cannot use attraction devices, they cannot shoot deer at the most effective time during the breeding season and they cannot use traps.

One program had spent $20,000 building a large trap for deer, but that is now illegal because of the deal the Government did last year with the Shooters and Fishers Party. Why have we reached this situation? It is because this legislation wrongly goes down the path of trying to protect the species by classifying them as deer and limiting the circumstances in which they can be shot. They are protected to retain a viable population, so that the likes of the Hon. Robert Brown and the Hon. Robert Borsak are guaranteed to get a trophy deer, a nice set of antlers, a trophy pig or a trophy goat. They want to make sure there is a large and viable population of game animals to be killed.

It is not about feral pest control and it never has been about feral pest control. This program takes the State back, and that is why we would commend these amendments to the Committee. We commend the refocusing of the bill. We have let this bill go to the Committee because we were hoping for some common sense from the Government and that it would live up to its word about feral pest control. I know Labor wants to stay in political favour with the Shooters and Fishers Party. It appears that the Government wants to ensure that it does not agree to The Greens amendments so it does not damage its relationship with the Shooters and Fishers Party, which it hopes to restore. All those political considerations are ignoring the policy implications, the need for the landholders at the edge of the Illawarra escarpment to have a rational approach to feral pest control and not a privileged position on deer as game.

There is a need for rational statewide population control measures for these feral pest species. There is a need to get rid of a mixed incentive in this legislation that encourages shooters to retain healthy populations. That would stop hunters from posting on YouTube how proud they are of their latest kill. Other hunters come on board and say it is outrageous if they have killed a sow. "You shouldn't have killed a sow because that can produce new animals for us to kill. And you killed piglets. You should have let the piglets go, so we can have a crop the next year." Those are the kinds of mixed and inappropriate incentives scattered throughout this bill, which these amendments are designed to fix. I commend these amendments to the House.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY (Minister for Roads and Ports) [4.57 p.m.]: As the honourable member said, parts of these amendments are a repeat of amendment No. 1, although they go beyond that amendment. The amendments remove all references to game animals in the Act and replace them with feral pest animals. As I indicated in my reply to the second reading debate, this amendment is unnecessary. Recreational hunting appropriately forms part of the State's feral animal control management strategy. The amendments would change the objects of the Act to refer to feral pest animals rather than introduced species and game animals. There is no proposed definition of feral pest, and using the term "feral" may restrict hunting to pest animals in the wild that were previously domesticated. There is no guarantee, but there is a concern that it may limit hunting of some animals and would not allow hunting of native game birds. The change to the objects of the Act introduces new concepts of safe and humane control.

Mr David Shoebridge: That is the next one.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: I accept that, although the member did talk about some of this in his contribution. We have a bill that is discrete in the area it covers. It improves a management system we believe 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24063

has a problem. Even among learned members sitting here today there is a difference of opinion on what is humane and what can be allowed to happen, whether spotlights should be allowed. I have used spotlights on our farm when shooting to eradicate rabbits, and they are certainly an effective tool for a clean kill. At least one member of the Shooters and Fishers Party indicates that it is currently allowed, yet The Greens say it is not. Today is not a day for minutiae. We are addressing a slightly different issue and must remain focused on that issue. Some people think that this bill makes things worse; others believe that the bill is a step in the right direction. The Government believes we are going in the right direction to have a better balance in this but still continue to meet obligations we have undertaken in the past. We will not support the amendments.

The Hon. STEVE WHAN [4.59 p.m.]: The Opposition will not support these amendments for a similar reason to that which I outlined for the first amendment. I note a number of the comments made by Mr David Shoebridge when he moved these amendments. There was quite a bit of detail in what he said but I find it hard to accept that simply changing words will have the impact that he outlined. Mr Shoebridge has put forward a large number of amendments and he has raised some issues that I would also be concerned about if they are correct, particularly his comments about professional hunters. No-one has raised that with me as a problem since the legislation has been in place, so it is very hard for me to know whether that is addressed by these amendments.

I point out that we only received this long sheet of amendments at the start of this debate today. While I have managed to cross-reference a number of the amendments with the original legislation as we have gone through I have not managed to do that with all of them. But I cannot see at the moment that the objectives that were outlined in the speech in support of these amendments are met simply by removing the word "game" from so many parts of the Act.

Dr MEHREEN FARUQI [5.01 p.m.]: The amendments proposed by The Greens and Mr David Shoebridge have a number of key aims that make this bill palatable and more effective for the public and the environment. Changing words has a key impact on shifting the focus of this bill from ineffective recreational hunting for game to effective pest control. There is enough evidence to show that ad hoc recreational hunting does not have any effect; it is not about feral animal control and it does not work—in fact, it encourages population growth of feral animals. I made that case quite clearly and quite strongly in my contribution to the second reading debate.

Putting words and references to animal welfare and firearm safety in the bill ensures that those factors become the key focus when considering introduced species. That is vital for public safety, for preserving our environment and for animal welfare and the humane treatment of animals, whether they be native animals or introduced species. This legislation should be about feral pests as they damage our native environment and they have to be controlled using effective management strategies such as highly skilled professional shooters and non-lethal control methods, not by using amateur game hunters, who are completely ineffective. I commend the amendments to the House as they will fix the flaws in the current bill.

Question—That The Greens amendments Nos 2 [2] and [3], 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24 [C2013-128B] be agreed to—put and resolved in the negative.

The Greens amendments Nos 2 [2] and [3], 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24 [C2013-128B] negatived.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE [5.04 p.m.]: I move The Greens amendment No. 2 [4], on sheet C2013-128B:

No. 2 Page 3, schedule 1. Insert after line 4:

[4] Section 3 Objects

Omit the section. Insert instead:

3 Objects

The objects of this Act are:

(a) to provide for the effective, safe and humane control and eradication of introduced species of feral pest animals, and

(b) to regulate the responsible, orderly and safe hunting of those animals on public and private land.

24064 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

If successful, this amendment would have the effect of amending the objects of the Game and Feral Animal Control Act. The objects are currently set out in section 3 as follows:

The objects of this Act are:

(a) to provide for the effective management of introduced species of game animals, and

(b) to promote responsible and orderly hunting of those game animals on public and private land and of certain pest animals on public land.

There are a number of serious defects in the current objects: They do not in any way reference safety, they do not reference the need for humane controls, they expressly promote hunting of game animals and, on one view , they expressly promote the hunting of native waterfowl on public land. The Greens' proposed amendment would replace the current section 3 with a fresh section 3, which would have the following as the objects of the Act:

The objects of this Act are:

(a) to provide for the effective, safe and humane control and eradication of introduced species of feral pest animals, and

(b) to regulate the responsible, orderly and safe hunting of those animals on public and private land.

I said in my contribution to the second reading debate that we have not crafted these amendments with an eye to ending recreational hunting on all public land. The Greens' policy is to end recreational hunting on all public land. We do not believe there is a place for recreational hunting on public land, but we recognise that in putting forward this bill the Government wants to continue to have a system for the regulation of hunting on public land. We say that the regulation of hunting on public land should not be about promoting hunting and should not make reference to game animals and this idea of maintaining and promoting a population for ongoing recreational hunting.

The objects should be focused on what the people of New South Wales want the Government to do, which is to regulate the responsible, orderly and safe hunting of feral pest animals on public land. If we are spending millions of dollars on a system, which I understand the Government continues to want to do if it gets this legislation through, it should not be a system that promotes hunting on public land and calls for more recreational hunters to get out into more State forests and more national parks.

The funding and promoting of hunting has been of significant concern to The Greens for more than a decade. As I said in my contribution to the second reading debate, before the Game Council was effectively abolished by the Government—and we commend the Government for that—it actively promoted hunting by such things as a competition where the first person who could bring six vials of fresh pig blood to the Game Council office was rewarded with a prize. The prize was pig dog armour, a new bowie knife and I think a year's subscription to Babes and Boars. That prize was paid for by New South Wales taxpayers because of a comprehensive flaw in the bill about promoting hunting. The legislation should not be about promoting hunting; it should be about regulating hunting. If there is going to be hunting it should be regulated to ensure that it is safe and orderly and done responsibly on public or private land. It should also make explicit reference to the humane control and eradication of introduced feral pest animals.

If we leave the Act's current objects and this bill passes, the effect of this bill will be to introduce the very broken Victorian model of the promotion of hunting—bringing the hunters into a government department and continuing to spend taxpayers' dollars promoting hunting. Given the position of the Government and the majority of members in this House on this issue, we accept that there is a place for the regulation of hunting on public land, but not for the promotion of it and not for the promotion of the hunting of game animals. Absent these amendments, if The Greens were to support the bill unamended we would be in a situation where again taxpayers would be spending money to actively promote thousands of hunters getting out there in State forests following the reopening of hunting in State forests with these entirely wrongheaded principles behind them. That is not a situation to which we can lend our parliamentary support. It is not a situation that our key stakeholders can support.

We have talked to the key experts in the Invasive Species Council and they tell us that this bill, if it goes through and continues to promote recreational hunting of game animals in State forests, would be a major step backwards. It would be better to have no hunting in State forests than to go down that path. It would be better not to support this bill, even though there are elements of it that we support, than to go down the path of reopening State forests to recreational hunting with these principles behind it. We have talked to the National Parks Association, which has had an extraordinary grassroots campaign, getting thousands and thousands of 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24065

ordinary members of the public to stand up against the Government's promotion of hunting in national parks. We asked the National Parks Association: Is this bill supportable without these kinds of amendments? They tell us unambiguously no, because all it will do is create more hunting in State forests and put in place an advisory council that is like the Game Council.

We have genuinely attempted to work with the Government on this. We have made repeated offers to the Government. We have not made ambit claims. We have said, "Yes, there are a bunch of amendments we would like, but there are matters that we are really focused on; and we do not intend to take such a dog-in-a-manger position on this that we would block the bill out of some blind ideology." We have said, "There are elements of this that we would like to work out with you; if you are going to spend taxpayers' money on regulating hunting, then regulate hunting, do not promote it; do not talk about game animals, talk about feral pest animals. Go down that path and we can support this bill."

We have gone to the Committee stage hoping that the Government will see some rationality on these positions. We recognise that they do not have an absolute majority in this House; and if they are not willing to treat, if they are not willing to talk, and if they are not willing to negotiate some amendments to their bill to improve it, then they do not have the numbers to get it through this House. They have repeatedly been told this. We have repeatedly told them, "You don't have the numbers unless you sit down, improve the legislation and get rid of promoting hunting." Despite meetings with the Minister's office, there has been effectively no communication come back. We understand that the Government will be opposing this amendment as well. Our position continues to be that we want to work with the Government, not to embarrass it over the position of the removal—

The Hon. Dr Peter Phelps: Oh, David!

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: On this issue we do—not to embarrass it over what has been good work in abolishing the Game Council. We do not want to embarrass it over that. We support what it has done. We have said, "We will work with you." Our key stakeholders are saying, "Work with the Government to try to get something out of this." But the Government is refusing to work with us. And it looks like its stance will be the same on this amendment. I commend the amendment.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY (Minister for Roads and Ports) [5.12 p.m.]: I thank the honourable member for this amendment; but, as I indicated, we do have problems with it. We are not a long way apart on this.

The Hon. Robert Brown: You had better be a long way apart.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: Well, we are not a long way apart, because I think that this bill addresses the concerns that the member has raised.

The Hon. Robert Brown: I thought you meant The Greens amendments are not a long way apart from your course.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: Well, they are not. This amendment is very close with the bill in the House, because The Greens want to introduce concepts of safe and humane control and safe hunting. That is already in the Acts and in this bill and surrounding this bill.

The Hon. Robert Brown: In the regulations.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: There are already adequate protections for safe hunting through the mandatory code of practice for licensed game hunters, and that is contained in schedule 2 of the Game and Feral Animal Control Regulation 2012. There are other conditions on game hunting licences. These cover the safe handling of firearms; proper target identification and safety; obligation to avoid suffering, with quick and humane killing of wounded animals, et cetera. One of the member's real concerns is with the word "promotion". The member wants a change from promotion to regulation of hunting. But if he looks carefully he will see that it is the promotion of responsible and orderly hunting. Surely that is laudatory given the aims that he seeks. The member said that he had approached this issue in a manner that we would find different from approaches in the past. We agree with that. We are certainly not going to say that he has not adopted a different approach here. However, the changes that the member wants to make to the bill are already covered within the bill. 24066 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

We are not saying no just to be pedants or nasty or gung-ho or red-necked. We are saying no because we carefully put together a balanced bill that was better and addressed most of the issues. I honestly believe most of the issues that the member raised are addressed. We are not making changes to the left and we are not making changes to the right; we have been honourable with everyone. The Government and the Minister said up front that we have had consultation and we have a report, and have put together a bill that we think is good and is a step forward. That is where it stands, and we are not going to change that unless something dramatic shows up. I have to say we have not seen anything dramatic. We believe that the member's concerns are covered by what is in the bill.

The Hon. STEVE WHAN [5.16 p.m.]: I find myself largely in agreement with the Minister on this. It is notable that the bill, as it has stood since its introduction in 2002—which, for the benefit of one of the earlier speakers in the debate, was before I was in Parliament—does take into account humane issues related to hunting and makes that a part of the conditions of getting a licence under the Act. That is critical. Obviously, we would all be concerned if such issues were not appropriately covered in the legislation. But I agree with the points made by the Minister on that matter.

The Hon. ROBERT BROWN [5.16 p.m.]: I know I said I was not going to make further comment, but after the contributions of Mr David Shoebridge and his colleague, I have to say that when you hear that sort of thing coming from The Greens you do not have to be a cultural hunter like I am to understand that that is cultural bigotry writ large: hunting on public lands is bad.

The Hon. Robert Borsak: The ruling class.

The Hon. ROBERT BROWN: Yes. It sounds a bit like that. The Opposition spokesperson is quite correct: the original legislation has stood the test of time. I remind honourable members that in 2001, when the game bill went through the lower House, it did so with only one abstaining voice; that was the voice of the member for Sydney at that time. I understand that member got special dispensation to have her dissenting voice recorded. Between then and 2002, when the Game and Feral Animal Control Bill came through this House, Minister Macdonald worked his backside off to comply with the threats and cajoling of The Greens, and introduced the Game and Feral Animal Control Bill 2002. In our view, that bill was not perfect, but it passed this House, then went to the lower House and was passed there. The two amending bills introduced since 2002 have been passed by both Houses of Parliament.

More often than not we have had The Greens standing in this place and telling us that they are right and everybody else is wrong. Unfortunately for The Greens, that is not so. If The Greens' masters in the non-government organisations have given Mr David Shoebridge his marching orders, and The Greens will vote against the bill, it is interesting to hear that concept coming from the member, he who is so opposed to hunting on public lands. That tells me he is worried that if the Government gets this piece of doggie legislation up, everything will revert to the way it was. Unless the Minister puts the Game Council Division back together again, and makes it function properly, licensed hunters in this State will not want to spend their money to take part in a program that has been wrecked by the Government. This bill is an absolute abomination. Unfortunately, the amendments of David Shoebridge do not improve it in our view; in fact they make it worse— if it is possible to make this bill much worse than it is. So we will be opposing the amendment.

Question—That The Greens amendment No. 2 [4] [C2013-128B] be agreed to—put.

The Committee divided.

Ayes, 5

Ms Barham Mr Buckingham Mr Shoebridge

Tellers, Dr Faruqi Dr Kaye 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24067

Noes, 29

Mr Blair Mr MacDonald Mr Secord Mr Borsak Mrs Maclaren-Jones Ms Sharpe Mr Brown Mr Mason-Cox Mr Veitch Mr Clarke Mrs Mitchell Ms Voltz Mr Donnelly Mr Moselmane Ms Westwood Ms Fazio Reverend Nile Mr Whan Ms Ficarra Mrs Pavey Mr Wong Mr Gay Mr Pearce Tellers, Mr Green Mr Primrose Dr Colless Mr Khan Mr Searle Dr Phelps

Question resolved in the negative.

The Greens amendment No. 2 [4] [C2013-128B] negatived.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE [5.28 p.m.], by leave: I move The Greens amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3 on sheet C2013-138A in globo:

No. 1 Page 3, schedule 1. Insert after line 12:

[4] Section 4, definition of "public land"

Omit paragraph (b1).

[5] Section 4, definition of "public land"

Insert after paragraph (d):

(e) any national park estate land, or

[6] Sections 6A and 6B

Omit the sections.

No. 2 Page 4, schedule 1. Insert after line 8:

[6] Section 20A Restrictions on declaration of national park estate land

Omit the section.

No. 3 Page 7, schedule 1. Insert after line 36:

[12] Schedule 3A National park estate land that cannot be declared as public hunting land

Omit the schedule.

These amendments will substantially repeal the amendments passed by this House by a bare majority in June 2012 which allowed recreational hunting on the national park estate. Amendment No. 1 would change the definition of public land in section 4 to delete the reference that currently applies, which includes national park estate land as public land in which recreational hunting can occur, and to explicitly include a reference to national park estate land as areas where recreational hunting cannot occur in New South Wales. It would also repeal section 20A, which is a machinery provision that the Government put in to allow for its deal with the Shooters and Fishers Party for hunting on national park estate land. It would also omit schedule 3A, which is another machinery provision that the Government included to delineate a set number of areas where hunting could not occur and by default to allow for hunting, if the Government should choose, in more than 75 national parks and nature reserves across New South Wales.

The broader public in New South Wales has spoken loudly about the Government's bill to have recreational hunting in national parks. The public is extraordinarily opposed to it. The millions of visitors at those national parks believe the national parks should be a place for passive recreational use, for walks and where families can picnic. They believe that the flora, fauna and visitors to the parks should be protected from the dangers of unsupervised amateur hunting. They believe the control of feral pest animals should be done professionally, humanely and effectively and not by allowing a series of untrained, unsupervised and effectively unregulated amateur hunters to take ineffective pot shots at 20 or 30 rabbits or one or two cats. 24068 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

The public has recognised that a small number or even potentially thousands of ad hoc ground-based hunters make not a jot of difference to feral pest control but they do make a substantial difference to the public sense of safety in national parks, and they do degrade those national parks in the minds of the people of New South Wales. Earlier this year a rally was held out the front of Parliament House with thousands and thousands of people supporting our national parks and opposing hunting in national parks. The Shooters and Fishers Party held another rally, after contacting its supporters, to call for the support of hunting in State forests. While there were thousands and thousands at the protest opposing national parks—and I do not mean to minimise the effort of the Shooters and Fishers Party—they had a couple of hundred people at their protest.

The Hon. Robert Brown: There were 700, David.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: They say 700; the police said the number was vastly less, but a fraction of the number, despite the fact that they had pumped and promoted their rally in support of private recreational hunting in national parks. That deal should never have happened. We should never have had the situation where there was recreational hunting in national parks. Before the last State election the Premier made a commitment not to have hunting in national parks.

The Hon. Robert Brown: He is untrustworthy, David.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: I note the interjection of the Hon. Robert Brown. He then backflipped on that promise and struck a deal with the Shooters and Fishers Party in order to sell off the electricity industry.

The Hon. Trevor Khan: Are you speaking to the amendment?

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: I am; absolutely. He was willing to betray that promise about hunting in national parks in order to get the numbers to eventually sell the electricity industry in New South Wales.

The Hon. Amanda Fazio: What has that got to do with feral animals?

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: I note the irrational and uninformed interjection from the Hon. Amanda Fazio.

The Hon. Amanda Fazio: Point of order: My point of order is that we are discussing amendments to the Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill 2013. I do not know how the member thinks that throwing in a few comments about electricity privatisation has anything to do with the bill or the amendments. On the point of relevance, I ask that you remind him that he can only speak to his amendments.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: To the point of order: Perhaps the honourable member has been living under a rock over the past 12 months because the very clear political basis by which the Government got the numbers in this Chamber to have hunting in national parks was solely because of the deal it had with the Shooters and Fishers Party to support the privatisation of the electricity industry. The very political reason this came here is exactly that. To flog off the electricity industry to get hunting in New South Wales is dead relevant to these amendments.

The Hon. Amanda Fazio: Further to the point of order: My point of order was relevance. The statements made by Mr David Shoebridge in response to the point of order were nothing more than cheap shots and debating points that had nothing to do with the standing orders of the Chamber and nothing to do with the point of order on relevance. Once again, I ask that the Chair remind the member that he can only speak to the amendments and cannot just keep raving on about all sorts of garbage with the verbal vomit that comes out of his mouth. He must be relevant.

The CHAIR (The Hon. Jennifer Gardiner): Order! I remind Mr David Shoebridge to speak to the leave of the amendments.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: These amendments should have the support of the majority of members because they would hold the Government to its commitment before the last State election to not have hunting in New South Wales; it would get rid of any program of hunting in national parks in New South Wales and get rid of the prospect of unsupervised recreational hunters roaming about the millions of hectares of precious public estate. I commend the amendments to the Committee. 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24069

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY (Minister for Roads and Ports) [5.37 p.m.]: The Government opposes these amendments. During the break someone asked, "What were The Greens amendments like?" I said that in most part they were rational and much better than we would usually expect from The Greens. I thought they were in a purple patch but they have just escaped; they have gone back to their very worst. I heard the member say that shooters degrade national parks. I have a distinct feeling that just their presence was what he meant degraded national parks. We had a conversation earlier; it seems to be a parallel universe from the amendments we have been discussing simply and properly to the ones we are discussing now. We are talking about the merits of properly organised recreational shooters in State forests and national parks. Suddenly we have these amendments and the rhetoric has completely changed.

These amendments are almost outside the leave of the bill. This bill is not about stopping shooting in national parks. We gave a firm commitment that there will be properly controlled recreational shooting to remove feral animals from national parks, and there will be again after this. The bill before the Committee is not about hunting in national parks, it is about three matters, which some members like and others do not: First, disbanding the Game Council; second, establishing a new advisory board to represent the interests of licensed game hunters; and third, transferring regulatory functions to the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries. They are the key recommendations of the Dunn report. The proposed amendments philosophically back up what The Greens believe but are almost outside the leave of this bill and are irrelevant to the bill before the House.

The Hon. STEVE WHAN [5.40 p.m.]: The Minister is right in only one portion of his comments. It is clear that these amendments would restore the ban on amateur hunting in national parks. To that extent Labor supports them because Labor has consistently said it is opposed to amateur hunting in national parks in New South Wales. Labor stated its position when it was in government and continues to do so in opposition. It is something I have agreed to. Contrary to comments earlier today, I have consistently said that I am opposed to amateur hunting in national parks. It does need to be noted that when people say "shooting in national parks" that they want to see properly qualified professional pest animal controllers in national parks, which would include shooting. Members should look carefully at that, including the range of pest animal species in Kosciuszko National Park, including the horses. The Minister and I might have an interesting debate over that one day. This amendment is entirely consistent with Labor's opposition to shooting in national parks and despite the Minister's comments I note he has not asked for it to be ruled out of order. Labor supports the amendments.

The Hon. ROBERT BROWN [5.41 p.m.]: I probably should not speak against these amendments. The Shooters and Fishers Party will be voting against the amendments. I note Mr Shoebridge's comment about the presence of hunters degrading national parks. All that comment does is to reinforce the cultural bigotry espoused by The Greens. Perhaps they think that national parks have a better class of feral animals than State forests and therefore rednecks should not be allowed to kill said feral animals. Let me assure the Committee that they look the same, they smell the same down wind—

The Hon. Robert Borsak: And they taste the same.

The Hon. ROBERT BROWN: —and they taste the same.

Question—That The Greens amendments Nos 1 to 3 [2013-138A] be agreed to—put.

The Committee divided.

Ayes, 18

Mr Donnelly Mr Searle Mr Whan Dr Faruqi Mr Secord Mr Wong Ms Fazio Ms Sharpe Mr Foley Mr Shoebridge Dr Kaye Mr Veitch Tellers, Mr Moselmane Ms Voltz Ms Barham Mr Primrose Ms Westwood Mr Buckingham 24070 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

Noes, 21

Mr Ajaka Mr Gay Reverend Nile Mr Blair Mr Green Mrs Pavey Mr Borsak Mr Harwin Mr Pearce Mr Brown Mr Khan Mr Clarke Mr MacDonald Ms Cusack Mrs Maclaren-Jones Tellers, Ms Ficarra Mr Mason-Cox Dr Phelps Mr Gallacher Mrs Mitchell Mr Colless

Pair

Ms Cotsis Mr Lynn

Question resolved in the negative.

The Greens amendments Nos 1 to 3 [2013-138A] negatived.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE [5.50 p.m.]: I move The Greens amendment No. 7 on sheet 2013-128B:

No. 7 Page 3, schedule 1 [4], line 27. Insert "animal welfare, firearm safety," after "veterinary science,".

This amendment proposes to include some essential skills and expertise that are missing from the proposed board. Having killed off the Game Council, the Government is now attempting to adopt the Victorian model to promote recreational hunting in New South Wales. Instead of having a separate statutory body, the Victorian model involves locating hunters in the department and appointing a board to provide advice, undertake research and promote hunting. The board will be effectively a "Game Council light".

According to clause 8, the board will consist of no more than eight members. Those members will be representatives from regional New South Wales and will be persons who together have expertise, skills or knowledge in the areas of pest management, wildlife, veterinary science, hunting, education and community engagement. Clause 9 expressly provides that the board must represent the interests of licensed game hunters. That narrow focus—and in terms of this amendment, the narrow membership of the advisory board—means that if this bill is passed unamended the board will be charged with promoting the expansion of hunting in State forests and advocating for more public funding to promote it. Its members will not have the key expertise that they should have—that is, in animal welfare and firearm safety.

There is no reference to members of the board being required to have crucial skills in firearm safety or animal welfare. Unless we have representatives who are concerned about animal welfare, we will continue to have a game hunting promotion body on the New South Wales statute books. Admittedly, it will not have the same powers of the Game Council, but it will have access to millions of dollars of public funds—I see the bureaucrats grinning about that—to promote hunting and things like pig dogging. The Game Council has done that in the past and the advisory board will no doubt continue to do so unless board members have the appropriate animal welfare skills to ensure that it does not occur. How could any government that is seriously concerned about the promotion of safe hunting not agree to an amendment that requires board members to have expertise in firearm safety?

The Greens fundamentally believe that the members of a board charged with providing advice to the Government must have expertise in animal welfare and firearm safety skills. Without that key expertise and those key skills we will have a "Game Council light". The flawed Victorian model involves an advisory panel funded by the State Government to the tune of millions of dollars that could actively promote hunting and cruelty such as pig dogging. That is why The Greens have moved this amendment. We believe it is important and without it the Government will replicate the problems it had with the Game Council by appointing a one-eyed advisory board with access to millions of dollars of public funding. I commend the amendments to the Committee.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY (Minister for Roads and Ports) [5.56 p.m.]: As I indicated earlier, the Government opposes this amendment, which inserts "animal welfare, firearm safety" after "veterinary science". 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24071

Veterinary science involves people who understand, care for and work with animals. The intent of the legislation could not be more explicit with regard to including board members who care about animal welfare. It provides that board members must have expertise, skills or knowledge in the areas of pest management, wildlife, veterinary science, hunting, education and community engagement. People with hunting experience understand firearm safety—

The Hon. Steve Whan: And animal welfare.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY: Yes, and animal welfare. We have a brace of regulations which flow from the legislation and which cover those areas. The Government has tried to produce a bill that takes it in the right direction. In many respects this amendment is pedantic. Like some of the issues addressed in earlier amendments, this issue is covered by the bill. The only issue not covered was dealt with in the previous amendment on which we divided because we definitely had a different view.

The Hon. STEVE WHAN [5.58 p.m.]: While I agree with some of the sentiments expressed by The Greens, the Opposition has stated clearly that it opposes the legislation on the basis that it is possible to have a representative body that deals with the non-regulatory functions that were undertaken by the Game Council. The Opposition does not agree with the way in which the Government has approached this legislation. If the legislation is passed, obviously we will expect the board members to have a range of skills, including, as the Minister said, in the field of veterinary science. I hope that all veterinarians see animal welfare as a key issue. The board must definitely have expertise in dealing with pest animals. The Opposition will not support the amendment but invites The Greens to join with it in opposing the entire bill.

The Hon. ROBERT BROWN [5.59 p.m.]: The Greens amendment has raised a couple of interesting aspects. When the Game and Feral Animal Control Bill 2001 was being negotiated with the Premier of the time, the Hon. Bob Carr, he was pressured by the RSPCA—Bob Carr was a patron of the RSPCA—to put an animal welfare representative on the Game Council. The only problem was that the RSPCA at that time had, and has today, a written policy opposed to hunting. How can a person who is a representative of a body that is against hunting sit on an advocacy body that has as one of its objectives the promotion of hunting? The compromise achieved by the Parliamentary Secretary at the time, the Hon. Ian Macdonald, was that we would put on the Game Council a representative of the New South Wales branch of the Australian Veterinary Association.

The person nominated by the association was Professor Tony English. You would not find a more eminent veterinary biologist. This business is about requiring animal welfare experts concerned with animal welfare to be on a body that services people. I say to Mr David Shoebridge: When you have not killed many things, you are not a hunter and you do not understand much about hunting, you should have a look at a video produced by a couple of brothers in New Zealand, the Graf Boys, which shows the effects on wildlife of 1080 poison. That would be interesting. We will oppose the amendment.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE [6.01 p.m.]: In large part the contribution of the Hon. Robert Brown confirms why The Greens believe it is important to include reference to animal welfare. He effectively said that a representative of the RSPCA could not be on this advisory board because, as presently constituted, it would be contrary to what the advisory board is all about. The specific requirement to consider animal welfare is essential if we are talking about putting in place a program that will kill thousands of animals. In opposing this amendment, particularly the part about firearm safety and the need for firearm safety expertise, the Government has simply said hunters will satisfy the question of firearm safety.

That is an extraordinary proposition, because there are people with enormous expertise in firearm safety, including professional bodies that do detailed training. The Firearm Safety and Training Council on the north side of Sydney has expertise in firearm safety. You would think that kind of skill and knowledge would be essential if you are promoting safe hunting. A great deal of hunting is done with firearms. There might be a vet on the board, but the Government and the Shooters explicitly want to exclude having welfare bodies on the board. That confirms the very real concerns The Greens have about this board effectively being "Game Council lite". It would promote hunting without having regard to animal welfare concerns and without having explicit regard to firearm safety. I commend the amendment to the Committee.

Question—That The Greens amendment No. 7 [2013-128B] be agreed to—put.

The Committee divided. 24072 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

Ayes, 5

Ms Barham Dr Faruqi Mr Shoebridge

Tellers, Mr Buckingham Dr Kaye

Noes, 31

Mr Ajaka Mr Khan Mr Secord Mr Blair Mr MacDonald Ms Sharpe Mr Borsak Mrs Maclaren-Jones Mr Veitch Mr Brown Mr Mason-Cox Ms Voltz Mr Clarke Mrs Mitchell Ms Westwood Ms Cusack Mr Moselmane Mr Whan Mr Donnelly Reverend Nile Mr Wong Ms Fazio Mrs Pavey Ms Ficarra Mr Pearce Tellers, Mr Gay Mr Primrose Mr Colless Mr Green Mr Searle Dr Phelps

Question resolved in the negative.

The Greens amendment No. 7 [2013-128B] negatived.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE [6.12 p.m.]: I move The Greens amendment No. 10 on sheet C2013-128B:

No. 10 Page 3, schedule 1 [4], line 38. Insert ", including best practice population control of feral pest animals based on peer-reviewed research" after "control".

This amendment would insert on page 3 of the bill, line 38 some additional functions of the advisory board. Under the Government's proposal the advisory board is to represent the interests of licensed game hunters in matters arising under the Act and to provide advice on request to the Minister or to the regulatory authority on game and feral animal control. We have discussed the hunter domination of the board and game control, but this amendment proposes including after the words "feral animal control" in section 9 (1) (b) the words "including best practice population control of feral pest animals based upon peer-reviewed research". The reason for the amendment is that any board that is getting millions of dollars of government funding to advise the Government on feral pest control must look beyond the totally ineffective ad hoc, ground-based recreational hunting model.

The best way of doing that is to ensure that the board looks at best practice population control of feral pest animals not based on anecdotal reports from shooters or from shooting organisations but on peer-reviewed research. Absent this amendment we will again have the advisory board relying upon the ad hoc observations of individual hunters and all the hunting groups that they represent. Those hunting groups will be providing advice about what the Government should be doing with its millions of dollars and what it should be doing about hunting, and we know what they will say. They will say the same as they did to the Game Council: There should be more and more recreational hunters over more and more public land.

The Hon. Robert Brown: Hear, hear!

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: I note the interjection from the Hon. Robert Brown. I know that that is his agenda. He is not abashed about it; his agenda in the Shooters and Fishers Party is to open more and more public land for more and more hunting. No doubt he will oppose this amendment because it is not consistent with that objective. I see him nodding. But the rest of the parliamentary representatives in this Chamber are not elected on the basis of being—and I do not mean this disrespectfully—one-eyed promoters of hunting. The rest of the members in this Chamber are intended to have a balanced approach to these issues and when they are thinking about feral pest control they are meant to be looking beyond the narrow interests of recreational hunters. 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24073

The Government should welcome this proposal so that the advisory board gets the best advice. We said to the Government that this is the kind of issue that will be a litmus test for whether or not this legislation is going to be about just putting in a "Game Council lite" proposal and continuing that failed practice of promoting hunting in State forests regardless of the real impact on feral pest control. But it appears the Government is not interested because it is wedded to this unreasonably hunter-dominated advisory panel and its limited functions. We commend the amendments to the Committee.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY (Minister for Roads and Ports) [6.16 p.m.]: The Government should get a big tick from Mr David Shoebridge. This amendment is totally unnecessary because the proposed additional function duplicates what is already provided for in section 9 (1) (b), which is to provide advice on feral animal control. It specifies that the advice will cover best practice control based on peer-reviewed research—exactly what Mr David Shoebridge is asking for. It is already facilitated in the bill; therefore we oppose this additional amendment.

The Hon. STEVE WHAN [6.17 p.m.]: The Greens seem to believe that this is the only government work that is done on feral pest control. The work that is done by the committee and covered by the Game and Feral Animal Control Act is not—it certainly was not when I was a Minister and I am pretty sure it is not now— the only work that is done by the Government on feral pest control. A lot of other work is undertaken within the Department of Primary Industries, within the National Parks and Wildlife Service and in other portfolios in relation to feral pest control, and that includes, and should include, best practice work on the control of feral pests and research into those areas, including—and I note this is addressed in another of The Greens amendments—research into non-lethal forms of control of feral pest species.

My concern is that it appears that The Greens think this is the only mechanism for feral pest control that is up for grabs here. I understand that there is plenty of work done in other areas of government on feral pest control, and that should include research and work on best practice, which I hope would feed into the advice being provided by these committees, if it came to pass that committees be established. I do not believe this is a necessary amendment at this stage. Had I seen the amendments earlier than the commencement of this debate perhaps I could have done a bit more cross-referencing with the existing bill to see whether or not this amendment added anything. The Opposition opposes the amendment.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY (Minister for Roads and Ports) [6.18 p.m.]: I indicate that, whilst what I read was correct, my intonation was incorrect. There is not within the bill a specific peer review section; it specifies advice. We would expect best practice, and frankly it should be peer reviewed.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE [6.19 p.m.]: I note the Minister's clarification. It simply provides for advice from hunters. The advisory provision says that you get advice from hunters. The amendment was intended to ensure we are not getting advice just from hunters about recreational hunting, but that we are getting targeted advice about best practice population control of feral pest animals and to have it based on peer reviewed research, not simply on the interests of the deer hunting group, or the bow hunters of New South Wales.

Question—That The Greens amendment No. 10 [2013-128B] be agreed to—put and resolved in the negative.

The Greens amendment No. 10 [2013-128B] negatived.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE [6.20 p.m.]: I move The Greens amendment No. 12 on sheet C2013-128B:

No. 12 Page 4, schedule 1 [4], line 1. Insert "on request" after "advice".

This amendment provides that the advisory board would have to get a request from the Minister to provide advice about educational courses relating to game hunting and would not allow the advisory board simply to give that advice without a request from the Minister. Again, this is about making subsection (d) consistent with 9 (1) (b) and (c). It is intended to ensure that the advisory board does not go at large promoting hunting, and does not go at large, without a specific ministerial request, putting forward proposals about educational courses for game hunting. The concern is, as it has always been, that the advisory board will be about promoting hunting, and not seriously regulating hunting. We commend the amendment to the Committee.

The Hon. STEVE WHAN [6.22 p.m.]: The Opposition will not support the amendment. As indicated in the comments I made in the second reading debate, we believe there is a role for an independent body in promoting and engaging in other non-regulatory activities. To be consistent, we expect that role to be able to continue. 24074 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY (Minister for Roads and Ports) [6.22 p.m.]: The Government will oppose The Greens amendment No. 12, which would limit the ability of the advisory board to provide advice on educational courses related to game hunting by providing that such advice could be provided only if requested by the Minister or regulatory authority. The change is consistent with the advice functions in clause 9 (1) (b) and (c), where advice on animal control and priorities for expenditure from the Game and Pest Management Fund is provided only where requested by the Minister. However, the downside is that the limitation proposed by the amendment may prevent the board from notifying the Minister and the Regulatory Authority of deficiencies it becomes aware of in education courses, and prevent it from proactively providing advice on new educational development.

Question—That The Greens amendment No. 12 [C2013-128B] be agreed to—put and resolved in the negative.

The Greens amendment No. 12 [C2013-128B] negatived.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE [6.23 p.m.]: I move The Greens amendment No. 14 on sheet C2013-128B:

No. 14 Page 4, schedule 1. Insert after line 6:

[5] Section 17 Exemptions from licensing

Insert after section 17 (1) (h):

(i) a person who, in the course of any paid employment or engagement, hunts feral pest animals other than for the purposes of sale or for the purposes of guiding or assisting other persons in the hunting of those animals.

This amendment seeks to insert in the bill a new exemption from the requirement to get a game licence, or, under this new regime, a hunting licence. I said earlier that hunting licences and game licences under the regulations include, in relation to deer, a clear prohibition on using spotlights, using attraction devices, shooting deer during breeding seasons, using trapping devices, and shooting deer from the back of a utility. These restrictions in the game licence are designed only to protect the deer population. They are not designed with any kind of rational approach to feral pest control. Until June of last year there was an exemption from getting a game licence. That exemption was for those professional shooters who were shooting in the course of their employment, or were paid under contract to shoot feral animals on public land.

The reason for that exemption was that professional shooters have enormously high levels of training; they have to meet marksmanship requirements; before being allowed onto public land they were required to have a proven knowledge of animal welfare issues; and they were subject to oversight by bodies such as the RSPCA to ensure that their actions and their work was humane. Professional shooters have therefore been exempted from having to get a game licence. But in June last year, as part of the deal that the Government did with the Shooters and Fishers Party, just to satisfy the shooters—without any trumpeting or even a real reference to it in the second reading speech or elsewhere—the exemption that used to apply for those professional shooters was removed from the statute books.

The removal of that exemption had the effect that professional shooters had to get a game licence. It costs about $2,000 for professional shooters to get a game licence; and the game licence comes with all of those artificial restrictions on how professional shooters can kill feral deer. I have been out and seen how those professional shooters operate. They are extremely skilled and are careful in what they do. They are very much aware of animal welfare concerns. They use spotlights from the backs of utes to identify the deer; and once they have identified the deer, they stop the ute, make sure they have a safe and clear shot, make sure there is no chance of the shot going beyond the intended target and make sure that unless they have a clear headshot and can kill the animal with one clean shot, with no suffering, they do not fire. That is what differentiates professional shooters from recreational hunters.

Professional shooters also say that often when they have killed the deer they find that it has had another gunshot wound to its abdomen, and on more than one occasion they have found a deer had an arrow sticking out of it. This is because recreational hunters often do not make a clean kill; the shot is often into the abdomen, or an arrow is left in the animal. Removing the exemption—unheralded by the Government—has meant that professional shooters and hunters now have to get a game licence; and that means that things such as the Illawarra program simply cannot occur. There is no reason to not support this amendment to reinstate the exemption. We urge the Government to seriously reconsider its opposition to the amendment. I commend the amendment to the Committee. 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24075

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY (Minister for Roads and Ports) [6.28 p.m.]: The Government opposes the amendment, which proposes to reinstate the exemption from licensing of professional paid shooters. This exemption provision was omitted from the bill because it undermines the role of recreational hunters in pest management by making a distinction between professional hunters and recreational hunters engaged in pest management. The Greens are trying to reinforce the view that recreational hunters degrade parks. Mr David Shoebridge is trying to set up two tiers, one of which is inferior to the other. The Government wants all hunters to be of the highest calibre, so to speak, and with the best training. That is why the Government opposes this amendment.

The Hon. STEVE WHAN [6.30 p.m.]: I am concerned by what The Greens have said in relation to this amendment.

The Hon. Trevor Khan: You don't believe it, do you?

The Hon. STEVE WHAN: My problem is that it is the first time I have heard about it. I have not had any feedback from professional hunters, despite being the shadow Minister responsible for this area, nor, as I understand it, has the shadow Minister for the Environment. I am greatly concerned if the methods that professional hunters use to effectively control a pest species such as deer are restricted. I take a significantly difference stance from that of the Shooters and Fishers Party in relation to deer because I believe that species should be eradicated from our parks and reserves and there should be a greater effort to do that. There should not be restrictions on the humane trapping of that feral species.

I am significantly concerned about the issue raised by The Greens in this amendment. Unfortunately, the first time I became aware of this issue was when I read these amendments today. It may be, as Mr David Shoebridge said, that this issue was snuck through in the Government's previous legislation but I am not aware of it. The Minister said different classes of hunters would be created. I believe that professional hunters have a very important role that should be recognised. I do not have a philosophical objection to professional hunters having to pay for a licence, given that they hunt professionally.

However, I am concerned about the issues Mr David Shoebridge raised about the prohibitions on how professional hunters can hunt, for example, with the use of spotlights and aggregation devices—although I do not know what they are. However, I am not in a position to make a judgement other than to agree with what the Minister has said in relation to this legislation. On that basis I do not think the Opposition will support the amendment. I welcome more information from The Greens if that problem is raised in other forums.

The Hon. ROBERT BROWN [6.32 p.m.]: Once again Mr David Shoebridge seeks to paint a picture of amateur hunters as being less proficient than professional hunters. I draw to the attention of the House an episode that occurred at Guy Fawkes River National Park some time ago that led the then Minister, the Hon. Bob Debus, for whom I did not have much regard, to ban the helicopter shooting of horses thereafter. I have seen training DVDs for the Feral Animal Aerial Shooters Team—the FAAST shooters—the so-called professionals, shooting pigs in the Macquarie Marshes.

The standard operating procedure for helicopter shooting of animals is that if an animal is shot the chopper must hover over the animal until the observer calls that the animal is dead before they can move on to the next animal. Unfortunately, from an operational point of view, the chopper shooters know that they will lose 90 out of 100 pigs if they follow that procedure. So they fly over a line of pigs from the back and shoot into the hips of the pigs to stop them in their tracks, and then fly to the head of the column and perhaps down 10 to 20 pigs before going back to try to find and eliminate the pigs they shot first. I would not feed those so-called professionals.

On the Four Corners program on Channel 2 we saw what the professional contractors of the National Parks and Wildlife Service do. Boots, I think was his name, had two dingos in traps and he held a rifle at arm's length and pulled the trigger, not once but twice, not knowing whether the bullet would kill the animal humanely. The Government has said it will roll out 12 special projects in national parks but I can say that most hunters I know—and I apologise to any National Parks and Wildlife Service personnel I am about to offend— would not allow themselves to be supervised by people to whom they would not hand their rifle. In relation to competency and training, I have seen the work of the Firearms Safety Awareness Council of New South Wales and it is not much good. The Shooters and Fishers Party opposes the amendment.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE [6.35 p.m.]: The Government has confirmed the concerns of The Greens. The Minister said that if this amendment was accepted it would undermine the role of recreational hunters, 24076 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

which is exactly what the Shooters and Fishers Party does not want. They do not want to undermine the role of recreational hunters; they want a whole bunch of recreational hunters to have access to deer, in particular. The Minister said that allowing professionals to operate effectively in that area would undermine the role of recreational hunters. It only happens because professional shooters are professional and effective.

The Hon. Duncan Gay: I didn't say that.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: You did say that. It is in your briefing note. The position of the Opposition is that it simply does not understand the way the legislation operates. The relevant provisions are clauses 5, 6 and 7 of schedule 1 to the Game and Feral Animal Regulation 2012. Those provisions have been in that regulation since the Labor Government was in office and I am surprised that the Opposition could not find them and is not aware of their effect, given that the provisions have had an ongoing impact for more than 12 months in New South Wales. If the Opposition wants some guidance, it should open up schedule 1 and read clauses 5, 6 and 7 of the regulation.

The Hon. STEVE WHAN [6.36 p.m.]: I thank The Greens for convincing me of the way the Opposition should vote on this occasion. We have just heard the pathetic comments of The Greens but the real problem is the fact that these amendments were "hot off the press" after debate on this bill had begun. If Mr David Shoebridge had taken the time to talk to the Opposition about these amendments before he lobbed them on this place, maybe we could have had more discussion about their impact. The incompetence of Mr David Shoebridge has led to a situation where I cannot verify whether anything he said today is true. Mr David Shoebridge should work harder and think about it earlier if he wants to get Opposition support for his amendments.

Question—That The Greens amendment No. 14 [C2013-123B] be agreed to—put and resolved in the negative.

The Greens amendment No. 14 [C2013-128B] negatived.

[The Chair (The Hon. Jennifer Gardiner) left the chair at 6.39 p.m. The Committee resumed at 8.00 p.m.]

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE [8.00 p.m.]: I move The Greens amendment No. 19 on sheet C2013-128B:

No. 19 Page 4, schedule 1 [8], line 39. Insert ", including best practice lethal and non-lethal control methods" after "control".

This amendment would add to page 4 of the bill under the purposes for which money can be applied from the Game and Pest Management Trust Fund the specific ability to apply money from that fund for the purpose of research into best practice lethal and non-lethal control methods of feral pest control. This is an important additional function for the trust fund. It is important for the trust fund to be able to provide those research dollars not just for the promotion of recreational ad hoc hunting to deal with the feral pest control problem across New South Wales, which we know does not work, but also for the purposes of looking at non-lethal control methods.

If we are to be serious about dealing with feral pest control we need to consider some of those non-lethal control measures, such as biological or chemical control agents that may reduce or eliminate the fertility of a particular generation, which would have a far more comprehensive impact on overall feral pest populations. It is important to ensure when considering lethal control measures that best practice non-lethal control measures are also considered. It should not be about the promotion of a bunch of pig dog hunters wandering out in the back paddock somewhere but rather promoting the kind of feral pest control that the scientific evidence—the peer review support studies—shows will be effective in reducing the number of feral pests in an area not just for an afternoon, which might make a particular recreational hunter feel happy, but over time. Tax dollars for feral pest control are scarce so we should use those dollars to the best possible advantage.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY (Minister for Roads and Ports) [8.04 p.m.]: The Government opposes the amendment. The Greens seek to insert after line 39 "including best practice lethal and non-lethal control methods" after "control". This relates to the type of research on animal control for which the Game and Pest Management Trust Fund can be used. It emphasises best practice lethal and non-lethal methods of animal control. This may support pest control but it may not support hunting. The current provision is already broad enough to allow the fund to be used for this sort of research and we believe that the amendment is unnecessary. The money that is used allows research but does not preclude hunting and, as indicated in an early amendment, 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24077

part of the money is used for the promotion of responsible hunting. This is about doing things properly in a balanced way. This amendment is yet another way of seeking to remove hunting from the scenario. Whilst it is put in sheep's clothing, it is really a wolf.

The Hon. STEVE WHAN [8.06 p.m.]: This is really about the role of this legislation and of the proposed replacement of the Game Council. The Greens seem to regard this as an opportunity to expand the Game Council's role beyond its work with respect to recreational shooting and to take over work that should be done in other areas of government. As I have said on a number of occasions, feral pest control is a core function of government and particularly of the Department of Primary Industries, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, and, as was said by way of interjection, even the Federal cooperative research centres, which do similar work. It is critical that we invest money in research into how to control feral pests in New South Wales and Australia. I agree that should include ways to eliminate feral pests, including sterilisation, through research undertaken by different agencies. That work is critical.

For us to suggest that the Game Council, which has a fairly narrow remit in many ways, undertake that sort of research is to move it away from its core business of government into an area where it will not be funded to a level that will make a significant difference. This is because I assume that the bulk of the funding is still expected to come from licence fees, and potentially some additional grants for the particular purpose of promotional and educational work. I do not see that this amendment will add anything useful to the work undertaken by that body.

The Hon. ROBERT BROWN [8.08 p.m.]: Once again Mr David Shoebridge has demonstrated his ignorance of research matters with respect to invasive animal control. The Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre is now in its fifth iteration of three-year grants, that is 15 years. One of the things being examined by cooperative research centres was immunocontraception and other non-lethal methods of control. They concluded that it was a waste of money. I am not sure of the exact funding that goes to the cooperative research centres, in particular, the Invasive Animal Cooperative Research Centre, but over the 15 years it is hundreds of millions of dollars. That is quite properly where broadscale research should be located, in the cooperative research centres, not in the very limited funds available through the Game Council. The Shooters and Fishers Party opposes the amendment.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE [8.09 p.m.]: There has not been hundreds of million dollars spent, but a tiny sum of money apportioned for best practice lethal and non-lethal animal control research—tiny amounts. Again we see that the recreational shooters lobby is deeply concerned that there might be a viable effective population-wide method of controlling feral animals. If we get the population-wide control measures right it will not leave any feral animals for the recreational shooters and we know that is their worst case scenario. The worst case scenario for the likes of the Hon. Robert Brown and the Hon. Robert Borsak is that we actually work out an effective feral pest control measure. That is their worst nightmare because in those circumstances they have nothing to hunt, they have got nothing on the weekend to take a pot shot at and no trophy heads to bring back and stick on the walls in their office.

The Hon. Robert Borsak: Of course we do—ducks, kangaroos—and once we finish with the ferals we'll get the natives.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: I note that interjection from the Hon. Robert Borsak: Once they finish with the ferals they will get on to the natives. That sums up the kind of mindset and political representation that the Government has been doing deals with. It has been promoting that kind of mindset. The Shooters and Fishers Party has always had the goal to move from State forests to national parks—which they have achieved under this Government—and to move from feral pests to killing our native animals. They have gone a substantial distance that way and through a deal made with the Government last year have been able to go out shooting our native wildfowl. The Shooters and Fishers Party are now saying that they want access to the State forests and national parks to shoot kangaroos and wallabies. No doubt they cannot wait to have a great wombat hunt in the national parks.

That is a mindset that this Government wants to fund and this Government has been promoting. That is the mindset that the Government Whip actively promotes and this Government promotes through funds and votes in this House. If one ever needed a demonstration of why we need to move beyond promoting recreational hunting, members from the Shooters and Fishers Party have clearly stated that they want to go straight to the next step in their program. The Shooters and Fishers Party are quite relentless. They bank a gain and then move on to the next. They banked State forests and moved on to the national parks; they banked the national parks 24078 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

with feral animals; and the next step is shooting native animals in national parks. The Shooters and Fishers Party want to shoot the kangaroos and wallabies—whatever they can get in their sights—in the national parks and State forests. It is proof positive for why we need a line drawn in the sand on this promotion of hunting—

The Hon. Robert Brown: Koalas are safe, they taste terrible.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: I acknowledge the interjection from the Hon. Robert Brown. There is promotion of hunting and an ugly gun culture and we are seeing it here tonight.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY (Minister for Roads and Ports) [8.13 p.m.]: The Committee has just heard a lot of rhetoric. Let us return to the specifics of the bill. The bill already allows for development of lethal and non-lethal feral animal control. One party wishes to rule out lethal control and others are against that. The amendment that the member has moved aims to rule out lethal feral animal control, but the Government believes that development of both is necessary to reduce or eradicate feral animals from national parks and our community.

Question—That The Greens amendment No. 19 [C2013-128B] be agreed to—put and resolved in the negative.

The Greens amendment No. 19 [C2013-128B] negatived.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE [8.14 p.m.], by leave: I move The Greens amendments Nos 25 and 26 on sheet C2013-128B in globo:

No. 25 Page 10, schedule 2.3, lines 9-24. Omit all words on those lines.

No. 26 Page 11. Insert after line 25:

Schedule 3 Repeal of Game and Feral Animal Control Further Amendment Act 2012 No 104

The Game and Feral Animal Control Further Amendment Act 2012 is repealed.

These two amendments work together to repeal the legislation that the Government and the Shooters and Fishers Party agreed to in a deal made at the end of last year. The deal allowed the Government to sell off the ports. The legislation opened up duck hunting in New South Wales and removed the role of the Office of the Environment and Heritage from regulating the number and the scale of the native duck kill in New South Wales. Under those amendments the Game Council was given the key role of deciding the number of native waterfowl that could be killed. The previous Labor Government described it by the Orwellian name of the "game bird mitigation program".

The Hon. Robert Borsak: The game bird management program.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: I acknowledge that interjection. There should not be a place for the systemic killing of native animals on public land. There should never have been a place for the authorised, promoted and licensed killing of native waterfowl in their thousands just for the pleasure of recreational hunters. It is just for the pleasure of killing the birds. We know from the studies done by the animal rescue workers in Victoria, who have courageously put their lives on the line by placing themselves between the shooters and the ducks in the wetlands in Victoria, that there is appalling carnage of protected species. Anyone who is interested and is not one-eyed on the subject would have seen the carnage.

We know the hunters cannot tell the difference between an endangered duck and a non-endangered duck at 100 metres—they do not even bother to try. The shooters do not bother to identify whether it is a pink-eared duck, which bizarrely hunters are allowed to kill in New South Wales despite the fact that it does not eat grain. A large proportion of birds are not killed outright. A good many of them die a lingering and slow death after being winged or hit by a pellet in the leg while others carry on with those wounds for weeks, months or years living in pain.

The Hon. Dr Peter Phelps: Not as much pain as we have listening to you. 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24079

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: I note the interjection from the Hon. Dr Peter Phelps and the closed mindset that this Government has in terms of animal welfare issues. Amendment No. 25 will remove the elements from this bill that seek to take the control from the Game Council and the Native Game Bird Management Committee and place it with the Department of Primary Industries. The Department of Primary Industries is not interested in animal welfare issues and has no interest in looking at a sustainable number for a species over time.

The Hon. Duncan Gay: And the Office of Environment and Heritage.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: I note the interjection from the Minister. It is true that there is some advice from the Office of Environment and Heritage. I accept that. The final decision under this proposed legislative regime is not made by someone with a conservation interest or animal welfare interest or a concern about the sustainable populations of those native waterbirds. The final decision is made by the Department of Primary Industries. The Department of Primary Industries has primary interests that are not environmental outcomes or sustainability outcomes. The statutory direction of the Department of Primary Industries is in protecting crops, regardless of the environmental cost or the animal welfare cost of killing native waterfowl.

Amendment No. 26 repeals the Game and Feral Animal Control Further Amendment Act 2012. That Act established the Game Council-controlled and Game Council-determined killing of our native waterbirds. I hope that a majority of members recognise that it is appalling to have the Department of Primary Industries in charge of killing thousands of our native waterbirds. I also hope that members stand up for our ecological and biodiversity values and against the gun lobby and ducking shooting, which should never happen in New South Wales.

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY (Minister for Roads and Ports) [8.21 p.m.]: It should come as no surprise to the honourable member that the Government opposes these amendments. The Government introduced the Game and Feral Animal Control Further Amendment Bill 2012 and it was passed by this House. The passage of this bill will mean that that Act must be amended, and I would have thought The Greens would support the amendments that it makes. The Greens amendment would repeal the Game and Feral Animal Control Further Amendment Act 2012, which allows hunting of native game birds on private land under a native game bird licence. The 2012 legislation was enacted to allow the Game Council to manage pest game birds, which can have a devastating effect on agricultural productivity.

The Act has not commenced and, as I indicated and as the honourable member said, under the bill before this Chamber the responsibility for native game bird hunting will be managed by the Department of Primary Industries in collaboration with the Office of Environment and Heritage. This bill takes into account the fact that the Game Council has been abolished. All the checks and balances detailed when the 2012 legislation was passed, the rights of farmers, the problems facing the affected industries and the quotas, remain. The bill simply transfers responsibility from the Game Council to the Department of Primary Industries and the Office of Environment and Heritage.

The Hon. STEVE WHAN [8.23 p.m.]: The Minister has said it should not be a surprise that the Government opposes these amendments given that it introduced the Game and Feral Animal Control Further Amendment Bill 2012. It should also come as no surprise to the Government that, given it opposed that legislation, the Opposition supports The Greens amendments. In speaking on that legislation, I raised concerns about the conflict between the Game Council's roles of regulating and promoting. More importantly, I raised concerns about shifting the responsibility for determining which birds could be shot from an environmental agency to the Game Council. I have the same concern about the fact that this bill shifts that responsibility from an environmental agency to the Department of Primary Industries.

The Hon. Duncan Gay: Your former agency will love those comments.

The Hon. Dr Peter Phelps: Do you not trust your former bureaucrats?

The Hon. STEVE WHAN: The Department of Primary Industries was in very good hands when I was the Minister. It is a pity that a number of senior staff have left the department. The Minister claimed that he is being consistent. The Opposition raised concerns about moving the responsibility for determining which birds could be shot from an environmental agency to the Game Council. It was not true to say that birds causing difficulties could not be dealt with at that time. The Opposition said that it did not believe that a duck hunting season should be reintroduced. It stands by that and supports The Greens amendments.

Question—That The Greens amendments Nos 25 and 26 [2013-128B] be agreed to—put.

The Committee divided. 24080 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

Ayes, 18

Ms Cotsis Mr Searle Mr Whan Mr Donnelly Mr Secord Mr Wong Dr Faruqi Ms Sharpe Ms Fazio Mr Shoebridge Mr Foley Mr Veitch Tellers, Mr Moselmane Ms Voltz Ms Barham Mr Primrose Ms Westwood Dr Kaye

Noes, 22

Mr Ajaka Mr Gay Mrs Mitchell Mr Blair Mr Green Reverend Nile Mr Borsak Mr Harwin Mrs Pavey Mr Brown Mr Khan Mr Pearce Mr Clarke Mr Lynn Ms Cusack Mr MacDonald Tellers, Ms Ficarra Mrs Maclaren-Jones Mr Colless Mr Gallacher Mr Mason-Cox Dr Phelps

Pair

Ms Cotsis Mr Lynn

Question resolved in the negative.

The Greens amendments Nos 25 and 26 [2013-128B] negatived.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

Title agreed to.

Bill reported from Committee without amendment.

Adoption of Report

Motion by the Hon. Duncan Gay agreed to:

That the report be adopted.

Report adopted.

Third Reading

The Hon. DUNCAN GAY (Minister for Roads and Ports) [8.34 p.m.]: I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE [8.34 p.m.]: The Greens have presented a series of amendments to this legislation. The Greens fundamentally believe these amendments are essential to greatly improving the legislation that came before this House. We remain deeply concerned that the legislation as drafted will allow for a continued hunter-dominated body on the New South Wales statute books. It will allow for the ongoing funding of recreational hunting. It is most unfortunate that the Government did not seize the opportunity it had today to put in place a far more comprehensive and fact-based feral pest management scheme.

We had a lengthy debate in Committee. I accept it was a lengthy debate and I accept the outcome of the Committee, unfortunate as it was. The fact of the matter remains that the Game Council has no place in the statute books of New South Wales. The Game Council should never have been created in 2002. The Dunn report simply put the icing on the cake of the better part of a decade of public concern, particularly from those people who have been watching closely the way the Game Council funds and promotes some pretty ugly blood sports. 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24081

The PRESIDENT: Order! The honourable member is going well beyond what is permitted at the third reading stage. It is not an opportunity for him to state why the bill should be opposed by going through the history in the way that he is. He is going well beyond the scope of what is permissible.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: Mr President, I note your ruling. The fact is that this bill, even as amended in Committee, if passed through this House even by a bare majority will get rid of the Game Council. My predecessor, Lee Rhiannon, worked for years on this task. Thousands of ordinary citizens around New South Wales have been working for years on this task. Given what has happened with the Game Council being such a key promoter of hunting in national parks, this is a moment when we are forced to make some pretty tough decisions. On balance, the removal of the Game Council and the regularisation of at least one part of the administration of New South Wales should be supported by the majority of members in this House. All our amendments were crafted to produce a positive outcome. We have stared the Government down in this debate as much as we can. We put the pressure we could on the Government, from a minority position in this Chamber, to improve the bill. The Game Council should go, and we will vote accordingly.

Question—That this bill be now read a third time—put.

The House divided.

Ayes, 22

Mr Ajaka Mr Gallacher Mrs Mitchell Ms Barham Ms Gardiner Mrs Pavey Mr Blair Mr Gay Mr Pearce Mr Buckingham Dr Kaye Mr Shoebridge Mr Clarke Mr Khan Ms Cusack Mr MacDonald Tellers, Dr Faruqi Mrs Maclaren-Jones Mr Colless Ms Ficarra Mr Mason-Cox Dr Phelps

Noes, 17

Mr Borsak Reverend Nile Ms Westwood Mr Brown Mr Primrose Mr Whan Mr Donnelly Mr Searle Mr Wong Mr Foley Mr Secord Tellers, Mr Green Ms Sharpe Ms Fazio Mr Moselmane Mr Veitch Ms Voltz

Pair

Mr Lynn Ms Cotsis

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time and returned to the Legislative Assembly without amendment.

SKILLS BOARD BILL 2013

Bill received from the Legislative Assembly, and read a first time and ordered to be printed on motion by the Hon. Duncan Gay, on behalf of the Hon. John Ajaka.

Motion by the Hon. Duncan Gay, on behalf of the Hon. John Ajaka, agreed to:

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

Second reading set down as an order of the day for a later hour. 24082 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

LIQUOR AMENDMENT (KINGS CROSS PLAN OF MANAGEMENT) BILL 2013

Second Reading

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER (Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for the Hunter, and Vice-President of the Executive Council) [8.46 p.m.]: I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

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

Leave granted.

Over the last 12 months the Government has taken decisive action to clean up Kings Cross and make it safer for the residents of and visitors to this internationally recognised entertainment precinct.

Plan of Management

In September 2012 the Government released its Plan of Management, which provided a comprehensive set of measures to reduce alcohol-related violence and improve the safety and amenity of Kings Cross.

Under the plan the Kings Cross precinct has been consolidated and expanded to capture more than 130 venues, including licensed premises in parts of nearby Potts Point and Darlinghurst.

As a result, these venues are now subject to regulatory controls applying to the precinct.

The liquor freeze applying to Kings Cross has been extended until December 2015, which means that no new high-impact licensed premises such as hotels and nightclubs can be established in Kings Cross during this period.

Under the Plan of Management licensees and staff of Kings Cross licensed premises are required to complete Responsible Service of Alcohol [RSA] training to ensure they have recent and contemporary knowledge of the responsible serving laws and to hold a competency card.

Since December 2012 special conditions imposed by regulation have applied to Kings Cross licensed premises.

These conditions include a requirement to either cease alcohol sales for an hour before closing for late-trading venues or operate a timeout for one hour for 24-hour trading venues as well as drink restrictions, closed-circuit television [CCTV] requirements and RSA marshals to be engaged after midnight on weekends.

I am pleased to report that since the start of the regulation in December 2012, in the period to 31 March 2013 there was a 33 per cent reduction in violent incidents in licensed premises compared to the previous year.

The Government's Plan of Management has also resulted in amendments to the Liquor Act to establish a new small bar licence, which has been available since 1 July 2013.

The small bar licence, which is available in Kings Cross and elsewhere across the State, recognises the need for smaller, more intimate venues and addresses concerns about bars growing in size over time thereby contributing to harm in high-density precincts such as Kings Cross.

Small bar licence applications in the City of Sydney are also being considered as part of the trial of the new Environment and Venue Assessment Tool, which considers a number of venue risk factors including locality, capacity and licence type.

The Government recognises that there is more work to be done to further improve the safety of Kings Cross.

The Liquor Amendment (Kings Cross Plan of Management) Bill 2013 is the second major tranche of the Government's Plan of Management to reduce alcohol-related violence in Kings Cross.

The bill contains two significant measures to help further improve the precinct's safety and enable action to be taken against troublemakers.

Banning orders

The bill will enable precinct-wide temporary banning orders to be issued by police for up to 48 hours.

A temporary banning order can be issued to a person who refuses to comply with a move-on direction given by police or a person who is drunk, violent or disorderly and refuses to leave licensed premises or the vicinity of licensed premises or attempts to re-enter licensed premises within 24 hours of being asked to leave.

A temporary banning order, which is for up to 48 hours, can apply to one or more licensed premises in the Kings Cross precinct.

Importantly, a temporary banning order can only be issued by a police officer of or above the rank of sergeant who is satisfied that the person's continued conduct is likely to cause a public nuisance or a risk to public safety.

16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24083

The bill will also enable the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority to issue a long-term precinct-wide banning order that will prohibit the subject of that order from entering or attempting to enter high-risk licensed premises in the Kings Cross precinct for up to 12 months.

A long term banning order can only be issued by the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority where it is satisfied that the person has been charged with or found guilty of a serious criminal offence involving alcohol-related violence or the person has been issued with three temporary banning orders in the previous 12 months.

These new banning orders will complement and strengthen the existing banning provisions available to all licensees under the liquor laws.

They send a clear message to troublemakers visiting Kings Cross that if they make trouble they face a ban on entering all high-risk licensed venues in the precinct for up to 12 months.

These bans will provide police with new tools to help improve the safety of the Kings Cross precinct and ensure serious troublemakers do not cause ongoing problems for the operators of licensed venues.

The bill sends a message to troublemakers that violent and disruptive behaviour can have significant consequences.

Maximum penalties of $5,500, or a $550 penalty notice, will apply where a person subject to a temporary banning order enters or attempts to enter any Kings Cross licensed premises.

A maximum penalty of $5,500, or a $2,200 penalty notice, will also apply where a person enters or attempts to re-enter a high-risk licensed venue while subject to a long-term banning order.

To ensure natural justice principles are maintained, the bill will enable a person who is the subject of a long-term banning order to seek a review of the Authority's decision by the Administrative Decisions Tribunal.

ID system and scanners

I now turn to those provisions in the bill that prescribe the operation of a central ID scanning system and the requirement for all high-risk venues in the Kings Cross precinct to operate a linked ID scanner to prevent those persons issued with a banning order from entering licensed premises.

This is an appropriate and necessary measure to complement the banning order provisions and help licensees and staff ensure those who have been issued with a banning order can be stopped at the door and not jeopardise the safety of patrons and staff inside licensed premises.

The bill allows the operation of a central ID scanning system and associated ID scanners in high-risk premises in the Kings Cross precinct to be trialled over 12 months.

High-risk venues are defined in the bill as those where liquor is sold for consumption on the premises, have approval to trade after midnight and, as determined by the Director General, NSW Trade and Investment, have a patron capacity of more than 120 patrons.

The bill also contains a regulation-making power to enable a venue to be exempted from the ID scanning requirements as a high-risk venue where it is considered appropriate in certain circumstances.

Any consideration of a venue being exempt from the ID scanning requirements will be examined closely and take into consideration factors such as the risk to public safety, the primary purpose of the venue and its compliance history.

The Director General, NSW Trade and Investment may, with the agreement of the police commissioner, also designate a venue as a high-risk venue if satisfied that there is a significant degree of alcohol-related violence or other antisocial behaviour associated with the premises.

Linked ID scanners will enable licensees to record the identity of all patrons and enable those persons who are the subject of a temporary or long-term banning order to be identified and prevented from entering the premises.

The use of ID scanners, which will be linked to a central scanning system, has been identified by industry through the Kings Cross Accord as an important strategy to reinforce the need for greater personal responsibility when socialising late at night in the precinct.

It follows a trial of ID scanners in Newcastle where a small group of licensees established the Newcastle Entertainment Precinct and invested in ID scanning technology to implement a shared scanning and banning system with good results.

The system will enable high-risk venues to be automatically notified if a patron has been banned from other high-risk venues in Kings Cross or is subject to a short-term or long-term banning order.

A person who uses a false identification document when entering a high-risk venue can be issued with a $5,500 fine or a $550 penalty notice.

Appropriately, participating high-risk licensed venues will meet the cost of installing ID scanners on their premises.

The bill also recognises that there may be instances where either the central ID scanner system or patron ID scanners in licensed venues may break down.

24084 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

It is not intended in these circumstances that a venue would have to close its doors and not allow people to enter because their identification cannot be scanned.

In these circumstances, the bill requires police be notified immediately and that a contingency protocol, approved by the Director General, NSW Trade and Investment, be complied with.

Privacy issues

The Government recognises that mandating the use of ID scanning equipment in licensed venues may cause concern for some people.

That is why the bill contains a number of safeguards to ensure the integrity of the precinct's ID scanning system with stringent controls on the use of personal data captured by the system and the operation of scanners used in venues.

The Director General, NSW Trade and Investment will be responsible for approving the operator of the ID scanner system and in doing so he may seek the concurrence of the Commissioner of Police and will ensure that the operator is suitable to operate the system.

In addition to imposing conditions on the approved operator relating to the disposal and retention of data held on the scanning system, the Director General can also revoke an approval to operate an ID scanning system at any time.

Further, to ensure there is no conflict of interest or potential for data to be shared between the approved scanning system operator and licensees, an entity that is a close associate of a licensee or has an interest in licensed premises cannot be approved to operate the system.

The Director General's approval will be subject to a range of statutory and other conditions to safeguard any information held on the system.

This includes a requirement that any data held on the system must not be transferred to any place outside Australia, other than New Zealand, and it must comply with Federal privacy laws.

In addition, data can only be held for up to 30 days, except for information relating to a person who is the subject of a long-term banning order or at the request of the Commissioner of Police.

State government agencies accessing the ID scanner data, including the NSW Police Force and the Office of Liquor Gaming and Racing, will be subject to the NSW Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998.

Licensees must also implement a privacy management plan and a privacy policy, which must first be approved by the Kings Cross Accord and the relevant industry association.

Privacy training

As a further safeguard, the bill will require all licensees and staff operating ID scanners to undergo privacy training which will be endorsed on their responsible service of alcohol competency card.

This training will focus on privacy and related requirements contained in this bill as well as Federal privacy principles.

It is expected that this privacy training will be available online from the Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing's website to help reduce time and travel costs for those who need to complete this training.

A new competency card will be issued by the Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing following completion of privacy training that contains an endorsement that the privacy training has been completed.

The bill will also allow the Director General, NSW Trade and Investment to impose a $30.00 fee prior to issuing a new competency card with a privacy endorsement.

This fee will help to offset some of the costs incurred by the Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing in processing and issuing a new competency card.

The bill also allows a certificate to be issued where privacy training has been completed, which will allow people to operate ID scanners in Kings Cross licensed premises for up to 28 days until they receive a new competency card containing a privacy training endorsement.

Revocation of competency cards

The bill will enable the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority, upon application by police or the Director General, to suspend, revoke or disqualify a person for up to 12 months from holding a responsible service of alcohol competency card.

This action can be taken where the authority considers the person has contravened their privacy obligations or otherwise misused data collected in operating a patron ID scanner.

The authority can also make an order if it is satisfied that a person has contravened obligations that relate to the responsible service of alcohol, such as serving liquor to intoxicated persons or minors.

This is a significant but necessary deterrent to ensure patrons' private information is not abused or misused by staff of licensed premises in any way or provided to a third party.

16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24085

The bill recognises the significant consequences of revoking a person's Responsible Service of Alcohol competency card, which is effectively a licence to work in the New South Wales liquor industry by allowing a person to seek a review by the Administrative Decisions Tribunal of a decision made by the authority.

Sanctions will apply to the unlawful use of a competency card to ensure the integrity of the privacy provisions in this bill.

Penalties of up to $5,500 apply where a person works in New South Wales licensed premises with a suspended competency card or where they have been disqualified from holding a competency card, while penalties of up to $2,200 will also apply where a competency card is not surrendered to the authority.

As a protection for licensees in circumstances where a person does not surrender their card, the bill provides that licensees and employers do not commit an offence if they employ a person who holds a recognised competency card that appears to be current. and the licensee is satisfied that the card is current.

This bill represents the first time the use of ID scanning equipment in New South Wales licensed venues has been mandated.

Therefore it is important that the operation of the ID scanner provisions be reviewed as soon as practicable.

That is why the bill requires the ID scanner provisions to be reviewed after 12 months to determine whether the policy objectives of the scheme remain valid.

This will provide an opportunity to consider whether the privacy safeguards applying to the Kings Cross ID scanner system and patron ID scanners in licensed premises are adequate and, where necessary, consider further reforms to ensure people's personal information collected in licensed venues is not being compromised.

Performance of licensed premises

In addition to the banning order and ID scanner provisions, the bill also introduces a range of measures aimed at improving performance by licensed venues within the Kings Cross precinct.

These include requiring approved managers in high-risk Kings Cross venues to be appointed at certain times when the licensee is absent to assist in the proper supervision and management of licensed premises.

These approved manager provisions will be subject to a regulation being made later this year.

The bill also provides a notice to be displayed by licensed venues to help inform patrons and the local community about the venue's liquor trading hours.

This sign will be developed in collaboration with the City of Sydney Council to ensure relevant liquor and development consent trading information is included in this public notice.

Alcohol sales data

The bill also specifies when the collection of alcohol sales data from Kings Cross venues where liquor is consumed on the premises will commence and that this will be on a quarterly basis.

This data will help shape compliance efforts by police and Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing inspectors as well as future policy decisions by the Government.

The Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing will liaise with the Kings Cross Accord and affected Kings Cross licensees prior to the first data return falling due in terms of the format and nature of the data to be provided.

The bill also provides certainty for the holders of a general bar liquor licence that a community impact statement is not required where they wish to convert their business into a small bar by 31 December 2013 by applying for a new small bar licence, so long as development consent has been obtained to sell liquor at times proposed in the small bar licence application.

This bill is yet another example of the Government taking decisive action to tackle alcohol-related crime and antisocial behaviour in Kings Cross.

Action being taken to improve Kings Cross, including measures contained in this bill, is being complemented by statewide measures to reduce alcohol-related violence.

This includes the Three Strikes disciplinary scheme in which more than 50 venues across the State have incurred strikes.

At least two of those venues have incurred two strikes and are potentially just one strike away from losing their right to sell liquor.

The Government's trial of three sobering up centres has also commenced, including the operation of a mandatory sobering up centre in Sydney's central business district, which will enable drunken troublemakers who ignore move-on orders from police in Kings Cross and elsewhere to spend the rest of their night in this facility.

The Government will continue to monitor the effectiveness of its reforms for Kings Cross.

If necessary, further measures will be considered by the Government to minimise alcohol-related violence and antisocial behaviour in the Kings Cross precinct.

I commend the bill to the House.

24086 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

The Hon. STEVE WHAN [8.46 p.m.]: The Liquor Amendment (Kings Cross Plan of Management) Bill 2013 is another stage in the measures the Government announced some time ago to change rules in Kings Cross and to attempt to address the alcohol-fuelled violence which has been concerning a number of people in the community. The Opposition will be supporting the legislation but we do so with some concern and we have some criticisms that need to be addressed. We are concerned that, to a large extent, the Government is not shouldering its fair share of the burden in addressing this issue and it is pushing responsibility onto a small number of licensees, who are not responsible for all the problems we are seeing on the streets and who are already significantly regulated and already doing their best in relation to their responsible service of alcohol obligations and having their staff address issues and remove causes of problems.

Unfortunately the Government is not addressing a number of key issues including the number of police who are present in Kings Cross and treating the area as, essentially, hosting a special event on Friday and Saturday nights, which they should be doing; providing adequate transport all night for people to get away from the area, particularly on weekend evenings; and a number of other issues that I will come back to. This bill is essentially the implementation of a commitment to introduce linked identification scanners in Kings Cross. Identification scanners have been used in a number of places already around New South Wales, generally at the behest of the industry itself.

Currently in Newcastle a number of pubs use identification scanners but the pubs determine the hours of operation of those scanners. Many clubs in New South Wales now have identification scanners which scan people's driver licence or identification and the clubs can determine whether the person is from out of the area. That is fine for them because that is quite important for their tax status and the Australian Taxation Office mutuality provisions when it comes to clubs. But this legislation is quite new for major licensed venues in Kings Cross. I want to highlight a number of things. Under this legislation, the 36 major licensed premises in Kings Cross—

Dr John Kaye: Thirty-five.

The Hon. STEVE WHAN: I had 36 in my head for some reason. The 35 major licensed premises in Kings Cross are required by this legislation to have linked ID scanners. Patrons will be required to have their ID scanned as they enter in the hours that the premise is operating, and I will come back to that; and patrons who cause problems could be issued by police with a banning order operating for either 48 hours or, after repeat offences, for 12 months, and that order would prohibit them from entering any of the high-risk premises for the specified periods. Of course, it would not prevent them from entering other premises in Kings Cross, such as smaller hotels and restaurants or other food venues, or from hanging around on the street outside, where most of the problem activities take place.

The legislation puts in place amendments to the competency requirements for staff, to ensure that staff who will be operating scanners have undertaken training regarding the privacy aspects of the scanners. A precinct scanner system will be established that links all the high-risk venues, and banning orders would be issued by the police. It is intended that information will be kept on the system for only 30 days, except when the person is the subject of a longer-term banning order, or as directed by the director general of the department at the request of the Commissioner of Police. The legislation includes privacy provisions regarding the premises and their staff. However, I have to say it is not as clear when it comes to how the police can use that information in the future. It is no doubt possible for police to copy that database every 30 days. For most people that is not a problem; but I am sure some people would have privacy concerns about that prospect.

The legislation does not appear to rule out sharing of information on the database. There is a need for further assurances on whether the police will keep that database information for longer terms. For instance, will copies be able to be made of the information in the database recorded in the relevant period? It seems that, on the initiative of the Commissioner of Police, that could happen. We would like to know whether that will happen as a regular event, and whether any provisions are being put in place on whether police might match that data to information on other databases in the longer term. There are minor amendments in the bill about signage on opening hours, reporting sales, and further changes to the small bar licences to make it clear that changing down from a general licence to a small bar licence does not require a community impact statement. That is logical.

The Labor Opposition obviously has supported the introduction of scanners publicly. Hotels and licensees have also indicated that they accept that ID scanners are reasonable, particularly for difficult and busy evening periods in Kings Cross. Not only the licensed premises themselves but also the community have 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24087

expressed concerns about the hours of operation of ID scanners. I will come back shortly to the information that the Minister has helpfully given us on those hours of operation. I am hoping that the Minister at the table, the Hon. Michael Gallacher, can give us some further assurances on privacy to start with. This database will be run by a private company. The private company will have to be approved by the Commissioner of Police.

Obviously, we would hope there will be provisions to ensure that the private company has absolutely no connection with any of the other parties involved with this. That is critical. We also want an assurance that there is no possibility at all that licensees of premises and those doing the scanning will retain any of that information. I am aware that this is to be a linked database and that the information on the database will not be retained on the premises. But it is not outside the realms of possibility that some people might think some licensees in Kings Cross are not entirely the sort of people you would like to have your identification information. Most of them are fine, but some of the names we see there have even cropped up in dramatized television shows recently.

The Hon. Michael Gallacher: Colourful racing identities.

The Hon. STEVE WHAN: Colourful identities, as the Minister says. I think it would concern a number of people if they felt there was potential for their ID particulars to be retained by those people. I ask the Minister to give us some assurances in that area; to ensure that those premises will be monitored regularly to make sure, for instance, that any additional scanning mechanisms are not put in place to skim any identification details. I have confidence that the vast majority of extremely good licensees in Kings Cross would not have any intention of doing that. Certainly, I would not put any of those who have spoken to me about this legislation in any category of licensees who would be the subject of suspicion. But that is something that is worth considering.

The legislation makes it clear that the database information can be shared, and that that will be subject to strict guidelines. We need to have very public information about the process of awarding the tender for the operator of this system, and very open and transparent information about who that company is and what provisions are being put in place for the security of that data. I suspect that many of us would feel more comfortable if the Government itself were retaining the database; but I recognise that this legislation proposes that it be retained by a private company, and that indeed many private companies have the necessary skills to do that.

I come now to the hours of operation of the ID scanners. Again I thank the Minister's office for keeping us informed on this. Minister Souris's office is very good at providing briefings and consulting with the Opposition on this, and I thank his staff for that. The Minister's office has indicated that it intends to change the originally announced operating hours of the scanners to what I feel is quite a sensible proposition: the scanners would operate continuously from 7.00 p.m. Friday to 7.00 a.m. Monday and also on public holidays, with some scope for the director general to add other days, such as St Patrick's Day and so on. The hours of operation of scanners obviously is a matter that has concerned the industry, and I will highlight some of the concerns that have been raised. I think these are quite legitimate concerns.

The industry has indicated that the Government should take into account the cost of running the ID scanner system. Trained staff will need to be at every entrance to each establishment. Certainly, under the original hours proposed by the Government, we were hearing estimates of cost for that staffing in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for some establishments. When you consider that ID scanners will be operating at times when there are generally no particular problems, times when people are having lunch or even breakfast, when very few people are in the establishment, and probably far too few to cover the cost of posting people at the doors doing the ID scanning, you can understand that for anybody running a commercial business that is a significant burden that will be imposed on them, and that that would cause them to express concern. I think it is entirely reasonable for the Government to take that into account when considering the hours of operation.

The Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research statistics on assaults in Kings Cross clearly show us that the key hours for problems in Kings Cross are between 9.00 p.m. and 3.00 a.m. on Friday and Saturday, but also to a lesser extent on Thursday nights and Sunday nights, and obviously on some public holidays, which are not shown separately in the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research statistics. I think it would be unanimously agreed that there is a need to have those scanners operating at those key times, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights. The Minister and the Government should carefully monitor the times of operation. I recognise that the Government first announced the process as a trial of the hours. I hope that if there is an apparent need to modify the hours that have operated during the year of the trial, that that modification can be made. 24088 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

Who will make the decision on the hours of operation? At present the bill gives the director general of the department the power to make that decision. I am concerned that under this bill, and in a number of other bills that deal with liquor, the director general of the department has that decision-making power and that those who may be negatively impacted by it have very little right of appeal. In this case it is a policy decision that should be made by the Government so that members of this House can scrutinise it. I am aware that it could be argued that the hours of operation should be included in the legislation, and that The Greens have suggested an amendment to the bill. However, having discussed this matter with the Minister's staff I accept that it is possible and desirable to respond to any changes that might occur during the year.

In the longer term I think the Government is shifting too much unreviewable power to the director general of the department in relation to liquor and to advertising standards. Mechanisms should be in place that allow other members of the community, including members of Parliament, to engage in and have input into that process. The hours of operation that have now been conveyed to me by the Minister's office are a welcome change over the original hours proposed. I indicate that the Opposition will support the bill as a whole. I will speak more broadly about the Kings Cross Plan of Management and where I think the Government is not pulling its weight to address issues that have been raised by so many people. I believe that the Government is loading the burden of addressing those issues on the people it can most easily regulate, that is, licensees of large premises, because they are in regular very close contact with the independent Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing.

The police can quite easily keep a close eye on the 35 venues. However, in doing so we need to be cautious that we do not push the whole burden on to licensees who are trying to run a business; the burden should be shared with government. The City of Sydney is considering a trial of road closures in the Kings Cross area that the Opposition has advocated. The Opposition believes that one of the major problems in Kings Cross is that many thousands of people are on the street, not in venues. On Friday and Saturday nights a lot of people are pushed onto the footpath. Hoteliers have told me that they often see people basically doing laps in their cars, hooning up and down the road, showing off, yelling to people and causing problems. When a lot of people are forced onto the footpath they bump into one another, either accidentally or deliberately, and fights ensue. If they are allowed to spread out on those peak nights, those types of situations will be avoided.

If a closure of Bayswater Road is also trialled, taxis will be able to queue to wait for fares, which would be very advantageous. Regular taxi patrons, like me, often ask drivers about problem areas and why people have to wait for a long time. The feedback I have received from taxi drivers is that in Kings Cross they have nowhere to stop. Hopefully people will be able to move away more quickly if those roads are closed on peak nights. I hope that positive initiative is taken up. Licensees have also proposed to do what many community groups do, that is, fund police to attend special events.

Licensees in the Kings Cross area have said that they are willing to pay to ensure that more police are on the street, but that has not been accepted, which I find very difficult to understand. The police have considered this proposal and have quite rightly said that it is up to the Commissioner of Police to determine where resources are needed. However, it is also entirely reasonable for there to be more police on the streets of Kings Cross regularly, and local businesses, hopefully not just those 35 major licensed premises, have to provide some funding for that. The Opposition view is that Friday and Saturday nights in Kings Cross should be treated in the same way as a major event is treated. Alan Jones said that this week on the radio, as have a number of other people—

Dr John Kaye: It must be right then.

The Hon. STEVE WHAN: I am pleased that people other than those in the industry are starting to scrutinise these measures; it has taken a good while. In the summer, when approximately 20,000 people are in Kings Cross, the area should be treated like a special event is treated. I know the Minister will say that the police roster people at times of large crowds, as it should, but I believe it is entirely reasonable and it would be very helpful if Kings Cross businesses could assist with funding extra police in the area in the same way that many local shows in country New South Wales have to fund events.

The Hon. Michael Gallacher: Not too many country ones.

The Hon. STEVE WHAN: The Minister has whispered "not too many country ones". I think Hawkesbury did a year or so ago. 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24089

The Hon. Michael Gallacher: It is not quite country.

The Hon. STEVE WHAN: Once upon a time it was. I recognise comments have been made that the police do not want to take money directly off licensed premises as there could be a conflict of interest. I suggest that it should then be possible for the Government to negotiate potentially providing that funding via, for instance, the City of Sydney by participants in the Liquor Accord or even by a broader special rate levy for businesses that are open late in the Kings Cross area. I believe the Government should pursue that matter to try to get more police out on the street. The Opposition has made many calls for extra trains to be provided. The response of the Government was to increase the number of buses.

I have been given information by people who operate businesses in the area, and they say that extra buses are not effective in moving crowds away in a short time—trains are the only answer. On peak nights trains to and from Kings Cross should operate to ensure the quick movement of people so that they do not linger and potentially get into trouble while waiting for transport. I have raised my concerns about the discretionary power of the director general. Legitimate concerns have been raised about tourists having to produce passports to get into venues. We must recognise that Kings Cross is a tourist destination. Figures on tourism around Australia have been provided as part of the recent review of tourism in New South Wales.

Interestingly, that showed the ratings amongst people around Australia of the various cities and their attractiveness as a tourist destination. Sydney scored the number one position in only one area and that was in night-life. One would hope that when people come to Sydney for the night-life they are able to have a positive experience and, most importantly, a safe experience. We should also recognise that a key part of that for many people—and I am sure it was a key part for the visiting naval officers, sea men and women who came to Sydney recently—is Kings Cross. It has an international reputation and appeals to many international visitors.

Under this bill international visitors will have to produce identification to go into venues and that is likely to be their passport. I do not know about other members of this place, but if I were overseas and going to a nightspot I would be a little reluctant to be carting around my passport, so I ask the Government to consider that matter. The bill continues to push much of the burden onto licensed premises. All parties need to examine the fact that the bill again ignores the critical role that pre-fuelling plays in the incidents that occur in many nightspots around the country. People, and young people in particular, buy alcohol at much cheaper prices from bottle shops and off-licence premises.

Indeed, I am told that some parents provide alcohol for their children. They then go to venues and gain entry because at that stage they do not appear too drunk. However, it takes only one or two drinks for them to become extremely drunk. This is a matter of considerable concern for licensed premises because it is difficult to judge what stage they have reached by keeping tabs on how many drinks people have consumed, whether they have had too many and whether the service of alcohol should be stopped. I acknowledge it is hard for the Government to deal with pre-fuelling through legislation. However, we should continue to focus on this issue through education.

I believe we also need to examine the ability of people to obtain extremely cheap, high-strength alcohol—the sort that apparently was a factor that led to the tragic death of Thomas Kelly in Kings Cross. His killer had drunk copious amounts of alcohol before he arrived in the area. The problems caused by easy access to relatively cheap alcohol do not apply only to the events and assaults we see in or near licensed premises; it is also a major factor in domestic violence and alcohol abuse and adds to the huge cost burden of alcohol in the community. We should continue to examine ways to deal with those matters. Without wanting to be a wowser and restrict access to alcohol, it is important to consult with the Federal Government about the cheap price of some strong alcohol, including poor but large volume wines.

The Opposition has indicated its overall support for the bill. The Opposition supports identification scanning. I have outlined the Opposition's key issues with the bill, such as privacy, times of operation and, in the longer term, the powers of the director general. I continue to urge the Government to consider measures to tackle these issues. New South Wales is seeing an increased focus on some of the violence that occurs in our night spots. Unfortunately, often the mixture of illegal drugs and alcohol causes significant problems for licensed premises, law enforcement and, most importantly, families and victims. This is a big challenge for society because these problems cannot and will not be solved by legislation. Unfortunately, they are a part of society and it is hard to explain why somebody would go out looking for a fight.

Recently I heard an interview with somebody who had been looking for trouble on a night out. Members who are in their late forties like me would remember that when people went out they had quite a bit to 24090 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

drink, but I did not notice nearly as much aggression. It is a sad reflection on society that we are now seeing that aggression. All these problems will not be solved by cracking down on this behaviour, making it harder to get alcohol or trying to prevent people from congregating in areas. Only a portion of that can be addressed through legislation and in doing so we must be careful that we do not unduly punish people who drink responsibly and who simply want a quiet night out with a couple of friends or those who live locally and want to have lunch or a quiet dinner at the pub with family and friends and then go home. It is a difficult balance and I am sure it has taxed the Minister's mind and the minds of others. With those comments I indicate the Opposition's support for the bill.

Reverend the Hon. FRED NILE [9.16 p.m.]: On behalf of the Christian Democratic Party, I am very pleased to speak in support of the Liquor Amendment (Kings Cross Plan of Management) Bill 2013. As members have heard me state previously, I have always been greatly concerned about the welfare of people who live in Kings Cross. I was born there—I lived at 140 Darlinghurst Road—and I have always taken a keen interest in the future of Kings Cross. Members may remember that over the years I have organised marches of concerned citizens into Kings Cross for the purposes of changing Kings Cross from a centre of vice to a centre of virtue.

Dr John Kaye: That was successful, wasn't it?

Reverend the Hon. FRED NILE: It has improved since those days. Child pornography was being sold in the main street of Kings Cross and we got rid of that, so there has been some success. I am not saying it is all rosy—we still have strip joints and brothels. Obviously, I would rather see all of those closed down and for Kings Cross not to have any red light activity. I would rather it be a civilised place with entertainment where anyone could go to enjoy themselves, including families. An aspect of the bill that has caused considerable discussion, particularly on the Alan Jones show, relates to linked identity scanners to record the identity of patrons and other persons, the purpose being to ban persons who are involved in violent activity. These scanners will be installed in 35 high-risk premises that have a patron capacity of more than 120 patrons.

On my birthday only a few weeks ago I experienced something unusual. I booked a table for my family at the St George Motor Boat Club. I was getting a lift to the club so I did not take my driver's licence. When I arrived the rest of my family signed in but when I came to sign in, I was asked for my driver's licence. I had booked the table in my name and I said, "You know who I am." However, the lady in charge said, "That makes no difference at all. You are not going to enter the club without your driver's licence."

I stood there puzzled for a while and then said, "Is there any way to get in?" She said, "I suggest you join the club." So I filled in the form, had my photograph taken and waited for them to produce the membership card with my photo so I could enter the club. It proves the point that registered clubs have got identification scanners and they are strictly enforcing their use. I congratulate the clubs. I am not critical of the club. I was pleasantly surprised that I could not pull rank and get in without going through the procedures. I do not think the people that operate these venues in Kings Cross should be upset with the expansion of use of identity scanners. It is a good move. It will apply at this stage only to those 35 late-trading premises that have been selected by the Government agencies.

The Government has made many other changes and I congratulate it for what it has been doing over the past 12 months and the effect it has had. Those changes include the current liquor freeze applying to Kings Cross, which has been extended until December 2015. It means that no new high-impact licensed premises such as hotels and nightclubs can be established in Kings Cross during that period. Furthermore, under the plan of management licensees and staff of Kings Cross licensed premises are required to complete responsible service of alcohol training to ensure that they have recent and contemporary knowledge of the responsible service laws and hold a competency card. The Christian Democratic Party commends the Government for these moves in the right direction.

The bill before the House contains further ways to increase the safety of patrons in Kings Cross. The bill will enable precinct-wide temporary banning orders to be issued by the police for up to 24 hours. A temporary banning order can be issued to a person who refuses to comply with a move-on direction given by police and can also be applied to a person who is drunk, violent or disorderly and refuses to leave licensed premises or the vicinity of licensed premises or attempts to re-enter licensed premises within 24 hours of being asked to leave.

A temporary banning order for up to 48 hours can apply to one or more licensed premises in the Kings Cross precinct. A temporary banning order can only be issued by a police officer above the rank of sergeant who 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24091

is satisfied that the person's continued conduct is likely to cause a public nuisance or a risk to public safety. Despite all those provisions the most successful way to ensure safety in Kings Cross is to have a greater police presence patrolling Kings Cross on the footpath so people visiting Kings Cross can feel safe and people out to cause trouble can be quickly identified and apprehended. To do that you have to have adequate numbers of police officers stationed at Kings Cross to ensure those policies can be implemented.

The bill also enables the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority to issue a long-term precinct-wide banning order that prohibits the subject of that order from entering or attempting to enter high-risk licensed premises in the Kings Cross precinct for up to 12 months. A long-term banning order can only be issued by the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority when it is satisfied that a person has been charged with or found guilty of a serious criminal offence involving alcohol-related violence or the person has been issued with three temporary banning orders in the previous 12 months. The new banning orders strengthen existing banning provisions available to all licensees under the liquor laws.

All of those provisions send a very loud and clear message to troublemakers visiting Kings Cross that if they make trouble they face a ban from entering all high-risk licensed premises in the precinct for up to 12 months. The bans empower police and improve the safety of Kings Cross patrons by ensuring that serious troublemakers do not cause ongoing problems for the operators of licensed premises. If they continue to defy the police maximum penalties of $5,500 or a $550 penalty notice will apply where a person subject to a temporary banning order enters or attempts to enter any Kings Cross licensed premises. A maximum penalty of $5,500 or a $2,200 penalty notice will also apply where a person enters or attempts to re-enter a high-risk licensed venue while subject to a long-term banning order.

The police do a tough job very well and as members know the Christian Democratic Party strongly supports the police in their role in this State. As members know I have two sons who have served in the police force for over 20 years and I have personal knowledge of the tough job that our police have to do in New South Wales and how well they do it. That has given me personal knowledge which I know other members also have. This bill will empower the NSW Police Force. To ensure natural justice principles are maintained, the bill will enable a person who is the subject of a long-term banning order to seek a review of the authority's decision by the Administrative Decisions Tribunal.

I am concerned that there is a lot of controversy about the identity scanners. Information I have received from the Australian Hotels Association states that identification scanning during peak trading periods on Friday and Saturday nights was recommended to the Government by the Australian Hotels Association based on the successful implementation of a similar system in the Newcastle central business district by the late-trading licensees themselves. The Government has taken up that proposal. Maybe the Government would have done it without the recommendation from the Australian Hotels Association but it helps to have the support of the association itself. The Australian Hotels Association is not happy with some of the provisions that have been announced concerning the operation of the identification scanning and the hours that have been announced. I know they are being reviewed by the Government as I speak. I am confident the Government will produce the right formula.

The original announcement stated identification scanning would occur Monday to Wednesday from 7.00 p.m. to 7.00 a.m., Thursday to Monday from 7.00 p.m. to 7.00 a.m. continuously, and on public holidays from 7.00 p.m. the preceding evening. This does not seem to fit in with the main times those premises are being used and the times when there are more dangers from behaviour that is going to create problems for the public. In other words, the identification scanning should probably be restricted to Friday and Saturday nights. Including the daylight hours on Friday and Sunday is unnecessary. The nights are when the problems arise. The Government is considering that situation. Based on the statistics we have it appears that the key risk times for assaults occurring in and around licensed premises in Kings Cross are on Friday and Saturday nights. It should be a priority for the Government to ensure that those hours are covered by the bill and the regulations.

The bill will assist the Government in the trial of the identification scanners. It is a positive move. The identification scanners should be expanded to other premises. It has been suggested they be installed in the strip joints and brothels in Kings Cross. I am opposed to strip joints and brothels but I recognise that they exist. To be fair all locations where there could be unsocial or violent behaviour should have identification scanners installed. I note—and members know this already—the impact that alcohol is having on our society. In the most recent figures supplied in the New South Wales Government data, over a three-month period commencing 1 December 2012 to 28 February 2013 it was projected there would be 7,883 alcohol-related assaults, including 3,086 alcohol-related domestic violence assaults. 24092 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

The data also indicates that alcohol use and misuse impacts significantly on the New South Wales health system, with 4,474 treatment episodes where alcohol is the principal drug of concern and 12,352 alcohol-related hospitalisations. Those figures confirm what we already know; that is, that alcohol is having a serious impact on our society. These measures are necessary and I believe they will be beneficial. The bill provides for a 12-month trial and I hope it will be successful. If it is, it could be extended and reviewed every five years. This legislation will result in less antisocial violence and fewer grieving families.

Dr JOHN KAYE [9.31 p.m.]: I speak on the behalf The Greens on the Liquor Amendment (Kings Cross Plan of Management) Bill 2013. This bill is the latest attempt by the O'Farrell Government to address the perception and reality of violence in Kings Cross. It contains a number of measures that certainly sound attractive to those who are concerned about the ongoing venue-related violence occurring in Kings Cross. However, a closer examination suggests that they are probably not as effective as the Government suggests and in some cases could have perverse outcomes that might result in a more dangerous situation. I will deal with the measures in the bill one by one and explain The Greens' concerns, which I invite the Minister to address in his speech in reply.

The first aspect of the bill that causes concern is that it provides for a temporary precinct-wide ban to be imposed on individuals for less than 48 hours by the police or a long-term precinct-wide ban to be imposed by the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority for up to 12 months. The long-term precinct-wide ban can be appealed before the Administrative Decisions Tribunal. The Government argues vehemently that this legislation is designed to remove hooligans from Kings Cross, and that sounds particularly attractive coming from the lips of the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. Unfortunately, the problem is that those individuals who are issued with a banning order will not simply go home to drink hot chocolate and watch television; they will be displaced to other entertainment areas, presumably to the south central business district, Oxford Street or other areas where there is no compulsory scanning or requirement to prove one's identity.

The Hon. Michael Gallacher: They will go to a sobering-up centre.

Dr JOHN KAYE: If that is the case there is probably no need to ban them. I presume the Minister is not suggesting he will keep people in sobering-up centres for a year if they have been banned for that long. Once they are banned, they will move to other entertainment venues and create trouble there. This legislation will not solve the problem; it will simply move it.

The Greens' second concern relates to the determination of high-risk venues, of which there are supposedly 35. They include venues which cater for more than 120 patrons, which have a liquor licence and which operate after midnight. They also include venues specified by regulation or by the director general. The 35 high-risk venues, or more, will be required to scan the identification of each patron. I have a number of concerns about this measure. The first relates to the definition of "high-risk". I draw the Minister's attention to the case of Barrio Chino, a Kings Cross restaurant operated by Mr Peter Lew. Mr Lew has contacted me by email and phone raising his concerns, and I invite the Minister to respond to them. Barrio Chino is a Mexican restaurant—

The Hon. Michael Gallacher: Have you been there?

Dr JOHN KAYE: No, I have not, but I have perused the menu. The restaurant caters for more than 120 patrons and has a primary service authority; that is, it can serve alcohol. It is a not a fine dining venue, so it is automatically captured by the definition in proposed new section 116AA (2) (a). Mr Lew told me—and the menu supports his contention—that it is not a high-risk venue because it is patronised largely by locals and older people who simply want some food and a drink. Mr Lew also told me that his venue has no history of violence. Under proposed section 116AA (3), the regulations can create exceptions for venues captured by section 116AA (2) (a).

I ask the Minister to give the House an undertaking that he will review the case of Barrio Chino and other similar venues which do not offer fine dining but which have a primary service authority. Mr Lew claims—and I am inclined to believe him—that scanning the identity of patrons at his venue will deter them. It will create an apprehension that it is a violent venue and that will result in reduced patronage. He must operate late at night to make a living. I believe it is an unhealthy habit, but some people like to eat after midnight.

The Hon. Dr Peter Phelps: Have you never had a midnight falafel roll?

Dr JOHN KAYE: I have and I probably will not live as long as I otherwise would have as a result. 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24093

The Hon. Melinda Pavey: Starve yourself.

Dr JOHN KAYE: The Parliamentary Secretary suggests that we starve ourselves. The situation facing Mr Lew might not be unique. I ask the Minister to confirm that he will exercise his discretion to create a regulation under proposed new section 116AA (3) to deal with those cases. The Greens' second concern about identification scanning relates to privacy. A large amount of data will be collected from the venues and held at a central collection point by a body or persons chosen by the director general, and that body or those persons will operate under conditions specified by the director general. The Greens believe that this raises major privacy concerns, particularly for young women who front up to a venue and produce their identification for scanning. That presents real privacy and personal safety risks.

Proposed section 116AC suggests that each venue has a privacy plan consistent with the guidelines created by the director general. The operation of a centralised database has to be consistent with the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988. We are concerned that there are no protections to prevent the venue or the central database collector from using the data for commercial purposes. We would like the Minister to address the ways in which the legislation or the director general will specify the conditions for both the venues and the centralised aggregator of data to stop that data from being used for commercial purposes.

Our second concern is the capacity of the police to use the data for surveillance purposes that go well beyond the purposes for which the data was originally collected. We note that the Commissioner of Police will have the capacity to specify what data is kept and will have access to those data, as the opposition spokesman said. We are concerned that there are inadequate protections to stop the police using those data beyond the purposes for which they were intended. We are concerned that the legislation as it stands creates a major breach of privacy.

Our third concern is who pays for the centralised collection. We understand the venues themselves will pay for the scanners and for the operation of the scanners. However, as we have been told, the liquor accord will pay for the centralised data collection and handling. I ask the Minister to confirm or deny that that is the case. If it is the liquor accord, there are many members of the Kings Cross Precinct Liquor Accord whose behaviour works against violent patrons. They are responsible servers of alcohol who have created a culture in their venues that works against violence, yet those venues are being asked to pay for the management of the data for identification scanning at the 35 venues that are supposedly high risk. It seems they are being unnecessarily punished. We ask the Minister to respond to that.

Our fourth concern goes to the powers of the director general. It appears the director general is being given yet another suite of broad-ranging powers including determining who is within and who is not within the requirements for scanning. The director general will also determine the times of operation of the scanning and the data privacy requirements of the venues and the centralised data collector. As with the liquor promotion guidelines, this legislation extends the authority of the director general beyond being the chief administrator of a policy to being a regulator. In the case of the times of operation of the scheme, the director general would be a policy-maker as well. We think this is wrong in principle and it creates an inadequate outcome. Functions such as setting policy and acting as a regulator should be held by the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority, by Parliament and by Executive Government, not by the director general. We are concerned that the O'Farrell Government has a tendency to give additional powers to the director general. These powers go beyond what is appropriate for a senior member of the bureaucracy.

Our fifth concern goes to the issue of the hours of operation of the scanning system. We understand the Government has made what everybody in this Chamber has said is a sensible amendment to the original position. The 35 venues will be required to have ID scanners from 7.00 p.m. on Friday to 7.00 a.m. on Monday, leaving aside public holidays. That is an advance. There is no reason why the scanning system should operate on other evenings. We understand that that is the instruction of the O'Farrell Government to the director general. That is a step forward, and will be a relief not just to venues in Kings Cross but more importantly from our perspective to Kings Cross community members who like to eat at some of these venues in a way that does not add to violence in the area. On the contrary, this creates a more community-focused environment which works against violence in Kings Cross.

If there is anything we all agree on it is that fundamentally we need a culture change towards the consumption of alcohol and towards the venues in the Cross. Getting local community members who do not drink excessively to patronise these venues is a step in the right direction. Requiring scanning of ID cards will create an apprehension of a violent venue and will drive those individuals away. It not only imposes a cost on 24094 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

the venue but will turn patrons away. It is not just their concern for privacy but the creation of an apprehension of violence. Being asked to produce your identification card before you can sit down to eat at a restaurant sends a message that it is a violent venue, which will send patrons packing.

By creating a sense of risk, the O'Farrell Government is working against the outcome it is seeking to achieve. No doubt the Government will argue that patrons will feel safer because they are safer with the hooligans being kept out. I doubt whether that works at lunchtime on a Saturday or Sunday, when it is fairly clear that Kings Cross is not a violent place. I have eaten in Kings Cross at lunchtime on a Saturday and found it to be a relatively safe and intriguing place. Many local people go there, but if they were asked to scan they would be less likely to go there. They are exactly the sorts of people we should be encouraging to come into the Cross to leaven out some of the hotter heads and to create a sense of a safer environment. I ask the Minister to address the issue of lunchtime on Saturdays and Sundays. At the Committee stage we will consider amendments. Will the Minister consider creating or at least trialling exemptions for daylight hours on weekends for venues that show no violence during those periods and where it would be a social benefit to have people coming into the area?

In summary, the Greens have a number of concerns with this bill. The banning orders will create a displacement effect and drive some of the abusers of alcohol, some who behave violently, into other areas. The definition of the 35 high-risk venues is blunt and may well be creating a perverse outcome, particularly in the case of the restaurant I mentioned, Mr Peter Lew's Barrio Chino. We have raised issues of privacy, who pays for the centralised scanning and the power of the director general. We have raised the important issue of the hours of operation. In particular, we are challenging the issue of daylight hours on weekends and why it is necessary to scan during these hours. Does the Minister have any data to show that violence is occurring during those hours and is there any benefit to scanning? Would it not be better to create exceptions for that time?

In the end this legislation will get through and we will have some view in 12 months or maybe two years as to whether it is successful. But it still seems to us that the O'Farrell Government is nibbling around the edges, as indeed its Labor predecessors did. If the Government were serious about reducing alcohol-related violence it would make the responsible service of alcohol mean something. It would get really tough with those venues that continue to serve people while they are intoxicated. It would seriously enforce the responsible service of alcohol, including having plain-clothes rangers go into venues to observe without being observed those venues that continue to serve patrons while they are under the influence of alcohol, and it would require venues to undertake changes that will work towards culture change. The O'Farrell Government could be doing a variety of things without traversing the privacy and the safety of individuals who use these venues.

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER (Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for the Hunter, and Vice-President of the Executive Council) [9.50 p.m.], in reply: I thank members for their contributions to debate on the Liquor Amendment (Kings Cross Plan of Management) Bill 2013. Since September 2012 the Government has introduced a number of measures to clean up Kings Cross and improve the amenity and safety of the precinct for both residents and visitors. The first stage of the Government's plan of management saw tough new conditions imposed on licensed premises, including drink restrictions, the engagement of responsible service of alcohol marshals and the use of closed-circuit television.

Licensees and staff have been required to complete updated responsible service of alcohol training to ensure they have contemporary knowledge of the responsible serving laws. The liquor freeze in Kings Cross has been extended until December 2015. A small bar licence has been introduced to provide a regulatory incentive for the operation of smaller venues that are easier to manage and less likely to contribute to community harm. A trial of sobering up centres, including one in the Sydney central business district, is also underway to help deal with intoxicated troublemakers who refuse police requests to move on. New transport options have been introduced in Kings Cross to help get large numbers of people home late at night, including extra bus services to Town Hall and Central stations and better security at taxi ranks. However, the Government also recognises that there is more work to be done in Kings Cross to secure its safety and amenity.

This bill represents the second tranche of the Government's efforts to reduce alcohol-related violence in Kings Cross. Those measures are having a positive impact in the Kings Cross precinct. Between the start of new licence conditions in December 2012 and March 2013 there was a 33 per cent reduction in violent incidents on licensed premises compared to the corresponding period in the previous year. The banning order arrangements implemented by this bill will further improve the precinct's safety and enable swift action to be taken against troublemakers. The bill will require high-risk venues in Kings Cross to install linked ID scanners to record the identity of all patrons and banned persons. ID scanners will be required to be operated and patron identification scanned in 35 high-risk venues. 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24095

The Government appreciates the need for robust privacy protections to address concerns about the collection of patron's identification details and the potential for private information to be misused. On balance, the Government believes there are strong public interest reasons to collect identification details of patrons entering high-risk venues in Kings Cross. Principally it will help police and licensees identify people who are the subject of a temporary or long-term banning order and those people can be stopped at the door and turned away. It sends a powerful message to potential troublemakers that there are serious consequences should they misbehave and it helps to ensure the integrity of the banning order system. However, it is important that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect the privacy of all patrons who will be required to have their identification scanned.

Visitors to licensed premises in Kings Cross will rightly expect that their private information is protected and there are serious consequences for those who do not comply with data protection requirements. The bill includes privacy safeguards and these have been developed following consultation with the Privacy Commissioner. The operator of the Kings Cross ID scanner system, which will not be at any individual venues, will be required to be approved by the Director General, New South Wales Trade and Investment, in concurrence with the police commissioner and this process will examine the probity of the operator of the overall system. No individual venue will have access to the scanned information. The director general can impose conditions relating to system operations, including the disposal and retention of the data held on the system.

The bill provides that the operator of the scanning system cannot be a close associate of a licensee nor have an interest in licensed premises, to avoid the potential for information to be shared between the operator of the scanning system and licensees. High-risk venues will not have access to data captured by the scanners once a person's identification has been scanned. Those venues will only be alerted by the ID scanner when a person who is the subject of a temporary or long-term banning order attempts to enter the venue. Approval to operate the identification scanning system is also subject to a number of statutory conditions to help safeguard data held on the system. Those conditions include a requirement that the approved system provider must comply with the Commonwealth Privacy Act in relation to the protection of any personal data held by the system. Also, any data must not be transferred outside Australia or New Zealand. Data will only be able to be held for up to 30 days or for a longer period to cover the duration of a long-term banning order issued by the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority or at the request of police.

In this regard, police may request data to be held for more than 30 days for a person who has breached a temporary banning order. If police or other law enforcement agencies seek access to data held on the ID scanner system for purposes other than alcohol-related offences, that would require a search warrant being obtained. Nothing in this bill broadens police powers in this regard or restricts the operation of New South Wales or Commonwealth privacy legislation. Licensees of high-risk venues will be required, via a licence condition, to implement a privacy management plan and a privacy policy that have been approved by the Kings Cross Accord and the relevant industry association. Licensees will also be required to comply with Commonwealth Privacy Act requirements with respect to the protection of any personal information recorded by a patron identification scanner operating in the venue.

Breach of a liquor licence condition by a licensee is a serious offence with a maximum penalty of up to $11,000 or imprisonment for 12 months, or both. For high-risk venues, licensees and those staff operating identification scanners will be required to undertake a privacy training course which will focus on relevant provisions in this bill as well as on Federal privacy requirements. It is expected that this course of training will be able to be completed online through the website of the Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing. Those who successfully complete privacy training will be issued with a certificate by the Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing, which will be valid for up to 28 days while a new responsible service of alcohol competency card is issued that will contain a privacy endorsement.

As a further safeguard, police and the director general will be able to apply to the authority to have a staff member's competency card suspended or revoked where it is considered that the person has contravened their privacy obligations or misused a person's data. This is a significant sanction to ensure personal information is not abused or provided to others for any reason, as the revocation of a person's competency card effectively takes away their ability to work in licensed premises. The definition of high-risk venues will focus on those venues that trade after midnight, venues that have a capacity of more than 120 patrons and venues that are prescribed by regulation or are designated by the Director General, New South Wales Trade and Investment in concurrence with the police commissioner. 24096 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

It is proposed that the following 35 high-risk venues will be prescribed by regulation and will be required to operate identification scanners: Bada Bing Night Spot, Beachhaus, Barrio Chino, Candy's Nightclub, Club 21, Crane Bar Restaurant Pty Ltd, Dancers Cabaret, Disco Nightclub Pty Ltd, Dreamgirls, First Empire Hotel, Hampton Court Hotel, Hugo's Lounge, Iguana Bar and Restaurant, le panic, Mansions Hotel, Moulin Rouge, Nightclub, O'Malleys Hotel, Piccadilly Hotel, Sapphire Lounge, Showgirls, Sugarmill Hotel, Suite17, The Backroom, The Bank Hotel Sydney, The Bourbon, The Crest Hotel, The Kings Cross Hotel, The Lincoln Bar, The Palladium Restaurant, The Village Potts Point Pty Ltd, The World Bar, Trademark Hotel and Tunnel Nightclub.

As noted earlier, the bill provides that the director general can designate a licensed premises as a high-risk venue. This provides the necessary flexibility to respond immediately by the addition of venues that are demonstrating that they present a high risk to community safety. The bill provides in schedule 3 that a decision by the director general to designate a licensed premises as a high-risk venue will be reviewable by the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority under section 36A of the Gaming and Liquor Administration Act 2007.

Pursuant to sessional orders business interrupted to permit a motion to adjourn the House if desired.

The House continued to sit.

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER: The Government has further considered the hours of operation of ID scanners for these 35 high-risk venues since the bill was introduced. The Government has determined that risk factors, compliance history, operational implications and the need for consistency should inform the director general's notification to licensees regarding the ID scanner operating hours. However the Government has recognised that unique risk factors are present between 7.00 p.m. Friday evening and 7.00 a.m. Monday morning and that this period of trading requires the operation of ID scanners to address the risk of harm presented by troublesome individuals.

Likewise, public holidays can also present unique risks and venues may be subject to a requirement to continuously operate ID scanners on these days. The director general may also nominate other days and times of operations of ID scanners to capture any other unique risks of harm presented at particular times in the Kings Cross precinct. The times of operation of ID scanners will be established via a notice from the director general to licensees under proposed section 116AC of the Liquor Act as inserted by this bill. The proposed hours strike a balance between minimising the risk of banned troublemakers entering high-risk venues and the impact of requiring ID scanners to be operated at all times. I think it fair to say that flexibility in some regards is very important.

The banning order provisions, which are intended to make Kings Cross premises safer, need to be supported by practical measures so that banned troublemakers can be stopped at the door and cannot attempt to circumvent a banning order. Additionally the director general will be able to consider a request from the licensee of a high-risk venue for different hours of operation for ID scanners where an assessment of the risks involved and operational issues warrant consideration of such a request. The director general will need to consider the evidence presented in support of a request for different ID scanner hours in the context of the very strong message the Government is sending via this bill to licensees and patrons in Kings Cross about the importance of ensuring a safer precinct and reducing alcohol-related crime.

The effect of the scanning system will be closely monitored and reviewed. It is also important to keep in mind that only high-risk venues—of which there are 35 at present—will be required to operate ID scanners. As there are 135 licensed premises in the Kings Cross precinct, that leaves 100 premises—most of which are restaurants or smaller venues—which local residents and visitors can continue to enter without the need to have their ID scanned at any time. The bill does not require licensees and staff to hold an offending patron on the premises as that is not the proper role of private individuals. The bill has been developed in consultation with police, who see the value of banning orders in helping to improve the safety of licensed premises in the Kings Cross precinct. Police would respond accordingly to a request from a licensee for assistance to eject a violent, disorderly or intoxicated patron or prevent their entry, which could then result in a banning order being imposed on the spot.

The bill provides that a breach of a Kings Cross licence condition in relation to the operation of ID scanners can result in the incurrence of a strike under the three strikes disciplinary scheme. It is important to 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24097

note that the imposition of conditions on a licensed venue as a result of a strike and a decision to suspend or cancel a licence or disqualify a licensee following a third strike is a discretionary decision and is not an automatic outcome. Decisions made by the director general in relation to first and second strikes are reviewable by the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority. Decisions by the authority in relation to a third strike are reviewable by the Administrative Decisions Tribunal. These review mechanisms ensure that the legislation contains appropriate safeguards.

I turn to the types of identification documents that patrons can use. The bill provides that identification used by patrons must include the person's name, date of birth and/or the person's residential address and a photograph of the person. The types of identification documents that patrons will be able to use when entering high-risk venues will be determined through the system specifications that will be settled with the system operator. Appropriately the Kings Cross Liquor Accord will be involved in this process. Through this process the accord can consider the views of the operators of high-risk venues and the types of identification that should be produced by patrons for ID scanning purposes. It is expected that this process would take into consideration the large numbers of domestic and international visitors to Kings Cross and in particular the concerns that international visitors may have if they were to be required to carry their passport with them to gain entry to licensed premises.

A question was asked about what action can be taken where a person has been issued with a temporary banning order but remains in the vicinity of the licensed premises. Police can direct a person to leave the premises under the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002. A person who refuses to comply with the direction of the police officer to leave the vicinity can be issued with a temporary banning order. Police can apply to the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority for a longer-term banning order where a person has been issued with three temporary banning orders over 12 months, and a longer-term banning order can be issued by the authority to prevent a person from entering high-risk premises in the Kings Cross precinct for up to six months. I commend the bill to the House.

Question—That this bill be now read a second time—put and resolved in the affirmative.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

In Committee

Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.

Dr JOHN KAYE [10.08 p.m.], by leave: I move The Greens amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3 on sheet C2013- 137C in globo:

No. 1 Page 6, schedule 1 [7], proposed section 116AC (1) (c), line 2. Omit "and the time of use".

No. 2 Page 6, schedule 1 [7], proposed section 116AC. Insert after line 16:

(3) Time of use of patron ID scanners

Subsection (1) (a) and (b) apply at such times as may be required by the Director-General and notified to the licensee concerned.

(4) However, the Director-General cannot require the use of patron ID scanners during the period between 7 am each Monday and 7 pm the following Thursday except in the case where any such period falls within a 12 hour period commencing 7 pm on the day before a public holiday declared under section 4 of the Public Holidays Act 2010.

No. 3 Page 6, schedule 1 [7], proposed section 116AC. Insert before line 17:

(5) Despite subsection (3), the Director-General may only require the use of patron ID scanners at the following times if authorised to do so by the regulations:

(a) from 7 pm each Thursday to 7 pm the following Friday,

(b) from 7 am to 7 pm every Saturday and Sunday.

The intent of these amendments is to exclude from the hours of operation of the ID scanning system the period from 7.00 a.m. Monday to 7.00 p.m. Thursday, and to allow the director general to require a venue to operate 24098 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

patron ID scanners in the hours between 7.00 p.m. Thursday and 7.00 p.m. Friday, and 7.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, only if she or he is empowered to do so by the regulations. These amendments respond to concerns expressed to my office by residents of Kings Cross that scanning on Monday to Wednesday nights and, in some cases, during the day on Thursdays, Fridays and weekends would be unnecessary as most of the violent behaviour occurs on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights and many of the worst venues are closed earlier in the week. Secondly, scanning would impose a burden on venues seeking to serve their local community by providing dining opportunities.

Scanning would work against the civilising of the precinct on weeknights by creating an environment of surveillance and restrictions, undermining moves to a more community-friendly atmosphere; and discourage community members from dining at local venues on those nights and at those lunchtimes. The operation of the ID scanning system during those times would do little to curb violent behaviour in Kings Cross and would have the perverse outcome of undermining the ability of local residents to improve the weeknight and daytime weekend amenity of their precinct. The legislation as it stands does not impose restrictions on the times during which venues can be required to operate identification scanners. This matter is left to the director general to determine. The Minister has signalled his intention to require scanning at venues from 7.00 p.m. on Fridays continuously through to 7.00 a.m. on Mondays, as well as on public holidays and the evening preceding public holidays.

These amendments will ensure that the patron identification scanners would not operate all day Monday, Tuesdays and Wednesdays as well as Thursdays during the day. Further, the amendments will create a regulatory power to permit the director general to require a venue or class of venues to operate scanners on Thursday nights as well as during the day on Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays if it were deemed necessary for each individual premises, group or class of premises, as specified in the regulation. Therefore these amendments maintain the degree of flexibility that the Government believes it needs—and I accept they do—while at the same time provide some degree of certainty for those venues that do the right thing and opportunities for those members of the community who are seeking to dine and use the facilities within their own area.

The data shows that the problem times for alcohol-related violence are primarily on Friday and Saturday nights. Requiring venues to operate scanner systems during the day when their premises are primarily providing food during these times is onerous and heavy handed and works against making Kings Cross safer. By requiring patrons to present identification to the venue in which they want to have lunch or dinner on the weekend it will send a signal to them that they are entering a dangerous and violent venue. That will drive away people who are purely interested in having a meal and maybe a drink with it. It, therefore, has a perverse outcome.

It would be reasonable for the regulations to specify which premises have been deemed to be sufficiently high risk that scanners must operate throughout the weekend period, not just in the evenings. The amendments will also allow for the assessment of each venue on its own track record rather than attempting to deal with the current so-called 35 high-risk venues as a whole when their businesses and behaviour differ quite dramatically. The amendments also contain a requirement to operate scanners on evenings preceding a public holiday as it is clear these are widely treated as equivalent to a Friday night.

These amendments maintain the flexibility sought by the Government and lock in a degree of certainty both for the venues and the community. The intent of these amendments is to allow the good venues to be able to operate without identification scanners and to allow patrons to re-enter Kings Cross and dine there and be part of the culture change that will do more to undermine the atmosphere of violence and excessive drinking than any law or regulation could possibly do. For that reason, I commend the amendments to the Committee.

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER (Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for the Hunter, and Vice-President of the Executive Council) [10.14 p.m.]: I thank Dr John Kaye for moving these amendments in globo. The Government does not support these amendments which would prescribe the hours that identification scanners are not required to be operated in high-risk venues in Kings Cross. The view of the Government is that the amendments are unnecessary as the bill does not prescribe the operating hours for identification scanners. The times of operation of these scanners will be established by a notice from the director general to licensees under proposed section 116AC of the Liquor Act as inserted by this bill.

This is an appropriate approach that provides flexibility and allows operating hours of identification scanners to be varied in response to changes in risk which may require further consideration of identification scanner hours into the future. It enables a rapid response to changes in circumstances, including any spike in 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24099

alcohol-related incidents in and around Kings Cross licensed premises or, indeed, any variation in the time or days of the week incidents occur. It allows additional operating hours for identification scanners to be considered for peak periods such as the festive season, whilst different operating hours may be considered for off-peak periods, such as the winter months.

This approach also enables identification scanner operating times to be varied to take into account occasions where large numbers of patrons are expected in Kings Cross venues, outside the times proposed by these amendments. For example, high-risk times such as St Patricks Day or State of Origin and Melbourne Cup Day. Whilst a formal review of the identification scanner provisions will be undertaken after 12 months, the Government will be monitoring the impact of these provisions from day one and will obtain feedback from key stakeholders, including venue operators, the Kings Cross Liquor Accord, industry associations and the NSW Police Force. That feedback will help inform any decisions to vary the operating hours of identification scanners, taking into consideration all available data and associated risks. For those reasons, the Government does not support these amendments.

The Hon. STEVE WHAN [10.16 p.m.]: In my contribution to the second reading debate on this bill I outlined the Opposition's position generally. I am concerned about the powers of the director general, as indicated earlier. Whilst there is appeal in having an element of regulation in this process over which the Parliament can have scrutiny, I am convinced by the Government's arguments in this case and the Opposition will not support the amendments.

Question—That The Greens amendments Nos 1 to 3 [C2013-137C] be agreed to—put and resolved in the negative.

The Greens amendments Nos 1 to 3 [C2013-137C] negatived.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Schedules 2 and 3 agreed to.

Title agreed to.

Bill reported from Committee without amendment.

Adoption of Report

Motion by the Hon. Michael Gallacher agreed to:

That the report be adopted.

Report adopted.

Third Reading

Motion by the Hon. Michael Gallacher agreed to:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and returned to the Legislative Assembly without amendment.

CRIMES (SENTENCING PROCEDURE) AMENDMENT (STANDARD NON-PAROLE PERIODS) BILL 2013

Bill received from the Legislative Assembly, and read a first time and ordered to be printed on motion by the Hon. Michael Gallacher.

Motion by the Hon. Michael Gallacher agreed to:

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

Second reading set down as an order of the day for a later hour. 24100 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

ADJOURNMENT

The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER (Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for the Hunter, and Vice-President of the Executive Council) [10.20 p.m.]: I move:

That this House do now adjourn.

GRAINCORP TAKEOVER PROPOSAL

Mr SCOT MacDONALD [10.20 p.m.]: Wheat is one of New South Wales' most important industries and export commodities. The State typically produces around 8.5 million tonnes and exports about 3 million tonnes. It is, of course, highly variable and subject to weather, but New South Wales generally yields a third of the nation's crop. The wheat industry is once again the hot topic of agribusiness and agripolitics. I will address the proposed sale of GrainCorp to the United States-based Archer Daniels Midland Company [ADM]. The gatekeepers for this sale are the Federal bodies, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the Foreign Investment Review Board [FIRB] and the Federal Treasurer, but New South Wales has an interest in seeing that this critical industry is not mishandled or harmed by poor policy settings.

I should declare that I have share farmed one crop of wheat. I nourished a lot of armyworms that year, but in the end it was a respectable crop for the high rainfall zone. However, my interest is to see that this sale is treated on its merits and is not ensnared in emotive, irrational, personal politicking that has held back too many agricultural industries in the past. GrainCorp arose out of the New South Wales Department of Agriculture. In 1992 the New South Wales Grain Corporation was privatised and sold to the grower-controlled Prime Wheat Association. It was listed in 1998 as GrainCorp and has grown into a substantial Top 100 Australian Securities Exchange [ASX] company. It is important to note that growers now represent only a minority of shareholders on GrainCorp's shareholder list—less than one-fifth.

So we have to be clear that the appeals to consider this sale in terms of national interest have to be considered in the context of a freely traded, publicly listed company that could have its growth strategy impaired by politics. That is a precarious path for Australia's economy. The objections to the sale rest on a number of issues. First, that members of Archer Daniels Midland Company have not been good corporate citizens. It is perfectly valid to highlight this behaviour. Nevertheless, it has to be acknowledged that the price fixing of feed additives occurred in the mid-1990s. Archer Daniels Midland Company paid a heavy price, with a multimillion dollar fine and the jailing of an executive. To rule out a company based on a transgression 18 years ago is a long bow. That standard would knock out many of our top 100 companies. Rather, the correct approach is education, culture, vigilance, compliance and enforcement. Archer Daniels Midland Company will have to operate in the legal framework of this country.

The second argument is that controlling seven-eighths of grain handling infrastructure gifts a monopoly to the suitor. This one is a little hard to mount unless the argument is that an Australian Securities Exchange 100 monopolist is better than a foreign monopolist. That being the case, we are on the path to reversing 50 years of liberalised, open economic success. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission ruled that seven-eighths is not monopolistic. It is unquestionably market dominance and that is the legacy of State-owned up-country and port assets. The commission has said it would review any application to further concentrate the supply chain, but that is not before us in this proposal.

Another argument is that access to GrainCorp's grain handling assets by third party traders could be diminished. I have some sympathy for this concern. ADM has given verbal commitments that this will not be the case. The present arrangements are a consequence of State-built systems and as a result there is not a diversity of infrastructure and ownership. ADM says it needs third party transactions to make the flow-through viable, but Foreign Investment Review Board conditions to this effect, if only for a defined period, may be wise. The final argument is that ADM could consider closing some unviable up-country storage and handling infrastructure.

This one is straight out of the Wool Reserve Price Scheme playbook. Essentially the theory is that inefficient, uneconomic assets should be preserved regardless of the consequences and that government knows best how to oversight those choices. Naturally no consideration is given to the cost to the industry and its competitiveness. Unquestionably, GrainCorp is one of Australia's success stories. This should not prevent it from taking the next step, that is, foreign acquisition and integration into a world commodity and food ingredient supplier. Our agripoliticians talk a lot about seizing the opportunities in Asia. GrainCorp has identified this sale as a means of doing that and increasing shareholder value. 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24101

I think the best people to make that judgement are the owners of GrainCorp shares. My appeal is to take the politics out of this proposed sale. New South Wales under the Coalition Government is kicking goals and attracting foreign investment, foreign ownership and trade. We are a small country reliant on export, trade, external capital and sovereign integrity to maintain our growth, standard of living and services. That is the context in which this offer should be viewed, not politics or misguided nationalism—and I repeat "misguided nationalism". The best way to help agriculture and regional communities is to put them on a commercial footing. I hope the Federal Treasurer heeds the words of Prime Minister Tony Abbott, "Australia is open for business".

NSW GAY AND LESBIAN RIGHTS LOBBY TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY

The Hon. PENNY SHARPE [10.25 p.m.]: This time next week hundreds of people will gather in the New South Wales Parliament to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby. The NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby has a record of achievement that should be the envy of any community group that has sought to make change in New South Wales. Quite simply, the lobby has delivered for the community it has served. Throughout the 1970s, Sydney's gay and lesbian groups were many and varied. Not surprisingly, they sometimes had a fractious relationship. The fight for decriminalisation of homosexuality in the early 1980s brought together many of the groups within Sydney's gay rights movement, such as the Gay Rights Lobby in late 1980. Members should remember that before 1984—six years after the first mardi gras civil rights march was held—homosexuality was still illegal in this State.

After decriminalisation, for much of the 1980s, HIV-AIDS dominated community activism. Too many people were dying and there was not a second to waste to try to stop the scourge of this hideous disease. The final catalyst for the establishment of the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby was in 1988 when the then incoming Coalition Government proposed gutting the New South Wales Anti-Discrimination Board. A meeting at Heffron Hall, East Sydney, brought together a community to form the NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby. The establishment of the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby marked a turning point in direct government activism by Sydney's gay and lesbian communities. Since its establishment the NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby has led the fight for equality and social justice for lesbians, gay men and their families in New South Wales.

It is extraordinary to consider the achievements of the lobby over the past 25 years. By the early 1990s the lobby had argued for and won the introduction of gay and lesbian liaison officers [GLLOs] across New South Wales police stations and the establishment of the lesbian and gay anti-violence project. In 1993 homosexual anti-vilification legislation was passed. Cooperation with the Carr Labor Government in 1999 saw de facto relationship rights for same-sex couples passed in New South Wales. These reforms were hugely significant for same-sex couples, not just here, but around the world. Alan Kirkland, co-convener of the lobby from 1998-2000 explained:

For people who don't know what this reform meant, it meant that for the first time, people in same sex relationships had the right to visit a partner in hospital and to be recognised as a benefactor if a partner died without a will. This was huge at the time—not just within Australia, but internationally

His fellow co-convener Kathy Sant continued:

It was a really different world then. Distressed people rang the Lobby all the time with stories of discrimination, even being denied the right to visit their partners in hospital or excluded from their funerals. Their relationships weren't recognised here or in most parts of the world.

In 2003 the lobby campaigned to equalise the age of consent and without the hard work of the lobby this Parliament would not have passed reforms in 2008 to recognise lesbian mums. The lobby's policy and development coordinator Ghassan Kassisieh remembered:

… if a child's co-parents died they had no protection under inheritance laws. If the parent was sick, the child would not have any coverage under a lot of the victim's compensation and workplace compensation laws. I remember speaking to the Attorney-General about the very real numbers of children who lived in same-sex families. I remember not hearing anything for a few months after that meeting before the Government released its Miscellaneous Amendments Act.

In 2008 the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby also campaigned for the 58 Federal same-sex reforms that saw the Federal Labor Government introduce laws to give same-sex couples equality with opposite-sex de facto couples in Commonwealth laws including tax, superannuation, immigration, social security, Medicare, aged care, veterans' and defence entitlements, family law and child support. In 2010 the lobby fought for the removal of the last piece of legislation that discriminated against same-sex couples in New South Wales—same-sex adoption rights. 24102 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

This record of success has not been an accident. The Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby has been successful because it put in thousands of hours of volunteer work, it has produced thorough and credible research and because its work is always grounded in consultation with the gay and lesbian community. The lobby has also shown an amazing capacity to work cooperatively with members of Parliament. Although the lobby was established in response to concerns about an incoming Coalition Government, the lobby has always worked with any member of Parliament from any party who was willing to listen, be informed and then support the advancement of equality for gay men and lesbians in New South Wales. This hard work has been translated into effective campaigns that have removed discrimination against same-sex couples in all areas of the law in New South Wales.

Twenty-five years since its establishment, the NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby continues to focus on campaigns that benefit gay men and lesbians in New South Wales including marriage equality, and support for young people in schools and the community. Tonight I congratulate the many thousands of volunteers who have given their time and expertise to the lobby and acknowledge the tireless work of policy officers Ghassan Kassisieh, Senthoran Raj and Jed Horner, as well as all the co-convenors and committee members of the lobby over the years. There are too many of them to name but it has been a privilege to work with so many of them. Congratulations to the lobby on this milestone. I look forward to celebrating with it next week. I also look forward to working with the lobby to finish the rest of the job to advance and defend the gains that have been made in the past 25 years. Happy anniversary.

FIREARMS AND CRIMINAL GROUPS LEGISLATION

The Hon. ROBERT BORSAK [10.30 p.m.]: Tonight I clearly put on the record the Shooters and Fishers Party's reasons for not supporting the provisions in the Firearms and Criminal Groups Legislation Amendment Bill 2013, which passed through this House last night. I sought independent legal advice concerning any adverse impact on firearms licence holders via the Firearms Act 1996. That advice is illuminating. The stated object of the bill is to:

Empower police officers without warrant to enter premises or a vehicle occupied by a person who is subject of a firearms prohibition order, and to conduct searches for firearms, firearms parts and ammunition and for the purposes of determining whether the person is complying with the order.

The concern of the Shooters and Fishers Party with the amendment is the power it bestows on police to enter and conduct these searches without any safeguard in place to ensure that these powers are not misused. Such safeguards for non-consensual searches come in the form of police having to make an application to a court and satisfy a judge or magistrate that they have reasonable grounds for the issue of a search warrant. The advice the Shooters and Fishers Party was given is that it is not uncommon, and there are numerous documented incidents in courts and disciplinary tribunals in the past, for police officers to have acted outside their powers or without reasonable cause in conducting searches of premises, vehicles and persons.

This is not a criticism of all police, but even one such incident is one too many. I am also advised that the amendment gives police this power for the purposes of determining whether a person is complying with the order. The concern here is that it gives police a power of entry and search based on nothing more than the fact that the person is subject to a firearms prohibition order. I would have thought police needed more than this information to have reasonable cause to conduct an entry and search without a warrant. For example, police may have received information from a reliable source that a person was seen in possession of a firearm or firearm part; police then confirm, through their intelligence, that this person is the subject of a prohibition order; and the police would then have reasonable cause to go to that person's premises or vehicle, enter, and conduct a search.

The safeguard would involve police satisfying a judicial officer there are sufficient grounds for a search warrant to be granted. The Government's legislation removes this final safeguard, which in our view gives the police the power to do this without a warrant and leaves members of the public open to the possibility of harassment and inappropriate violation of their rights as a result of misuse of the power. Another concern the Shooters and Fishers Party had is the amendment, "prohibiting a person subject to a firearms prohibition order from residing at premises where there are firearms and certain other places such as gun shops and shooting ranges". In our view, this residential prohibition could have unintended consequences.

If a person is subject to a firearms prohibition order there is no particular need for that person to be in a gun shop or at a shooting range. However, situations may arise where the spouse, partner or housemate of a person subject to a prohibition order may be a lawfully licenced firearm owner. The bill means that persons cannot reside with their spouse, partner or housemate as they would be committing an offence for no other 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24103

reason than where they live. The last issue we had was in relation to the new offence of "giving possession of a firearm or firearm part to a person who is not authorised to possess it". There is no need for a new offence to be created. It is already covered in the Firearms Act 1996. These are just a few examples of how the Government wants to get tough on crooks, but in doing so also impacts law-abiding firearm owners. Crooks do not obey the law while legal firearms owners generally do. It is about time the Government recognised that fact.

SANDAKAN MEMORIAL

The Hon. ERNEST WONG [10.35 p.m.]: In 1942 and 1943 Australian and British prisoners of war who had been captured at the Battle of Singapore in February 1942 were shipped to North Borneo to construct a military airstrip and prisoner of war camps at Sandakan, North Borneo, now called Sabah. As on the Burma railway the prisoners were forced to work at gunpoint whilst receiving very little food or medical attention, and were often beaten. Of the 2,434 prisoners incarcerated at Sandakan, 1,787 were Australian and the remaining 641 were British.

In late 1944, as the Allied forces won back much of the Pacific, the airstrip was destroyed by repeated air operations. At the beginning of 1945, even though it was close to the end of the war, the Japanese decided to move the prisoners of war on a torturous 260-kilometre march west into the mountains to the small settlement of Ranau. These marches mark the worst wartime atrocity suffered by Australian soldiers and stand out as one of the darkest chapters in our military history, namely, the death march of Borneo. After enduring starvation, overwork and beatings the prisoners were forced on three marches through the jungle and on tracks from Sandakan to Ranau. The losses were tragically high on these gruelling marches between January and June 1945. During the first march from January to March, more than 100 of the 455 prisoners of war who set out were lost to either exhaustion or disease while others were shot or beaten to death.

The second march was a more brutal version of the earlier march. Laden, fevered and starved there were similar losses on the May to June march. On 29 May about 530 marchers set out for Ranau, but only 183 reached Ranau on 27 June 1945. There were no survivors at the war's end as the remainder of the prisoners died at the Ranau and Sandakan camps. By the end of August 1945, the only survivors were the six Australians who had escaped from the death marches. Without them this piece of history would not have been disclosed; it would have been buried. Two men escaped into the jungle on the second march in June 1945 and were helped by locals before being rescued by allied forces. The other four men escaped from Ranau in July 1945 and were also helped by the locals in the area until they too were rescued by Allied forces in early August 1945.

We remember these brave men: Bombardier Richard (Dick) Braithwaite 2/15 Field Regiment, Lance Bombardier William (Bill) Moxham 2/15 Field Regiment, Gunner Owen Campbell 2/10 Field Regiment, Private Nelson Short 2/18 Infantry Battalion, Warrant Officer William (Bill) Hector Sticpewich, AASC, and Private Keith Boteril 2/19 Battalion. Their suffering is almost too horrific and cruel to bear thinking about and yet in the midst of all this suffering there are also many tales of kindness, mateship, selflessness and courage. Despite appalling conditions, the prisoners never gave up. Their heroism, determination and indomitable spirit are testimony to the strength of the human spirit and an inspiration to all. Those who perished did so as prisoners and slaves unable to glean any hint of human mercy. They died ingloriously, but their fight for Australia was as glorious as any in our national history.

In 1993 the then Prime Minister Paul Keating dedicated a site in Burwood Park as the Sandakan Memorial. However, it was not until 1996 that the Sandakan Community Education Committee was formed in Burwood Council. I have chaired the committee for the past four years. The committee is committed to increasing public awareness of this wartime atrocity and making sure that this legacy is commemorated by future generations. Every year at 11.00 a.m., on the first Sunday in August, the committee holds a remembrance service at the Sydney Sandakan Memorial located in Burwood Park, Burwood. There we are bonded together by memories of the grim reality of war, and also to remember those men and women who are currently serving in our defence forces and the dangers they face every day in the name of duty and service. Sharing this story here today and having it recorded in Hansard provides another opportunity to honour these gallant and courageous men. Lest we forget.

ANTI-POVERTY WEEK

The Hon. JAN BARHAM [10.40 p.m.]: I will mark Anti-Poverty Week by making some comments about poverty in Australia. In July the Productivity Commission released a staff working paper entitled, "Deep and Persistent Disadvantage in Australia." This report tries to grapple with the reality that despite the 24104 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 16 October 2013

unprecedented economic growth and increasing wealth of Australians over the past two decades, many are being left behind. Those who are being left behind and who have not experienced the Reaganesque trickle-down effects of Australia's solid gross domestic product performance—they are experiencing only the inflationary pressures and service cuts—appear now to face socio-economic disadvantage of a greater intensity than experienced by previous generations.

Breaking the cycle of persistent disadvantage appears harder than ever before partly due to the misconceptions of widespread rising affluence. How many people realise that 2.6 million Australians, or 11.8 per cent, live below the poverty line with one-quarter of that number being children and young people under the age of 25? UnitingCare's recent report entitled, "Poverty, Social Exclusion and Disadvantage in Australia" highlights that according to an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development database of 34 developed nations, Australia ranked twenty-sixth, having a higher poverty rate than its Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Commonwealth counterparts, with United Kingdom recording a rate of 10 per cent, New Zealand recording a rate of 10 per cent, and Canada recording a rate of 11.9 per cent.

Just as famous social researchers Charles Booth and Beatrice Potter faced the challenges of grossly underreported and unacknowledged poverty in London at the turn of the nineteenth century, modern market economies still misunderstand and underestimate disadvantage despite possessing technologically advanced tools. To this end, the Productivity Commission, an organisation mandated to provide advice on increasing this country's labour force and economic productivity stated:

A lack of understanding about disadvantage can contribute to misplaced community concerns. It can also be an impediment to good public policy. Sound policy development should be built on an evidence-based understanding of the nature, depth and persistence of disadvantage and the costs it imposes on individuals and the broader Australian community. Support for people who are disadvantaged and the funding of programs to overcome disadvantage can also involve large amounts of taxpayers' money.

With technological advancement in data collection, storage and processing, and vast improvements in geospatial information systems our governments now possess the tools to open up new insights into social and economic disadvantage. On page 201 of the Productivity Commission report the authors note:

The integration of administration data with other data sources has the potential to provide new knowledge. There are several initiatives that have the potential to significantly improve the level of information for researchers, policy makers and program administrators about deep and persistent disadvantage. It is important that these developments proceed and that there is greater transparency and availability of administrative projects in the future.

One need only look at the United States' National Security Agency program PRISM and modern surveillance and intelligence collection methods to realise the capacity of governments to collect data. Yet, the most basic data collection protocols are not implemented to understand social and economic disadvantage in Australia. Recently I have asked Ministers about geospatial information system data for their respective agencies. With the exception of the Department of Planning and the Office of Environment and Heritage, the vast majority of New South Wales government departments suggested that they do not use or possess geospatial information system data or files.

The most common response was that the "New South Wales Land and Property Information Spatial Information Exchange is the New South Wales Government's official source of land and property information". That answer is disappointing, given that question asked for data related to areas of social service provision, child protection and emergency services. Does this mean that the Department of Family and Community Services, for example, is not fully engaged in the alleged whole-of-government draft New South Wales Location Intelligence Strategy being developed by the Department of Finance and Services? Social service departments must be included in this strategy and their data incorporated into accessible, open source systems as other leading Commonwealth jurisdictions have done or are in the process of doing.

I would expect the current New South Wales Government to understand the critical nature of evidence-based program funding and social service resourcing. There is an opportunity to move away from partisan, politically motivated expenditure of government revenue and to achieve greater effectiveness in government programing by having a clear commitment to comprehensive, whole-of-government data sharing, collection and publication. In 1998 the State's first Minister for Information Technology, the Hon. Kim Yeadon, talked about the idea of governments seeking to enrich the community through access to information. Fifteen years on and we lag behind in the technological capabilities of what is now possible in data analysis. Government policies in addressing social and economic disadvantage could be far more effective with the right approach to the managing of government data. 16 October 2013 LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 24105

CARBON DIOXIDE LEVELS

The Hon. RICK COLLESS [10.45 p.m.]: I draw the attention of the House to the history of carbon dioxide levels on planet Earth. In doing so I will explore some of the historical impacts on the planet as carbon dioxide levels have varied over eons. As I have stated previously in this place, green plants use a process called photosynthesis to utilise the energy of the sun to break the bonds in the carbon dioxide molecule to create carbon-rich, high-energy molecules that effectively store solar energy that can be utilised in future chemical reactions to release that stored energy for a range of biological processes.

Oxygen is released into the atmosphere during the photosynthetic process by green plants, and when the energy is released by combustion, oxygen is consumed. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is about 0.04 per cent, or 390 parts per million, while in air exhaled by animals it is about 4 per cent, or 4,000 parts per million—10 times higher than the background atmospheric level. It is estimated the Earth was formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago, with the first photosynthetic organisms—cyanobacteria—appearing about 3.4 billion years ago. Some 600 million years ago, the first simple animals appeared, and the first fish appeared about 500 million years ago. Those two ages are significant in the Earth's history. In the geologic timescale it was called the Cambrian Period. The atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were more than 7,000 parts per million, or 7 per cent, for much of that period; in fact, they were much higher earlier in the Earth's history.

At the beginning of the Devonian Period 475 million years ago, the first land plants emerged from the oceans and commenced colonising the land surface of the Earth. The average global temperature until that time was about 23 degrees Celsius, so land plants evolved in a very warm, carbon dioxide-rich environment. Although the carbon dioxide levels had declined to about 3,000 parts per million, they were still much higher than they are today. The removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere was mainly due to the deposition of marine skeletal material in the form of limestone, with many remnant features still visible today. It is estimated that some 60 million gigatonnes of carbon in carbon dioxide was removed in these features, including the White Cliffs of Dover in England and our very own Napier Range in Western Australia, which is an ancient fringing reef very similar in formation to the Great Barrier Reef today.

It is worth remembering that the carbon dioxide levels at the time of formation of the Napier Range were between 3,000 and 4,000 parts per million. Animals began to emerge from the oceans 360 million years ago as amphibians, and some 200 million years ago the first mammals appeared. The Carboniferous Period commenced some 300 million years ago with carboniferous period levels between 2,000 parts per million and 3,000 parts per million. Temperatures remained warm and with a very humid atmosphere the development of huge forests was soon underway. As these forests were laid down in the moist, shallow water bodies, they sequestered an estimated 800 gigatonnes of carbon and formed the extensive carboniferous coal deposits that we mine today.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continued to decline to approximately 1,000 parts per million about 30 million years ago, and although the levels were well above the present day levels the accompanying climate was not threatening to life on Earth. The current level of carbon dioxide is only just above the lowest is has been over the past 500 million years. These very low levels are deficient for optimal plant growth for many crops and constrain food production. Proof of that fact exists in that market gardeners have been adding carbon dioxide to glasshouses to raise the carbon dioxide level to about 1,000 parts per million to improve the productivity of their crops. Australian physicist Tom Quirk and the Fair Farming group have written a paper entitled, "A Review of the Scientific Evidence Underlying the Imposition of a Carbon Tax or Emissions Trading Scheme in Australia", which has been accepted for publication in the Interdisciplinary science journal Energy and Environment in September 2013. The paper states:

S. H. Wittwer, Professor of Horticulture, Michigan State University, reviewed scientific experiments conducted to measure the effects of CO2 enrichment on specific plants. For rice the optimum CO2 level is between 1500ppm (0.15%) and 2000ppm (0.2%). Greenhouse grown vegetables show yield increases ranging from 10% to 70% with increasing CO2 levels. Wittwer concluded that in market gardening "carbon dioxide is the most common limiting factor preventing photosynthesis from proceeding more efficiently".

Question—That this House do now adjourn—put and resolved in the affirmative.

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 10.50 p.m. until Thursday 17 October 2013 at 9.30 a.m.

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