Parliamentary Debates (HANSARD)

FORTIETH PARLIAMENT FIRST SESSION 2017

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

Thursday, 25 May 2017

Legislative Council

Thursday, 25 May 2017

THE PRESIDENT (Hon ) took the chair at 10.00 am, and read prayers. CONVENTIONS, COURTESIES AND ETIQUETTE IN THE HOUSE Statement THE PRESIDENT (Hon Kate Doust): Members, as this is the beginning of the fortieth Parliament, I thought it timely to remind members of some of the conventions of this place, and the courtesies and standards of etiquette for this house. I draw members’ attention to “Legislative Council Procedural Note for Members No. 2 of 2011 Conventions and Courtesies of the House”. It would be beneficial to all members if they reacquainted themselves with this advice, particularly regarding the use of laptops and mobile phones in the house. These types of devices are permitted in the chamber and the Committee of the Whole House and can be used to make and receive email and text messages. They cannot, however, be used to make or receive voice calls or as cameras to record proceedings and should not be used as an aide-mémoire in debate. I also remind members that the use of these devices should be discreet and should not disrupt the proceedings of the house, and members should ensure that these devices are switched to silent, or they may risk having them temporarily confiscated for the balance of the sitting. The rules of etiquette in this house also differ slightly from those in another place and I would ask that members forward this advice to their staff and guests. For example, speaking and the passing of notes across the Bar of the house or from either side of the President’s gallery should not occur in the council. This is a practice that is tolerated in another place, but not this one. Discreet note taking in the public gallery has been allowed since September 2006 so long as that undertaking is conducted in such a manner that it does not disrupt the proceedings of the house. Past Presidents have also allowed the taking of notes in the President’s gallery, although this practice is restricted to ministerial advisers to ministers during the consideration of a bill in the Committee of the Whole House. If members’ staff wish to pass advice to members in the chamber, staff may use a call button located on the southern door to seek the attention of chamber staff. I have asked for an updated outline of the usual etiquettes to be observed in the council to be distributed to members for inclusion in their standing orders. This document will be available to members from the next sitting. SHIRE OF EXMOUTH — CORRUPTION AND CRIME COMMISSION INQUIRY Petition HON KYLE McGINN (Mining and Pastoral) [10.03 am]: I present a petition containing 455 signatures couched in the following terms — TO THE PRESIDENT & MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL OF THE PARLIAMENT OF IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED We the undersigned residents of Western Australia are seriously concerned about the integrity and conduct of the Shire of Exmouth, particularly its suspended Shire President and Councillors who have been subject to an Inquiry by the Western Australian Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC). Considerable change is now underway since the Councillors suspension on 04 January 2017 and the appointment of a Commissioner. At this stage the Commissioner terminates on 04 July 2017 and the existing Shire President and Councillors will be reinstated. This will result in a return to a dysfunctional Council that will undo all that has been achieved in the previous six months. Your petitioners therefore respectfully request the Legislative Council instigate an urgent inquiry into the conduct of the Shire of Exmouth and its Council as a follow up to the CCC investigation into the Shire of Exmouth. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. [See paper 237.]

PAPERS TABLED

Papers were tabled and ordered to lie upon the table of the house.

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PARLIAMENTARY SUPERANNUATION BOARD Membership — Motion Resolved, on motion without notice by Hon (Leader of the House) — That Hon Laurie Graham and Hon Michael Mischin be appointed as members to the Parliamentary Superannuation Board. PALLIATIVE CARE Motion HON (South Metropolitan) [10.05 am]: I move — That this council — (a) recognises that this is National Palliative Care Week; (b) acknowledges the ongoing efforts of Palliative Care Australia and Palliative Care WA; (c) notes this year’s theme is “You matter, your care matters. Palliative Care can make a difference”; and (d) calls on the state Labor government to build on the momentum created by the former Liberal– National government with particular emphasis on — (i) raising awareness and understanding about palliative care throughout the community, including amongst health professionals; and (ii) increasing accessibility to palliative care, especially in regional Western Australia. It is an honour to move the first non-government business motion in the fortieth Parliament. I thought it would be useful, particularly for the benefit of those members who were sworn in on Monday and are in this place for the first time, to make the point at the outset that certainly with regard to any motions that I have moved in the last two Parliaments, whether that be in private members’ business, or in non-government business, as is the case now that I am on this side of the chamber, it has generally been a motion on which there can be some bipartisanship and cooperation across the chamber. That has usually been the spirit and intention in which I have moved a motion. I was interested to hear a few of the inaugural speeches that were made during the course of this week, which seemed to implore members to try to work on areas on which we have commonality. Certainly in politics, there will be times to be political—that is inevitable in this profession that we are in. But I agree with those members that wherever possible we should try to strive to work together on areas on which we see eye to eye, and I believe one such area is palliative care. That certainly has been the approach taken with the last couple of Parliaments in which I have had the privilege of serving. Also, at the outset, I acknowledge the National Party and its gracious gesture to allow me to move this motion this week, noting that ordinarily it would have had the opportunity today to move a motion so I thank it for the opportunity. The reason for that, of course, is that this is National Palliative Care Week. I have moved this motion to ask the house to recognise that. National Palliative Care Week is coordinated by Palliative Care Australia and at a local level by Palliative Care WA. As I mentioned in the motion, the theme for this year is — You matter, your care matters. Palliative care can make a difference. The intention this year is to raise awareness that palliative care can be offered in aged-care facilities for those suffering chronic illness to ease their pain. Together with Labor’s member for Girrawheen, Margaret Quirk, MLA, in our role as co-convenors of the bipartisan Parliamentary Friends of Palliative Care, over an extended period we have had the privilege to get to know palliative care specialists and physicians who are passionate about easing the suffering of terminally and chronically ill people in our community. Palliative care has always been a holistic term. It is defined by the World Health Organization as — … an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual. A gentleman by the name of Professor Matthew J. Loscalzo is a sought-after speaker and writer and he has pioneered initiatives seeing to the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and social and needs of patients, their loved ones and their caregivers. He says — Palliative medicine is the continuation of the long struggle to accept life on its own terms, honestly and openly. Taking its place in academic medicine, this new subspecialty will enable future generations of physicians to gain generalist-level palliative medicine skills while advancing knowledge in the field and fulfilling our promise to patients and their families that we will not abandon them when our treatments fail and that, at all times, we will do all we can to relieve their suffering.

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That statement encapsulates the aim of palliative care—that is, to relieve suffering. The palliative care speciality recognises that suffering comes in many different forms and when an interdisciplinary approach is taken with palliative care, the patient benefits. Through my interaction with palliative care specialists, it has been interesting to learn that palliative care is a relatively recent medical discipline, being approximately only 50 years old. It began with the pioneering work of Cicely Saunders, who was in the United Kingdom in 1959 and wrote her first major medical research paper titled “The Management of Patients in the Terminal Stage”. This was published in a major series on cancer in a major publication that for the first time drew attention to the end-of-life needs of terminally ill patients. From there, the hospice movement began to gain momentum, rapidly developing in the 1960s, which led to defining treatments in these hospices as palliative care. In Australia, palliative care is even more recent than in the United Kingdom and a specialist by the name of Dr Will Cairns from Queensland says — Over the past 20 years, palliative medicine in Australia and New Zealand has emerged from an informal network of enthusiasts to become a fully recognised specialty with a comprehensive training program. The Australian and New Zealand Society of Palliative Medicine was crucial in developing the credibility of palliative medicine, which was necessary to recognise palliative care as a specialised practice. Once it was recognised as a speciality, efforts turned to the development of training pathways to have a defined pathway into palliative medicine. Once this was achieved, the next step was for government to recognise the speciality. Members may be surprised to note that palliative care as a speciality was recognised by the federal government in November 2005, only 12 and a half years ago. Six months later the speciality was finally listed in the Medicare Benefits Schedule. Once this was activated in June 2006, this signalled that the job of full inclusion of palliative medicine in the health system was complete. Efforts are now continuing to raise awareness within the community, particularly amongst the elderly, of the support that is available through specialised palliative care. Even though palliative care has come a long way since the 1960s in the United Kingdom, and more recently in Australia, there is still much to do. As an example of a recent advancement in understanding the needs of terminally ill patients, I want to spend a moment addressing a relatively new concept called demoralisation. Demoralisation is different from depression as it is not necessarily a psychiatric condition; rather, the condition is characterised by distress and a sense of incompetence that results from uncertainty about which direction to take. Feelings of hopelessness, despair and even suicidal tendencies are possible symptoms of demoralisation. I came across a story of a man with colorectal cancer who suffered from demoralisation. After physicians recognised this issue, they investigated its cause. They discovered that he had pain in his lower back and was not taking the appropriate amount of medication because he was fearful of becoming addicted. After these concerns were addressed, the team increased his pain medication. Subsequently, the patient’s mood improved and he no longer displayed symptoms of demoralisation. Of course, not every case of demoralisation is this simple. However, simply having a description for this condition and recognising it as a mask for something else triggers the palliative care team to investigate what other physical, social or psychological conditions may be causing the demoralisation. Understanding this as a normal response to a terminal issue can help to validate the patient’s feelings of helplessness and then be encouraged and supported. Differentiating it from depression also supports the patients in that they are not being diagnosed with another condition. It is normal and it can be addressed. The recent emergence of literature on demoralisation and its application in practice demonstrate that although palliative care has come a long way, significant developments are still being made today. Indeed, the Australian and New Zealand Society of Palliative Medicine, Palliative Care Australia, and physicians and specialists across the nation are trying to strive for better ways to: firstly, care for the sick; secondly, alleviate suffering; thirdly, communicate to, listen and understand patients, caregivers and families; fourthly, build stronger interdisciplinary teams; and, fifthly, improve training. In my role as co-convenor of Parliamentary Friends of Palliative Care, I attended the annual Palliative Care WA breakfast on Tuesday this week. I was encouraged by all the good work that is being done in this healthcare area. Indeed, significant developments have been made in WA, such as the advanced care planning workshops, which have now been expanded to regional areas. I anticipate that the parliamentary secretary for health might inform us more about that shortly. However, as I continue to emphasise, much more is needed. An upcoming initiative in palliative care in Western Australia is the development of the compassionate communities model, which is based on the compassionate communities model in the United Kingdom. This model acknowledges that a shortcoming of the care of those who live at home with life-limiting illness is that service providers cannot be with them 24 hours a day. In order to provide the social, emotional and spiritual support that is not always available through the service provider, the compassionate communities model activates formal and informal networks to ensure that people are not isolated within their communities. As well as these positive initiatives, I was also made aware of some significant challenges that were identified by a woman named Zoe, who addressed her comments to the keynote speaker at Tuesday’s breakfast, Hon , MLA, Minister for Health. Zoe is a social worker at Fiona Stanley Hospital and works in palliative care in the acute setting. I might say for the benefit of Hansard that I will be quoting a little from what

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Zoe said on Tuesday in accordance with my notes. She opened her comments by saying that she helps people to live well until they die. She continued, according to my notes, to state — “Advanced Care Planning is a big part of that, hearing what the patient’s wishes are. We have an amazing service in Silverchain hospice for people who want to go home to die, and we can support them in that.” However, she went on to state, according to my notes — “A lot of the issues we come across is where patients have particular issues and we’ve discussed it in their Advanced Care Plan but it’s actually not possible because we don’t have the resources. Things like the aged care assessments where we try to get services or people to allow them to stay at home as long as possible and support their families and carers yet there’s been changes in the legislation and the way that happens and now we have more difficulty getting the palliative care patients actual services because of things like prognosis, so while yes it’s incredibly important that we have these discussions and that we try and support patients and their families, we’re actually hitting a lot of brick walls when we’re trying to help patients to live well until they die.” That was a where-the-rubber-hits-the-road comment. Zoe is at the coalface, trying her best to meet the patient’s wishes to live well until they die; however, a lack of resources seems to be getting in the way of that. In the May 2013–14 budget, the then Liberal–National government announced increased funding for palliative care services of $19.513 million over the four-year forward estimates. At that time it was estimated that by 2016–17 annual spending on palliative care would be $40.5 million. The additional funding was to be directed to, firstly, expanded regional palliative care services, $10.22 million; secondly, the statewide paediatric palliative care services, $1.93 million; thirdly, palliative care services provided under contract by Bethesda Hospital, $3.79 million; and, fourthly, implementation of the continuum of the end-of-life framework, $3.56 million. It is my intention today to lodge questions on notice to ascertain the quantum of that four-year funding by the now former government. Although much was accomplished in this area in the term of the former government, as I say, much more remains to be done. My view is that the new Labor state government should build on the momentum established by the former Liberal–National government. As in all areas of state responsibility, there is understandably a demand for greater resourcing; however, the consistent feedback that I have received is that an increase in resources should be prioritised in two key areas. Firstly, we need to raise awareness and understanding about palliative care not only throughout the community, but also amongst health professionals. It remains an interesting irony that there are health professionals with a limited understanding of palliative care, so although the community at large needs to be better educated that palliative care exists and is available, that also needs to extend to the health professionals whom the community relies upon. Secondly, the prioritisation of resources should also go to increasing accessibility to palliative care throughout the state, especially in regional Western Australia. I have no doubt that some members who represent the regions will have something to say about that. With those words, I commend the motion to the house. I also encourage members to promote National Palliative Care Week, and to speak to either me or the member for Girrawheen if they would like to join the Parliamentary Friends of Palliative Care. HON ALANNA CLOHESY (East Metropolitan — Parliamentary Secretary) [10.26 am]: I thank member for bringing this motion to the house and I acknowledge the theme for National Palliative Care Week, which is “You matter, your care matters.” I urge honourable members to ponder this thought that Umberto Eco eloquently expressed on the need to, and I quote, “meditate early, and often, on the art of dying to succeed later in doing it properly just once.” What do we actually mean when we say “doing it properly”, and dying as best as one can? For most this means dying at home in familiar circumstances, surrounded by people who love them and whom they love, with as little pain as possible. The Cicely Saunders Institute in London has produced research that shows that dying at home is more peaceful for family and helps them in the grieving process. Sadly, the dream of dying at home and the reality diverge. The Grattan Institute report entitled “Dying well” reveals that 70 per cent of Australians would prefer to die at home but that less than 14 per cent actually do; the majority die in hospital—that is, 54 per cent—followed by 34 per cent who die in residential aged care. The percentage of Australians who die outside their home is double the rate of many comparable countries such as New Zealand, Ireland, the United States and France. That information is also found in the Grattan Institute report. We know that with good planning and good care outcomes can be different. The Silver Chain palliative care service in 2013–14 helped two-thirds of its patients to be able to die at home. Why so few people die at home to die well brings us back to the theme of palliative care week: “You matter, your care matters.” It is about taking personal responsibility, to the extent that that is possible, about what our end-of-life care wishes look like and talking to our loved ones about it earlier, particularly before we lose the capacity to discuss these issues. Further to the fear of dying in a strange place or alone, one of the great stresses around dying is the cost of a funeral. The

[COUNCIL — Thursday, 25 May 2017] 575 average Australian funeral costs $6 000—five months’ pay for someone struggling to live on a disability support pension. I am proud that Labor actually fought hard to save the state government funeral scheme from being cut. This scheme is vital for those people who cannot afford it and whose families cannot afford it. The choice to die at home is often lost to poor end-of-life planning. Of course, like birth plans, things do not always go to plan, but at least the patient’s wishes are known. We know that in the absence of knowing what our wishes are around end-of-life care, family members and clinicians tend to err on the side of caution, and undertake life-extending interventions such as intubation and resuscitation. I know: I have experienced that personally in my own family. This results in more invasive procedures at end-of-life care, more hospitalisations surrounded by strangers or more expensive care that the patient might not necessarily want. One of the best ways of preventing unwanted end-of-life interventions—the honourable member mentioned them—is via advance health directives. Good palliative care does not necessarily mean throwing more money into palliative care. Advance health care directives do not cost a cent and, in fact, can save the health system money by avoiding unwanted treatments. Advance health directives are a formal legal document expressing a person’s wishes about their end-of-life care, giving patients greater control about what treatments they do and do not want in their end-of-life care, where they want to be, who they want around them et cetera. Advance health directives are not voluntary euthanasia; they simply allow people to plan their medical care in advance. Anyone over 18 capable of giving informed consent can make one. I share the member’s desire to raise awareness about palliative care both in the community and among health and aged-care staff. By raising awareness, we can increase the percentage of people with advance health directives. WA Health has a number of education and training resources to help people with advance health directives. Talking About End of Life is a training program designed for the residential aged-care sector to encourage aged-care staff to have this discussion with patients and families early. I acknowledge the efforts of Palliative Care WA and Palliative Care Australia to help us talk about death. Palliative Care WA and Palliative Care Australia both use humour to break down barriers around discussions on death. Palliative Care Australia has some fantastic conversation starters in their Dying to Talk package, which provides prompt cards with cues of things to consider when talking about our end-of-life care. Are You Good to Go? is a series of community workshops that WA Health has funded Palliative Care WA to run in both metropolitan and regional WA to encourage end-of-life care planning, including advance health directives, nominating enduring power of attorney, organ donation wishes et cetera. Last week, community workshops were held in Mandurah and community workshops will be held in Busselton on 14 and15 June and in Geraldton on 21 and 22 June. I share the member’s desire to raise awareness about palliative care options among health professionals. Remarkably, clinicians are sometimes able to predict within a month’s accuracy when one of their patients will die, but they are often still reluctant, as are patients, to raise the subject with them directly, unless directly asked. The values and practices of palliative care are now integrated into Australian undergraduate medicine curricula and, hopefully, this will result in some changes. Finally, I recognise the valuable role of the WA Country Health Service’s rural and regional palliative care teams in all seven WACHS regions, the goldfields, great southern, south west, midwest, wheatbelt, Pilbara and the Kimberley. A big, sparsely populated state such as ours poses both challenges and opportunities for innovation and better use of technology. WA’s 76 telehealth sites provide exciting possibilities, enabling videoconferencing consultations with patients in isolated and remote communities who would have previously faced a long wait for a visiting clinician, or would have had to travel to a larger regional centre or even to . As I said, Palliative Care Week is a good opportunity for all of us to reflect on the art of dying or a good death, as Umberto Eco tells us. I acknowledge the important work being carried out by family members, friends, and aged-care and healthcare professionals in this state. HON MARTIN ALDRIDGE (Agricultural) [10.34 am]: I would like to thank Hon Nick Goiran for bringing this motion to the house. It was a pleasure for the National Party to make non-government business time available today to discuss this important matter, and timely, obviously, given we are dealing with National Palliative Care Week this week. I also thank Hon Alanna Clohesy for her contribution and, hopefully, to some extent, I can add to that, particularly from a regional context given this motion addresses some of those issues. Obviously, delivering healthcare services in regional and remote Western Australia is difficult and achieving parity is something that is probably too difficult to do. But trying to improve and modernise services to make sure they suit the requirements of regional people and are as efficient as possible is very important, and palliative care is no exception. In my electorate of the Agricultural Region, a range of care services are offered, often by government, some by the private sector and others by non-government organisations. In the main, particularly in the wheatbelt, these types of services are offered most consistently, along with aged-care services, by the WA Country Health Service. These small hospitals are multipurpose service sites, which is a funding model struck between the commonwealth and the state to fund what otherwise would probably be unviable, small hospitals to maintain. They offer emergency, acute and aged-care options as well as palliative care, as patients

576 [COUNCIL — Thursday, 25 May 2017] reach the end of life. A federal government review is underway into MPS funding, and the outcome of a review into the MPS funding model is making many people in regional health nervous. One of the motivations for doing this is a move towards consumer-centred care and its funding model associated with the provision of aged-care services across Australia. Intertwined with this is an aged-care funding model built into the MPS funding for small country hospitals. It is intertwined and we are nervously awaiting the outcome of the federal government’s review of the MPS funding model and the impact it may have on the sustainability of small hospitals throughout regional Western Australia and, indeed, regional Australia. Although on face value consumer-centred care may seem a very reasonable approach to take, in a regional or remote context, the challenge is often one of market failure resulting from thin markets and great distances. That, essentially, is why the MPS model was created. If we applied the typical activity-based funding model we see in major, largely metropolitan, or regional-centre hospitals, many of these small-town hospitals could not survive or at least could not continue to provide the level of services we currently experience in small towns. How we improve consumer outcomes through competition and service delivery is difficult given the competing interests of an MPS versus a consumer centred–care funding model. The MPS is not perfect and anyone who works in and around regional health service delivery will acknowledge that. But without some type of model that accommodates challenges faced by regional service delivery, many of those services would quickly fail. Other parts of my electorate that are typically outside the wheatbelt and the great southern face different challenges. They often do not have the same historical investment in small-town hospitals. Rather than see a hospital every 50 kilometres or in half an hour’s travel, we see hospitals every hundreds of kilometres. That is typical of what we see north of Perth, heading towards Geraldton—a greater scarcity of health infrastructure—as opposed to perhaps travelling east to Merredin or Kalgoorlie where much more significant health infrastructure has been built and maintained over many, many years. This results in cases in which some of the more challenging areas of service delivery in aged and palliative care have been closer to Perth in the peri-urban fringe. Members might not expect that. They might think that the more remote areas of the state are some of the more challenging areas to provide services for, but my experience has been that regional people who live 50 kilometres from major metropolitan hospitals such as Joondalup Health Campus are often the ones who are more challenged by their local health services delivery, including palliative care. There are often cross-border or cross-boundary jurisdictional issues between the metropolitan health services and the WA Country Health Service, which provides coverage to the rest of the state. Often, the transition between the metropolitan health service and the country health service is far from seamless or smooth. Patients who live on the peri-urban fringe and have to travel to visit metropolitan GPs or receive care from metropolitan specialists are often discharged and referred back to their communities with no understanding of the services available in their homes or the communities where they live. They may be in relatively close proximity to the metropolitan area. People often return without the support they need to care for their loved ones. I have seen this time and again. Often, a friend of the family will call my office or call their local member to say a person is really in dire straits because they do not know what to do, where to turn or how to navigate the system. The Wheatbelt Development Commission did an interesting piece of work called the “Ageing in the Bush” report on behalf of the Regional Development Council. The report considers a whole range of aged and palliative care issues that relate to regional and remote Western Australia. It notes that only five to six per cent of people will find themselves in a residential aged-care facility. When I travel around, the focus is often very much on residential care and the need to quickly build more of it, as the population is ageing but, as Hon Alanna Clohesy mentioned earlier, the statistics show that most people are ageing in their homes. However, they often reach a point when specialist palliative care services are required. Western Australia faces a rapidly ageing population with the number of people aged 70 and over projected to double by 2026. This increase will be more prominent in our regions where the number of people aged 85-plus will increase by over 124 per cent. These figures are based on data from the Western Australian Planning Commission and the Australian Bureau of Statistics. We all know that people want to age close to home and their families and communities. That is particularly the case in small country towns where people often have close connections to their community as they have played a large role in the evolution and creation of their community over their life. Often, a disconnection from the community ends up in a less-than-positive experience for them and their family who supported them. It is important to design services to achieve this. Hon Alanna Clohesy talked about emergency telehealth and telehealth. More specialised services need to be delivered through emergency telehealth. At the moment, it is largely limited to emergency physicians but paediatricians, burns specialists and palliative care specialists need to be available through ETS. It is the same with telehealth. We need to start extending telehealth to mental health services, social support services and a whole range of other functions to be able to deliver some of the services in these thin markets. If a person can be retained close to their home, I believe it really has a marked impact on their experience and their family’s experience as the person reaches the end of life. Having recently said goodbye to a grandfather late last year who benefited from palliative care services provided at Kalamunda Hospital, in the time I have

[COUNCIL — Thursday, 25 May 2017] 577 remaining I want to close by recognising the work of the people who work in palliative care in our government and non-government systems. They do an amazing job supporting their patients and their families, often under very trying circumstances. They did a great job supporting my grandfather, my family and me as we went through the experience. HON RICK MAZZA (Agricultural) [10.44 am]: First, I would like to thank Hon Nick Goiran for bringing this motion to the house, particularly in National Palliative Care Week. I want to cover paragraph (d)(ii) of the motion that relates to country people dealing with the end of life. Of course, death is a part of life and I am sure many people in this chamber have had to deal with family members and loved ones when they reach the end of life, but it is not always the elderly. Particularly in country Western Australia, the people can be quite young when they reach the end of life. In my case, my sister-in-law had a very aggressive liver cancer at the age of 33. She passed away at a young age and left a very young family. More recently, my mother-in-law died from melanoma at not even 70 years old. The difference between people living in the country and those in large regional centres or the city is quite significant. The family and friends within a local community have to do a lot more. My wife spent many hours on the road—sometimes seven or eight-hour round trips—to pick up her mother to take her to a specialist in either Bunbury or Perth. They would stay the night and then come home again. A lot of travel was involved. The patient assisted travel scheme is very helpful with the cost of that. My wife’s father is legally blind and has very limited sight so there was extra pressure to be able to look after him as well. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law were both very stoic, typical country people. They wanted to stay home until the very end. They wanted to be with their families. They did not want to be in a hospital. They stayed at home for a long time. My wife and friends had a system, but it was sometimes very difficult, particularly with medications. If it was a weekend and help was needed with medications or whatever the case was, it was not easy to get hold of a nurse who was in charge of that case. At times, there was a lot of stress. They both stayed home until the eleventh hour. They could not pass away at home because the services were just not there at Lake Yealering or Wickepin. At the eleventh hour, the ambulance was called and, of course, out there, they are mainly volunteer ambulance personnel. I feel for them too because most of the volunteer ambulance personnel have grown up in the town. They have played sport with and socialised with these people. They have been part of the community so it is very difficult for them to pick up the person and take them to hospital knowing full well that they will not return. In both these cases, they were taken to Narrogin Hospital. Narrogin Hospital has two palliative care wards. There is a shared room where a family can stay and care for their loved one before they pass away. Fortunately for my wife, in both cases, only one palliative care room was being used but I can imagine it would be quite difficult to accommodate two or more people. I have no doubt that there are difficulties in the country. In saying all that, the staff who are involved, even with their limited resources, are absolutely wonderful. The care at Narrogin Hospital was fantastic. The amount of empathy and those sorts of things to help out families is fantastic. In closing, palliative care is very important and the country has challenges. The people who are involved do a great job but more can definitely be done. I think the more we can do to assist these people at the end of life, the better, but there are obviously the problems of trying to provide for distance and costs, as Hon Martin Aldridge laid out. With that, I look forward to listening to other speakers. HON ROBIN CHAPPLE (Mining and Pastoral) [10.48 am]: The recent Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report “Admitted patient care 2015–16” indicates a number of issues, many of which bring some concern but also show that an increasing percentage of people entered into palliative care over that period. It states that about half of the 155 600 people who passed away in Australia were admitted patients in hospital. The ageing population and the emergence of chronic disease are leading to more and more people needing palliative care, and obviously in my area that is especially so amongst Aboriginal people. It is very difficult for many Aboriginal people to get the level of palliative care that they need on country. We have to remember that relationship to country is incredibly important for Aboriginal people. To pass away on country is also very important. Hospitalisation in many cases means that people are transferred from Tjuntjuntjara, Balgo or wherever and end up in a Perth metropolitan environment where palliative care is available. However, we have to remember that social responsibility for Aboriginal people to get the services they require. I worked with one of the palliative care nurses in the Kimberley a few years ago. There was such a dearth of palliative care support that a lot of that palliative care was actually delivered over the phone and not by any personal interaction. I am going to stand here today and speak on behalf of the many people who either are not present in this chamber or do not have their voice heard on the aspects of palliative care. If we look at some of the statistics, we can see that they are really quite interesting. I turn to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report. Palliative care, as we know, is delivered by people with clinical speciality in that area. I will just turn to the relevant part of the report—no, I will deal with another part first. The report refers to the modes of separation in 2015–16. We need to understand that “separation” means either being moved out of palliative care or passing away. Twenty-five per cent of the people were discharged home. That 25 per cent of people does not apply to Indigenous people; they cannot be discharged home. I am

578 [COUNCIL — Thursday, 25 May 2017] minded of Juniper Numbala Nunga in Derby, which is an aged-care facility mainly for Aboriginal people, where they carry out a process of palliative care but it is a phone-in system—they do not actually have a palliative care nurse there. If things get serious, the person is usually sent off to Derby Hospital, but it cannot cope, so they are then sent off to Broome Hospital, which also cannot cope, and then down to Perth. I have to say that in many cases the separation occurs in that process. We also have to remember that of those people whom I referred to as being separated, 62 per cent passed away in a hospital. Very few of even the European or general population actually got the ability to go to a home hospice or somewhere like that; they were retained in hospital and eventually passed away there. Palliative care forms an incredibly important part of end-of-life services. I have worked with many in that area of palliative care over my years in this place. We have to acknowledge that the specialists who work in this area do an outstanding job, but in talking to them I have heard much frustration about this issue that palliative care, as an emerging form of end-of-life care, is not given the level of support that it needs. As Hon Martin Aldridge identified, there are issues in the peri-urban area, but I would go even further: remote communities, such as Tjuntjuntjara, Kiwirrkurra, Kunawarritji, Balgo, Mulan and many other places, have an ageing population that just wants to sit quietly on country and pass away quietly on country, but that also wants to be given the ability to access the sort of palliative care that we, to a large degree, take for granted. HON ALISON XAMON (North Metropolitan) [10.54 am]: I rise to also indicate my support for the motion that has been put forward by Hon Nick Goiran and to express my support for the timing of this motion considering that it is National Palliative Care Week. I am also pleased to hear that there seems to be unanimous support within this chamber for this motion. That is as it should be. I will make the observation that I have been exposed to thinking—really wrong-headed thinking in my opinion—that opposes the use of palliative care. More specifically, it has been suggested to me in the past that palliative care is wrong because it interferes with God’s will that people need to suffer as Jesus suffered. I say that because I see this as a disturbingly misguided interpretation of the Scriptures and utterly lacking in any understanding of compassion, but I wanted to bring to the attention of this house just how disturbed some extremist views can be in this space. I am really pleased that those sorts of misguided views do not seem to be shared here, and that there is a very important and shared understanding of the need for palliative care. I have had two experiences with loved ones who have required palliative care. The first was my grandfather, who died of cancer, who received palliative care at the St John of God Murdoch Community Hospice. Unfortunately, for the last six weeks of his life he suffered enormously. That was greatly distressing for not only him but also the family. The other experience I have had was this year with one of my best friends, who died of cancer relatively quickly. He received palliative care at home. I have to say that it was as good a death as I think one can get. He was surrounded by loved ones; it was handled absolutely beautifully by the Silver Chain staff who were there, and his young child was involved through that process and was held and cared for. It was an example, I think, of what we hope to strive for here in terms of the delivery of palliative care. Although it was incredibly heartbreaking, he was genuinely held in love as he passed away. I certainly acknowledge that we have ever-improving palliative care standards and I am hoping that as technology goes on, we will get to utilise it more and more, because the experience of a good death is not just for the person who is dying but for all the people who are around that person when they die as well. It is the desire, more often than not, that people want to be able to die in their own homes. I am also going to have a bit of a shout out to the palliative care nurses. When I was an industrial officer with the Australian Nursing Federation I remember negotiating on behalf of palliative care nurses. A tougher bunch of people would be hard to meet. I think that take-no-prisoners, no-nonsense attitude comes with people who work in the area of life and death. These are people who really had an idea of what was important and what was not. They are incredibly strong people. My huge gratitude goes to them for the sort of work that they do. But we always need more services. We have heard today particularly about the need for Aboriginal people to be able to die on country, and we have heard about the need to ensure that people in regional areas are not denied the opportunity for appropriate palliative care as well. We want to ensure that when people seek options, for example, around early death through euthanasia, this is never done because of a lack of services. For me, that is the ultimate travesty. Nobody should ever be driven to the point of wanting to hasten their death simply because resources have not been made available and they feel as though they have no other option. I thank Hon Nick Goiran for raising the issue of demoralisation. I think it is a really misunderstood or little-known element around the intersection with the desire to die and needs further exploration. I hope it is something that we will explore more in this chamber within a range of debates. It is important to distinguish between demoralisation and depression. Although it is not related to palliative care, I would also like to draw this chamber’s attention to the level of demoralisation that is often felt by people with disability who may feel as though they need or want to die simply because of a lack of services or because they have been left to feel as though their life is worthless or that they are a burden. That is a great travesty and it is something that we need to talk more about. The issue of demoralisation as opposed to depression as a mental illness is a really underexplored area and one that we need to get our heads around further.

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If people are avoiding appropriate palliative care and are looking for other solutions to die because they do not understand the nature of pain management—they fear it or are worried about addiction, as Hon Nick Goiran pointed out as an example—or there is just sheer uncertainty about what is likely to come, that is a problem. I hope members will support this motion. We will all ultimately die. We do not know when that will be and, ordinarily, we do not know the circumstances by which we will die. One thing I hope is that the best type of death we can have is one in which we are able to be surrounded by our loved ones and to be as pain free as possible. Ensuring an appropriate investment in palliative care services is an important part of how we can ensure that this occurs. HON (North Metropolitan) [11.02 am]: I take the opportunity to congratulate the Deputy President on taking his role. He will be a worthy addition to the performance of the house. I ask for the indulgence of the mover of this motion because I want to talk about something personal to me; it does not speak directly to the motion. I hope the mover will give me a bit of latitude. I often get up and speak about my family, much to their chagrin, but it is important that we bring things back to a very human level in this chamber, particularly now that it is televised or streamed to a computer. It gives people an opportunity to see things that happen within the chamber—not just the question time that is often shown on TV and commented upon. Many things that happen in the chamber allow us to work together. I said in a previous speech that I fully understand that we are all here for the right reasons. We may disagree about how we achieve objectives, but in my view we are all here for the right reasons. I want to relay a situation regarding my parents—my father and my stepmother, whom I think of as a mother. I am very lucky to have a pair of mothers and a pair of fathers. My biological father is 87 years old. He was a bricklayer at a time when bricklayers wore a pair of thongs and a pair of shorts and that was pretty much it. He also happened to be English, blond and blue eyed with very fair skin. As members can imagine, as he has moved into his ageing years he has suffered greatly from skin cancer. I often suggest that he should offer himself to Cancer Council Australia as an advert for the Slip, Slop, Slap! campaign, as it was in my day. He has suffered greatly from skin cancers and lesions. The only saving grace is that it has not internalised; it has not gone to any of his organs so it just remains on his skin. We have a lot of interaction with Royal Perth Hospital and Silver Chain. I want to take the opportunity to talk briefly about the fantastic staff at Royal Perth Hospital and its different units. The sun has also affected my father’s vision and, unfortunately, his hearing has gone as well. He is in a reasonably bad way. I want to take the opportunity as a bit of a shout-out, as a previous speaker mentioned, to talk about the jobs that the different units at Royal Perth Hospital do, what the people from Silver Chain, who visit his home three times a week, do, and what Dr D’Souza from Lockridge Medical Centre does to allow my parents to maintain some dignity and some opportunity for continued independence within the home. We are a combined family of six children. A reasonable burden falls upon the children to take our parents out of the home, to take them shopping and to attend medical appointments. A reasonable burden falls upon the children, but we are all of a working age and it is not always possible. We also do not have the expertise. I want to thank the Silver Chain nurses who come out — The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order! Hon knows not to pass between a member speaking and the Chair. She must have been distracted. Hon MARTIN PRITCHARD: I saw that out of the corner of my eye and tried to ignore it, but I am glad the Deputy President did not. Standards must be maintained. A reasonable burden falls upon the children, but we are of a working age. It is very difficult for us to always be there when things need to be done. We also do not have the expertise that is provided by Silver Chain and the doctors and suchlike. They do a magnificent job. I had better not say how old my stepmother is. I think she is still 61, but I am not sure whether that is right. It allows my parents to have dignity and a modicum of independence. Every opportunity needs to be taken to thank those service providers—all those I have met go beyond it being a job. If members saw some of the cancers that people from Silver Chain have to deal with and dress every couple of days, they would understand that they do not do it for the pay; they do it because they provide a very decent service. It allows people to maintain their dignity and to remain at home when they can. Lockridge Medical Centre is a very busy centre. I am sure Dr D’Souza has not placed himself there for the money either. He looks after that community in an extraordinarily passionate way. I would like to say a big thankyou to him. Royal Perth Hospital is an ageing facility and needs money spent on it. Seven years ago my father had to go into the highest care there. We thought that we were going to lose him but since that time, with the services that were provided, he has been able to return home and has been able to maintain his independence to some extent. I think that is a great thing. My last shout-out is to my stepbrothers, my biological sisters and my

580 [COUNCIL — Thursday, 25 May 2017] stepsister. I thank them very much for all the help they give to our parents. That help has allowed them to have that quality of life that they have been able to enjoy over the last seven years. I hope it goes on for a lot longer. I thank the mover of the motion for the indulgence. My contribution does not particularly address the issue but, for many reasons, this was an opportunity that I could not let go past. HON DIANE EVERS (South West) [11.11 am]: I want to say how interesting it is that so many of us in this room are affected by palliative care. If we went out to the general population, I think we would find that many people have had similar personal experiences. I want to take this opportunity to comment on the one experience I had with the Albany Community Hospice. It provided very compassionate care for my father-in-law as he was passing away. It was an amazing experience and a lovely story that I will not go into here. My other comment is how lucky we are to be in Australia for this. When his wife was dying, a relative of mine in the US had to pay for palliative care at a very high rate for the many weeks that she suffered. It was very unfortunate. I really appreciate that this motion has been put forward to make sure that palliative care continues and that the quality of care that I experienced in the Albany regional care system is available to people in other regions. As Hon Martin Pritchard said, it really comes down to the staff in those situations. You just cannot find better people than those who are interested in helping people at that stage in their lives. HON NICK GOIRAN (South Metropolitan) [11.12 am] — in reply: I thank members for their contributions to the debate on this motion this morning. In particular, I thank Hon Martin Aldridge, Hon Rick Mazza, Hon Robin Chapple—who are away on urgent parliamentary business—Hon Alanna Clohesy, Hon Alison Xamon, Hon Martin Pritchard and Hon Diane Evers. I thank each of those members very much for their contributions to the motion by speaking of their own personal experiences of palliative care with family members. I think I heard Hon Alison Xamon say that one day we will all die in this place. Hopefully, not in the chamber! Although, if I can joke about it for a moment, sometimes it might feel like that. Hon Alanna Clohesy: It’s good to joke about it. Hon NICK GOIRAN: That is right, Hon Alanna Clohesy. People in the palliative care industry want us to talk about this topic. It is something that we do not do well in our western culture. Other cultures, for whatever reason, are far more comfortable when talking about death. I was greatly moved this week when I heard Zoe, a young lady from Fiona Stanley Hospital, talk at the palliative care breakfast about her experience working in the industry. She talked about working with patients in order that they live well until they die. To me, that is the appropriate dignity that we should give to people at the end of their lives. I am indebted to the medical professionals who work in the area of palliative care. As I mentioned in the motion, I want to acknowledge the ongoing efforts of Palliative Care Australia and Palliative Care WA, in light of it being National Palliative Care Week. As I outlined at the beginning of my motion, it was my intention that today’s motion, being the first non-government business motion moved in the fortieth Parliament, would be one on which members from all parties could unite and speak of one area of commonality. I think that the debate this morning achieved that. To the newest members of the chamber, rest assured that it will not always be like this. There will be more than a few bruising political debates. I am pleased that this has not been one of them. In my experience of the last eight years, the government and the opposition have recognised each other’s achievements when they have been in government. I am happy to give my commitment this morning that every time the state Labor government has a win in palliative care, I will be happy to acknowledge it. I will watch with great interest. I was pleased that in the last term of Parliament there were opportunities for the opposition to recognise the momentum built by the then Liberal–National government. Earlier, I outlined some of the funding announcements that were made in the 2013–14 budget and indicated that it was my intention to lodge several questions on notice about those. I am pleased to indicate that I have now done that. I will wait with interest to find out what the outcome of those funding announcements were from 2013–14 but it was pleasing to note that there will be an additional $40 million spent across four different areas. I will conclude, having thanked members for their contributions to the debate and the spirit in which it has been held this morning. I encourage members to join the Parliamentary Friends of Palliative Care. For the newer members in the chamber, that is a group that was formed in 2012 as a bipartisan group. I have been pleased to work with the member for Girrawheen, who is very passionate about this area. Indeed, she was also with me on Tuesday at the breakfast for National Palliative Care Week. It is a demonstration that members from all political parties are able to come together and work on an area that they are all passionate about and that there need not be needless political pointscoring on palliative care. There are many other areas in which that can be done. I am pleased that in my experience over the last eight years, that has not been the culture in this place and I encourage all members to ensure that continues. I thank members for their contributions to the debate on this motion. I commend the motion to the house. Motion lapsed, pursuant to standing orders.

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ADDRESS-IN-REPLY Motion Resumed from 24 May on the following motion moved by Hon — That the following address be presented to Her Excellency the Honourable Kerry Sanderson, Companion of the Order of Australia, Governor in and over the state of Western Australia and its dependencies in the commonwealth of Australia — May it please Your Excellency: We, the members of the Legislative Council of the Parliament of Western Australia in Parliament assembled, beg to express our loyalty to our Most Gracious Sovereign and thank Your Excellency for the speech you have been pleased to deliver to Parliament. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Members, before I give the call to Hon , I remind the house that this is an inaugural speech and the normal courtesies will apply. HON TJORN SIBMA (North Metropolitan) [11.21 am]: Thank you, Mr Deputy President, and may I offer my congratulations on your appointment to that role, and also, through you, my congratulations to Hon Kate Doust on her historic election as President. I also offer my congratulations to all members elected to this place, especially those who, like me, have been elected for the first time. I am humbled to be elected to this chamber, and I thank the people of the North Metropolitan Region for giving me the opportunity to represent them. I pledge not to let them down. Nothing in my family origins predetermined my presence in this place. At the end of the Second World War, my grandfathers had occasion to express thanks for their personal survival and to embark on separate journeys that would deposit them half a world away on a wharf not far from here. My grandfather William Hay served as a Royal Navy submariner in every operational theatre of that conflict. It was on shore leave in Perth that he met his future wife, Bernice Berry. It was love that eventually brought William to settle in Perth and raise five children, among them my mother, Susan, who is in the gallery here today. Frederik Sibma, my other grandfather, spent the war in Germany as an indentured labourer. He was spared the worst of what happened at home in the Netherlands. My grandmother, Elizabeth, who is still with us today at the age of 93, survived the Nazi occupation, married Frederik, had three children in quick succession, and then moved to Perth. Only in their later years did my grandparents begin to open up about their wartime experiences. This was not unusual for a generation who collectively kept their own counsel and who had, as children of the Great Depression, developed a level of resilience and gratitude that will always keep me humble. What I will say is that each suffered a terrible loss, no less than the loss of their youthful innocence. But they were brave, and they continued to be brave their entire lives. Australia in the early 1950s beckoned as a place in which enterprising people could easily get work, put the past behind them and forge new and prosperous lives. My father, Sjoerd, who is also here today, came to Australia as a boy with his parents, brother and sister. Legend has it that he spent the majority of that long sea voyage tethered to a railing, or some other fixed object, due to his mother’s mortal fear that he and his two siblings would be washed overboard. Providence ensured that the family arrived safely. Frederik’s renowned impatience determined that their journey terminated at Fremantle rather than Melbourne as originally planned, and I thank him for his foresight. I come to this place with the intention to honour their memory. As working-class migrants, I hope they will be proud of their eldest grandson for making it here. My father was, until February this year, an engineer with the Water Corporation for 45 years. He has worked on just about every major initiative and project undertaken by the Water Corporation since the mid-1970s. In his final years at the Water Corporation, he was responsible for commissioning our two water desalination plants. I respect my father’s concrete contribution to this state and the depth of his technical knowledge. He was rightly proud of what he did for a living. I still to this day hear an echo of his admonishment, “There’s nothing wrong with the water I make, son”, whenever I open a bottle of water. My mother is a woman of many talents. There was not a job she could not do well. For more than 20 years she taught just about every piano student who lived north of Scarborough Beach Road. Coming home from school each day, we were greeted by a wall of sound, as well as a set of precise instructions regarding when and how we were to assemble the dinner that she had prepared earlier in the day. In middle age, mum was finally convinced that she had a good brain and enrolled at university. She is now a clinical psychologist and businesswoman. We are all immensely proud of her achievements and example. My brother, Kurt, sister, Liesl, and I enjoyed a happy and supportive childhood in Carine. We each attended Carine Primary School and Carine Senior High School, which were then, and remain, excellent schools. My teachers nurtured a love of learning in me from an early age, and I am grateful to them all. At the time my parents bought the land, Carine was still a relatively new subdivision, full of young families aspiring to make their way. The suburb very quickly became established, benefited from good roads, thriving small businesses and a vibrant community and sporting life, and soon exuded a steady, suburban and mainstream character.

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Those qualities continue today in the broad constituency of the North Metropolitan Region. I am here to represent the interests of that mainstream constituency—regular people who want to be given a fair go, have access to reliable services and live their lives without bureaucratic interference. I am here for families who worry about paying the mortgage and keeping food on the table. I am here for young people who are worried about how they will get jobs. I am here to represent the interests of our seniors, who want to feel safe in their homes. I am here to help all my constituents preserve the Western Australian way of life that they love. Seventy-five years ago this week, Sir Robert Menzies spoke about Australia’s forgotten people. They were the honest, hardworking and law-abiding people who were neglected by the powerful political interests of the day. They had no-one in their corner. Menzies changed that. The idea of a “forgotten people” might strike us as anachronistic, but it will be my guide here. I will assess every piece of legislation I see in this place against these simple questions: How will it affect today’s forgotten people? How will it benefit families? The people of the North Metropolitan Region prefer deeds to words. They are practical and decent people who demand that we in this place get on with our jobs so that they may get on with their lives. I therefore come here as a determined pragmatist who will draw on my skills and experience to serve my electorate and this state so that they both might have a bright future. As a young man with an honours degree in philosophy, upon graduation I was confronted with an unsurprisingly low number of local job prospects. Throughout my studies I was confronted with the same question: how are you going to get a job with a degree like that? It did eventually dawn on me that local employers were not particularly intrigued by my dissertation on comparative models of consciousness, or the fact I had wrestled for 12 months with Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and survived—a tome that was single-handedly responsible for reducing the size of our graduating honours class from nine to just three students. At the end of my studies, I left Perth for Canberra as part of the Department of Defence’s graduate intake. If I had not taken that journey, I very much doubt that I would be here today. At the Department of Defence, I undertook a broad range of demanding roles, including the development of the Timor Leste Defence Force; monitoring the Lincoln Agreement on Peace Security and Development on Bougainville Island; managing Australia’s defence cooperation relationship with Malaysia; and participating in the Five Powers Defence Arrangements. I will speak very briefly of my time on Bougainville Island. Bougainville was, prior to its civil strife, home to a population of the most highly educated and skilled population of the small islands that comprise the South Pacific. In very short order, it disintegrated completely and bore witness to every imaginable war crime. Our job over there was to drive a weapons amnesty between the two ex-combatant groups, which still had every reason to despise and mistrust one another. We found that we had inadvertently slowed down the peace process by negotiating exclusively with the old enemies. Only when we started to speak with the churches, women’s groups and other civic associations, did we begin to see progress. There I learned a lesson about negotiation and the importance of broad stakeholder consultation that I will not forget. The uniformed officers and civilian officials I worked alongside at Defence are among the most outstanding colleagues I have had. The example set by then Chiefs of the Defence Force, Sir Peter Cosgrove; Sir Angus Houston; and the Secretary of the Department of Defence, and home-grown Western Australian, Mr Ric Smith, have set for me the benchmark for leadership in any organisation. My time in Defence coincided with the September 11 attacks, the Bali bombings, and our campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. The threat of terrorism at home and overseas has informed my global outlook and has shaped my view of what constitutes a united and healthy society. The sickening terrorist attack in Manchester just three days ago has, sadly, reinforced my perspective. I am the son of a migrant and my wife is the daughter of migrants, and so I am no opponent of immigration. But I can and will continue to take a deep interest in the success of the national migration program. Everyone in our Western Australian community has a stake in it. To my mind, the successful integration of new arrivals and encouraging their cohesion within the mainstream are the only rightful objectives of immigration policy. Our very welfare depends upon it. On the evening before the Western Australian Electoral Commission declared that I had been elected as the sixth and final member of the North Metropolitan Region, I learned that I had been appointed as shadow Minister for Community Services; Youth; Seniors and Ageing; Volunteering; Government Accountability; and Veteran Issues—quite a bag. I intend to make a remark about one of those shadow portfolios, veteran issues, not to the exclusion or detriment of any of the others. I would like to work constructively with the minister, whose military service I greatly respect, to ensure that the needs of Western Australia’s veterans are at the forefront of our considerations. I am energised to meet the needs of our younger veterans, particularly in the areas of mental health support and employability. In my 40 years, I have worked as a cleaner, market gardener, kitchen hand and tutor. I have worked in the public service, for a mining company, a family owned property development company, and a university. I also spent time serving a political apprenticeship. Amanda Vanstone gave me my first job in politics, for which I am ever grateful. Amanda was then, and remains, the definition of political authenticity. She knew her own

[COUNCIL — Thursday, 25 May 2017] 583 mind and spoke it often, even at personal cost. She gave me some of the most important political tutelage that I have received: be a straight talker. Working for the member for Cottesloe, Hon Colin Barnett, was a study in contrasts. It was a privilege to work for him. His integrity and political credibility were the reasons the Liberal and National Parties were able to form government in late 2008. He is doubtlessly among the most significant Premiers this state is ever likely to see. The Western Australian Museum will open its doors to the public in 2020. If not for the passion of the previous member for Kalamunda and Minister for Culture and the Arts, Hon John Day, whom I served as chief of staff, the sod-turning ceremony on Monday would not have happened. The Liberal election victory in 2013 secured that project’s future. It will be the jewel in the crown in the Perth Cultural Centre precinct, create needed jobs and be a tourism drawcard. I joined the Liberal Party because I am a conservative. To my mind, conservatism is not an ideology that pursues causes, or seeks the attainment of impractical ideals. My working definition is that conservatives apply commonsense and shared values to preserve a cherished way of life. Conservatism is founded on the collective wisdom of what has been proven to work. It is a guide to ensure that although our circumstances will change, that our values will continue. Conservatism establishes the necessity of personal responsibility and the obligation of individuals to one another, and of individuals to the whole. It demands service beyond self. Foremost, our obligations to love and protect one another are enacted through the family, the most cherished and important social institution we have. If the purpose of my parliamentary service can be reduced to one objective, it is to ensure that future generations of Western Australians and their families inherit a higher standard of living than my generation enjoys. I am therefore committed to ensuring this state’s continued economic development, and especially to the continued delivery of critical infrastructure and jobs in Perth’s northern suburbs. My starting premise is that Western Australia’s future success is not guaranteed. In spite of our abundant natural resources and skilled workforce, there is always the risk that we will slip into decline. We have no-one to rely upon but ourselves; my hope is that Western Australia’s best days are ahead of it, but we will only get there by our own striving. We are being buffeted by financial, economic, cultural and technological changes. The residential electricity sector is a prime example of where fundamental changes are already taking place. A proliferation of affordable generation and storage technologies has now upended the century-old model of centralised electricity generation, transmission, and distribution. This means that we cannot avoid giving serious consideration to the wisdom of retaining in perpetuity state-owned electricity utilities, the asset values of which will only decline. I also want to mention of the disruption of technological change and how this bears on the delivery of education in this state. What was once science fiction is now science fact. A proliferation of technologies encompassing artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, 3D printing, and autonomous and integrated systems are changing our lives already. Industries are being broken, made and remade. All I need do is remind people of Uber to give a sense of how rapidly change has occurred. I do not take a position on whether all this change is inherently for good or bad; I suspect it is partly both. What matters is how we respond. My son, who is only seven months old, will enter a workforce marked by heightened global competition for skills and where human–machine interaction is the norm. A failure to prepare him for that future, and indeed all our children for that future, will be a dereliction of duty. We have an excellent education system in this state, much of it due to the hard work of my colleague Hon Peter Collier. The task remains for us to build on this strong foundation and emphasise the need for comprehensive science, technology, engineering and mathematics education in all our schools. Future generations of school students are going to require a combination of fundamental mathematics and science knowledge, and advanced vocational skills, to thrive in the new world. That means that we will need to do more to encourage students to take hard maths and science subjects in years 11 and 12. To fail in this will be to consign our children to the status of global academic and economic also-rans. We cannot drop the ball on this. If there is but one achievement I wish to make in my time here, it is to ensure that future generations of Western Australian children receive the world’s best STEM-oriented education so that they are ready to work in the smart service industries and niche manufacturing sectors that will provide the next tranche of skilled jobs. The Liberal Party went to the recent election with a $30 million pledge to replace the old state Quadriplegic Centre in Shenton Park with a new 28-bed facility consistent with modern standards of care for people with spinal injuries, as well as an additional $13 million to provide for the construction of suitable at-home accommodation for those who wish to maintain their independence. I would like to take this opportunity to urge the government to match that commitment. My mother’s uncle, Paul Berry, was a permanent resident at the old paraplegic–quadriplegic rehabilitation hospital in Shenton Park until he passed away in 2005. In the late summer of 1956, Paul, then aged 27, was felled by the polio epidemic that had gripped Australia. Paul survived, but did so at great personal cost. He forever lost the use of his arms. The muscles in his torso atrophied to the point where he could not breathe unconsciously. Paul slept every night of the next 49 years in an iron lung; without its help he would have suffocated.

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I often think about the promise of his youth, which was cut down by a disease that we now have little occasion to remember. He was a gifted athlete, dancer, and competitive sailor. He drove fast cars and had a promising career in the family building business. All of that was taken from him, but he was gifted a strong mind and a sense of humour. Gradually, Paul rebuilt a life for himself, including teaching himself to type and to paint with his toes, and eventually teaching an art history class at tech. He never drew a pension, instead relying on the proceeds of a land sale in which he invested wisely. He also supplemented his income through selling his paintings. He maintained a connected and active life, attending mass and watching West Perth play whenever he could. He was often seen dashing across Selby Street in his motorised wheelchair on the way to the Wembley bottle shop, which was quite a sight, I can tell you! He was dearly loved by his family and he was probably the most remarkable person I have ever met. I tell this story in part to honour his memory, but also as a warning about the dangerous propaganda of the modern anti-vax movement. Modern communication has brought with it many positives, but pseudoscientific fallacies travel quickly, too. We need to be on guard against that. Parents who do not vaccinate their children are not only putting the health of their children in jeopardy, but also endangering those whose immune systems are still underdeveloped. Reports of the under-vaccination of children, even in the more affluent suburbs of the North Metropolitan Region, are cause for serious alarm and serious action. I therefore very much support the principle of the commonwealth government’s “no jab, no play” policy and its implementation in Western Australia. I pledge to work with colleagues in this place and with health professionals in this state to arrest this decline in vaccination rates. I would like to briefly acknowledge the quiet and groundbreaking research undertaken by our scientists. Perth is home to some truly world-leading researchers and specialists in the field of medical science. We must never take them for granted. Although it may be unfair to single out just one team for their work, it is my opinion that the more people who know about the University of Western Australia bioengineering team responsible for the “microscope in a needle” invention of a few years ago, the better. That invention uses advanced optics to detect previously undetectable pathogens. The capacity to identify and locate minute cancer cells will save lives and reduce the need for follow-up surgery. The potential benefits for women with breast cancer are very promising. This kind of wonderful work goes on every day in this state. Although it is the disposition of our adversarial system to focus on the problems and shortcomings in public life, I will also use my position here to bring focus to those truly remarkable innovations from which we all will prosper and benefit. I have a great deal of thanks to give. I thank the men and women of the Western Australian Liberal Party who endorsed my candidature last year. The Liberal Party preselection meeting for the North Metropolitan Region was a large and competitive affair, which attracted a strong field of candidates. To every single one of those people, including my two senior colleagues in this place, Hon Peter Collier and Hon Michael Mischin, and to those colleagues with whom I shared the ticket—Victoria Jackson, Sandra Brewer and Tim Walton—I give my utmost respect and appreciation. The election result belied the pipeline of young talent we have in the Western Australian Liberal Party. My hope is that this generation is given the opportunity to renew and rebuild, and I am sure that it will. I thank every single member of the Cowan division for their support and robust advice, especially the magnificently blunt Matthew Blampey; the incomparable Colin and Hon Cheryl Edwardes who, I understand, are watching me from Ireland at the moment; Scott Edwardes; Rosemary Edgar; Scott and James Edgar; Hon Ray Halligan, a respected former member of this place, and my campaign chair who also joins us today, old warhorse John Hammond; Gary MacLean; Tess MacLean; Amanda McIlroy; Lisa Brooks; Ryan Blake; Arthur Taylor; and Fran Blampey. I would not be here without you. Politics is a competitive and ruthless enterprise. The loss of my friends Eleni Evangel and Paul Miles bears out that fact. They are a loss to this Parliament and to their electorates. I thank them both for their friendship and support when they were in the fight of their political lives. It was a pleasure to campaign alongside you. I have also benefited from the support provided by Dr Peter Lilly, Mr Stedman Ellis and Mr Matthew Fahey, who each encouraged me to make a serious political run. To my ex-colleagues at the University of Western Australia—Professor John Dell, Hon Dr Elizabeth Constable, David Harrison, Mark Stickells and Tim Shanahan—please know that I appreciated your candour and camaraderie over the past three years and that I carry with me here many of the ideas and opportunities we discussed for the advancement of the state’s tertiary education sector. To Jason Marocchi, Richard Wilson, Blair Stratton, Joey Armenti, Rhys Turner, James Larsson, Mike Buba, Simon Ehrenfeld—this will go on!—Aiden Depiazzi, Michael van Maanen, Eacham Curry, Brent Fleeton, Daniel White, Caroline Preuss, Stephen Barton, Gin Ang, Andrew Whitehead, Liam Staltari and Anthony Spagnolo: thank you for your advice and support, even when I did not always listen! Thank you also to state director Andrew Cox, and the entire Liberal Party headquarters, for running a campaign in the most trying of circumstances. That took exceptional courage and you were professional throughout.

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To my parents, Sue and Sjoerd, my brother, Kurt, and sister, Liesl, and your families: thank you for making me who I am. To the Hay, Jones, Mokdad, Monisse and extended Sibma families, thank you. Finally, to my wife Tanya: thank you for all that you have given me, especially our beautiful baby son. Your love, advice and support are immeasurably valuable to me, but your constant reminders that there is a big world outside politics and your insistence that I continue to fulfil my domestic duties are precisely the guidance I need most. Thank you very much. [Applause.] The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: We now return to the Address-in-Reply debate. We have another inaugural speech to listen to so, again, the normal courtesies will, of course, apply. HON (South Metropolitan) [11.49 am]: Thank you, Mr Deputy President. Congratulations on your election to this high office, and I would like to also congratulate Hon Kate Doust on her election as the first female President of the Legislative Council of the Parliament of Western Australia. I would like to acknowledge that we are meeting on the traditional lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people and pay my respect to elders, both past and present. I would like to begin my first speech with the Lord’s Prayer — Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, As it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. Amen. Madam President, I thank the people of the South Metropolitan Region and WA Labor for their trust and support in electing me as a member of the Legislative Council. As a matter of fact, my presence here today is pretty unlikely. I am only the second Chinese Western Australian, and the third Asian Western Australian to be elected to the Legislative Council of Western Australia in its entire 186 years of history. Hence, it is an extraordinary privilege and honour for me to be able to speak on the floor of this historic chamber. Madam President, I am a migrant. I was born and spent the first 15 years of my life in China before coming to Australia as an overseas student. Chinese culture goes back 5 000 years; it puts a lot of emphasis on respect for one’s ancestors and seniors and on self-restraint, moderation, family and collectivism. I am proud of my Chinese heritage. My mother and father decided to send me to study in Australia because they heard that Australia was a beautiful country with a very strong and excellent education system. I must thank my mother and father for their foresight. When I came to this great nation in 1998, as a person with a non–English speaking background I never thought that one day I would be elected by the people of Western Australia as a member of the Legislative Council. As it has turned out, Australia is indeed the land of opportunity and the land of the fair go. Some three years after I came to Australia, on 3 September 2001, I joined the because I was attracted to its core values. The Labor Party believes in a fair and compassionate society where a fair day’s work will return a fair day’s pay and the most vulnerable of our community are supported and protected. The Labor Party believes in giving voice to the voiceless and creating jobs for the jobless, and the Labor Party believes in giving people a fair go. After completing high school education in Sydney and Perth, in 2002, I went on to study law, political science and philosophy at the University of Western Australia. After my study, I was trained as an articled clerk by my mentor, Mr Raymond Tan, for about a year. He spent the next few years training me to be a competent legal practitioner. Mr Tan helped me tirelessly and patiently to improve my verbal and written English skills. I owe Mr Raymond Tan and his wife, Ms Annie Sim, a debt of gratitude. Without their support and training I could not have set up my own practice in 2013 and become self-reliant. During my 10 years in the legal profession I mainly practised family law and frequently dealt with violence restraining order cases. I experienced firsthand how inadequate the system can be when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable. In one extreme case the former partner of a woman breached the VRO protecting her more than 200 times. She was genuinely fearful for herself and her children’s lives. I believe the system should be more responsive and more efficient in protecting the most vulnerable.

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I mentioned previously that Australia is the land of opportunity and the land of the fair go. I was not only accepted to study law and later welcomed into the legal profession, but able to join the Australian Army Reserve as a general service officer. I must admit that at the beginning, it was not easy. During the early part of my training, some doubted how a Chinese immigrant who could not even speak English properly could possibly be of use to the Army. Lieutenant Colonel John Fisher and Sergeant Max Doogood were willing to give me a go at the very critical junctures of my Army Reserve time. I thank them for their trust and faith in me, and I am glad that I did not let them down. I also would like to thank Lieutenant Colonel Mike Stewart, Commander Michael Pounder, Major David Graham, Major Shaun Fenn, Major John Liston, Captain Jim Patterson, Captain Brenton Just, Captain Jo Harper, Captain Demelza Newlove, Captain Charlotte Woollard, Lieutenant Matthew Papalia, Warrant Officer second class Callan Ford, Sergeant Matt Erkens, Sergeant Marc Drew and Sergeant Peter Darch and many others for their friendship and support during my Army Reserve years. I served in the Australian Army Reserve for more than 10 years. The Australian Army is one of the most egalitarian and multicultural institutions I have ever been involved in since my arrival in Australia. The Army’s four core values—courage, initiative, teamwork and respect—are instilled in me. The Army has changed me forever. It trained me to be a leader, to be a more resilient and a more resourceful person and, in the end, a better person. I am very glad that I have served Australia and my fellow Australians on Operation Southern Indian Ocean and contributed to the effort for the search of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. I would like to thank the good people of the City of Gosnells. I began living in Langford in 2005. We are blessed with many good neighbours. We experienced firsthand that the people of the City of Gosnells are happily living together in a multicultural community. The annual Multicultural Food Fair in Langford, which is organised by the City of Gosnells, is attended by thousands of people, and more and more attend each year. After living in the City of Gosnells for eight years, in 2013 I decided to put up my hand to serve my local community as a councillor. Of the 25 candidates in that election, I was elected with the third highest number of votes. I thank the 5 358 people who put their trust in me. That number never escapes my mind. With their support, I became the first East Asian-born councillor for the City of Gosnells. I believe that result is a testament of the people’s support for multiculturalism. I would like to acknowledge Councillor Olwen Searle, the Mayor of the City of Gosnells, and former Councillor Ron Hoffman for their friendship and mentoring during my time as a councillor. I would like to thank the WA Chinese community. In particular, I would like to thank Dr Edward Zhang, JP. I met Dr Zhang shortly after I arrived in Perth. He advised me, encouraged me and supported me on my journey to become a parliamentarian. Dr Zhang is like an uncle to me, and I am privileged to have known Dr Zhang. I would like to thank also the following people from the Chinese community for their encouragement and support: Ah Hong Lai, Eddie Kwah, Fei Zhi, Xu Yi, Wang Xiaoxiang, Lin Xiang Pei, Ben Pan, Huang Fengzhuo, Tom Wang, Fang Yun, Kevin Zhang, Tim Song, Leon Zhu, John Hong, Bruce Sun, Mark Sun, Yang Qun, Lv Liang, Yuan Jianwen, Zhang Ting, Simon Yan, Lin Zi, Qian Guiyuan, Zhou Wei, Peter Zhao, Herbert He, Wu Ming, Sophia Tang, Ding Shaoping, Chen Ting, Su Li, Sun Xiaoxing, Yolanda Wang, Yuan Haobo, Chen Jie, Fan Linquan and many friends of mine in the Chinese community. The Chinese community has existed in Western Australia since the early 1800s. In the nineteenth century, there were two waves of Chinese immigration to this great state. The first wave of Chinese immigration was mainly indentured coolies, which literally translates as hard labourers, who were organised by the colonial government in the 1840s and 1850s. The second wave of immigration happened in the 1880s and those Chinese were mainly free settlers who set up small businesses such as market gardens, Asian grocery stores and laundries. At its peak in the nineteenth century, Chinese were the second largest non-Indigenous group in Australia, but the overall proportion of Chinese in the total population barely passed three percent. In the second half of the nineteenth century community support for Chinese migration, which was originally built around economic reasons, gradually lost momentum. Many pieces of legislation were passed by this very Parliament with the aim to limit, among other ethnic groups, Chinese migration. For example, the Act to Regulate and Restrict Chinese Immigration 1886 imposed a limit on how many Chinese a ship could carry into Western Australia and how much poll tax Chinese had to pay before entering; the Goldfields Act 1886 excluded Chinese from obtaining any licence to operate on any goldfield; and the Chinese Immigration Restriction Act 1889 required all Chinese and only Chinese who intended to enter WA to obtain a permit beforehand. Legislation that did not specifically refer to Chinese people was also used to disadvantage the Chinese in practice. Such legislation included the Sharks Bay Pearl Shell Fishery Act 1886 and the Immigration Restriction Act 1897. At Federation, these sentiments culminated in the commonwealth Immigration Restriction Act 1901, which was one of the first pieces of legislation passed by the new federal Parliament. This act marked the beginning of the White Australia policy. In the following decades, Australia gradually moved on from the White Australia policy and eventually abolished it. Multiculturalism was adopted as its official policy in the 1970s. Forty years on, Australia is the most successful multicultural nation in the world. I believe that mutual respect is one of the fundamental pillars of multiculturalism. It is human nature to be fearful of the unfamiliar and the unknown. But instead of being fearful and resentful towards unknown and unfamiliar

[COUNCIL — Thursday, 25 May 2017] 587 cultures, Australians have shown great warmth and respect to all newcomers. Australia and Australians have done so much more than merely tolerating immigrants. In my humble opinion, tolerance is not the right word to describe the relationship between communities and cultures. Immigrants are not only tolerated; we are embraced and accepted as equals by our fellow Australians. In comparison with the Chinese Western Australians who lived here a century ago, I am lucky to live in a modern Australia that is inclusive, harmonious, generous, respectful and multicultural. This is to the credit of my fellow Australians and I am proud to say that I am an Australian too. Multiculturalism is the right way for us to move forward as a nation, a state and as a people. Our Lord has created us in his image. We are of many diverse ethnicities and it is his wish that we look the way we look. We should follow his teaching to love and care for one another, irrespective of the way we look or the colour of our skin. Like Dr Martin Luther King Jr, I also have a dream. I dream that when my two young children and all children of today grow up, they can live in an even fairer and more respectful society where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, or their ethnicity, but by the content of their character and deeds. I will do all I can to strive to achieve that dream. Talking about multiculturalism, no party supports multiculturalism more than the modern Australian Labor Party. I have the greatest admiration and deepest respect for , Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, who were instrumental in the establishment of multiculturalism in Australia. The Labor Party advocates for the dreams and aspirations of everyday Australians, including new Australians. The Labor Party believes that all Australians deserve a decent life, and its deep support for social equality originated from the labour movement and was later heavily influenced by the traditions of Catholicism. While on this topic, I would like to thank Father Timothy Corcoran, the priest at Thornlie Sacred Heart Catholic Church, who brought me to the Catholic faith many years ago. The more I learn about Catholicism, the more I realise the similarities between the Labor Party’s values and the Catholic traditions. I am proud to be Labor and I am proud to be Catholic. I would also like to especially acknowledge Carolyn Smith, the secretary of United Voice. Carolyn is a great friend and has been a great inspiration since we met many years ago. She is a person of great integrity and talent and I thank her for her unwavering support for multiculturalism and diversity in politics. I also would like to thank Mark McGowan, Sue Ellery, Roger Cook, Alannah MacTiernan, Steve McCartney, Christy Cain, Simon Mead, Chris Tallentire, Amber-Jade Sanderson, Terry Healy, Mark Reed, Sheila McHale, Yvonne and Ray Omacini, Jack and Mary de Groot, Brian and the late Agnes Wright, Emma Roebuck, Sarah Seymour and many, many others for their friendship, help and guidance over the years. I would also like to thank those who have helped me during my campaign: Patrick Gorman, Lenda Oshalem, Caitlin Goddard, Sarah Keegan, Alyesha Anderson, Matt Kavanagh, Kay Hallahan, Marion Boswell, Yew Han Hee, Judy Zhu, Simon Wu, Bruce Zhang, Mickey Sun, Chris Chen, Liang Xiao, Kevin de Souza, Wang Jia, Tom Beyer, Kevin Drake and the hundreds of people who supported me and volunteered their time during the campaign. Without the help and support of those I have mentioned, I would not be standing here today. Australia is known as the Lucky Country and many of us are doing very well in this free country. Yet, some are doing it very tough. More and more Australians have become homeless and it is estimated that over 105 000 Australians are homeless on any given night. This is a real human tragedy, especially so because Australia is one of the richest countries in the world. I am passionate about fairness and social justice and I am proud of the Labor Party’s achievements and history on these issues. One of the first things I did after knowing that I was elected as a member of the Legislative Council was register for the St Vincent de Paul Society’s 2017 CEO Sleepout. I have donated to Sleepout for many years but I hope by participating in this year’s CEO Sleepout, I can help to raise more awareness about this very sad social issue and to make a small contribution. We, as a nation, will be judged by the history of how we treat the most vulnerable among us, and we parliamentarians are duty-bound to do more. All people are created equal. I am especially proud that Mr Mark McGowan and WA Labor promised to expunge historical convictions for LGBTI people convicted of crimes that would not be illegal today. Now Labor has been elected and Mr McGowan is our new Premier, I look forward to being a part of the legislative process which will carry through that commitment. If all people were created equal, it should be self-evident that in a modern democracy all votes should be given the same weight when voters are selecting their representatives. However, a non-metropolitan vote for the Legislative Council at the 2017 state election was weighted, on average, at three times that of a metropolitan vote, and some non-metropolitan votes are worth almost six times. Hon Dr Geoff Gallop, AC, once said — It does not make sense either logically or ethically to establish the right of a person to vote and then diminish the value of that vote in relation to the votes cast by others. Hence if you believe that all people are created equal, you have to believe it all the time. Electoral reform about the method used to elect members of the Legislative Council is needed in order to achieve that equality. Having lived in China for the first 15 years of my life and then in Australia, I hope I can put my experience in both cultures to good use and help to foster, in addition to the strong trade relationship, a better people-to-people and culture-to-culture relationship between Western Australia and the greater Asian region.

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Last, but not least, I would like to acknowledge my beloved wife. Although having little interest in politics, Hazel has always been willing to help the Labor Party and me. She started letterbox drops and volunteering her time for the party soon after we began our relationship some 13 years ago. She even stepped up to be a booth captain on 11 March 2017. It is not easy for my wife to look after our two boys—Pierre Jr, who is five years old, and Malcolm, who is two years old, by herself, as I was often absent from home. The good thing is we now have two extra volunteers who have already started letterbox drops for the party! I feel so privileged that I have always had Hazel’s fullest support in whatever I have pursued and I will strive to earn her continued support and trust. I also would like to thank my extended family for their help and support, especially my parents-in-law, my mum, my cousin Nick and his wife, Joyce. Madam President, Confucius once said (correction: it was said by Lao Tzu) — 千里之行，始于足下 That means: a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. I am ready to serve the people of Western Australia and the journey begins now. [Applause.] HON ADELE FARINA (South West) [12.14 pm]: Unfortunately I am not feeling the best today, so I may actually seek leave to continue my remarks at a later time. I rise to give my Address-in-Reply contribution in response to the Governor’s address at the official opening of Parliament. I want to put on the record my appreciation of the efforts of Her Excellency the Governor. She has been doing an extraordinary job serving the people of Western Australia. Her efforts in regional Western Australia are greatly appreciated. To those members who left us last week, friendship and respect developed across the chamber regardless of our political differences. They made a significant contribution to the state and will be missed in this chamber. I wish them the very best for their future endeavours and I thank them all for the great relationships we developed over the time that they were here. To the new members, I warmly welcome you to the chamber. Your inaugural speeches have provided an insight into your values and what drove you to take on what is often a very difficult job in representing the people of Western Australia. A number of inaugural speeches were very moving and I think touched a lot of us in this place. I look forward to getting to know you better and to working with you in the advancement of our great state. I take this opportunity to apologise to Hon Steve Thomas. I will be away on urgent parliamentary business when he gives his inaugural speech later today. I will be in our electorate serving our constituents, but I would like to congratulate him on his re-election to the Parliament of Western Australia and, on this occasion, to the house of review. I wish him all the best and look forward to working with him to serve our constituents in the South West Region. I promise to read Hon Steve Thomas’s speech with keen interest later, when it becomes available in Hansard. I join with my colleagues on the government benches in congratulating Hon Mark McGowan and the Labor team on its stunning and convincing victory at the election. It is not my intention to lecture the Liberals on the reasons it lost the election but, rather, to reinforce in my colleagues that having won the election, we must not stop listening to the voters who put us on the government benches. The consequence of doing so is a return to the opposition benches. We must always listen to the voters even when it is not convenient to do so and we must listen to all members on the backbench regardless of whether they are Legislative Assembly members or Legislative Council members. We all represent the people of Western Australia and bring something to the table. I am confident that the McGowan Labor government will heed the lesson of the last election and will continue to listen to the voters of Western Australia. I would like to thank the voters of the South West Region for their faith in me to continue to represent them in this place. I am genuinely humbled by their support and assure them that I will continue to represent them to the best of my abilities. As a member of the government, I hope to be in a better position to address the needs of the South West Region. I assure the voters of the South West Region that I will be as diligent in advocating for the needs of the region in government as I was in opposition. I will be diligent in calling the government to task if the needs of the south west are being ignored. I am confident, however, that this will not be the case. I welcome Hon Mark McGowan’s acknowledgement during the election campaign that the South West Region did not get its fair share of royalties for regions funding under the former Liberal–National government and look forward to redressing this throughout the region. Having been asked to relocate my office into the seat of Bunbury and having worked the seat over the last eight and a half years effectively as a lower house member to best position Labor to win the seat of Bunbury, no-one is happier than I am with the resounding swing to Labor obtained in the seat of Bunbury. I congratulate Don Punch on his win. I welcome him to the team and look forward to working with Don to ensure that the seat remains a Labor seat well into the future. Don’s knowledge and experience make him a valued addition to the team.

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I would also like to acknowledge Robyn Clarke’s stunning win in the seat of Murray–Wellington. As a non-target seat, Robyn did not receive the additional resources put into winning the seat of Bunbury. Although her margin may be smaller than was achieved in the seat of Bunbury, in many ways Robyn’s win was all the more stunning. It was a grassroots campaign, fought on a shoestring. I congratulate and warmly welcome Robyn to the south west team, and I look forward to working with her. I also congratulate Peter Watson, Mick Murray and David Templeman on their re-election. They are hardworking local members, and this is reflected in their wins at the last election. I was pleased to see Labor’s plan for Bunbury incorporate many of the issues I have been fighting for on behalf of the people of Bunbury over the last eight and a half years. It has been a long wait for the people of Bunbury to get a commitment on these issues. I first raised the need for additional beds at Bunbury Hospital in 2009 on learning that the average occupancy rate was higher than was considered ideal, that people were being discharged from the hospital earlier than would otherwise be the case to free up beds and that adults were being put in the children’s ward, and vice versa, when no appropriate beds were available, and maternity patients were being put in the general ward when there were no beds in the maternity ward. The government denied this was a problem and resisted calls for additional beds to be made available, yet the incidents continued to occur. Some said that the pressure on Bunbury Hospital would ease with the opening of the new Busselton Health Campus, but that was not case. Almost every week I hear a story of a local resident attending at Busselton emergency, only to be told that they need to go to Bunbury Hospital, or of a local resident needing surgery and being told that the surgery must be performed at Bunbury Hospital as it cannot be performed at Busselton hospital. The problem of a lack of beds at Bunbury Hospital has persisted since I first raised it in 2009, yet the former Liberal–National government refused to fund much-needed additional beds at Bunbury Hospital. In stark contrast, Labor has committed to fund an increase in the bed capacity at Bunbury to 200. The previous government did nothing to fill the vacancy left in Busselton when its resident surgical doctor retired, resulting in residents having to travel to Bunbury for surgeries previously performed at Busselton hospital. If we do not act to fill this position, I expect a 200-bed capacity at Bunbury Hospital will not be sufficient to meet the growing demand. It makes little sense to build a new hospital in Busselton, only to have many Busselton residents having to travel to Bunbury for their surgeries. This is an issue that we will need to address now that we are in government. The former Liberal–National government promised to build a step up, step down mental health facility in Bunbury at the 2013 election, yet never delivered on its commitment. For four years I regularly held the government to account on its failure to honour its election commitment. Towards the end of the four years the ministers had spun so many mistruths about the implementation of this election commitment that they got themselves caught up and caught out in the tangled web that they had woven. Over those four years, people who needed this service were not able to access it. I was pleased to see Labor commit to delivering this much-needed facility during this term of government. Perhaps my biggest fight over the last eight and a half years was for a residential rehabilitation facility in the South West Region. I first called for such a facility in 2009, when it became clear to me that we had a great need for a residential rehabilitation facility in the region. The then Minister for Health said that I did not know what I was talking about and that there was insufficient demand for such a facility in the region—views echoed by the Minister for Mental Health. However, it was not long before the South West Community Drug and Alcohol Service and others working in the field joined the call for a residential rehabilitation facility, citing the difficulty of getting people into the few places available in the metropolitan area, the long wait times, and the additional burden on patients of having to relocate to Perth for treatment. Nevertheless, the former government continued to deny that such a facility was needed. Despite the repeated calls for a residential rehabilitation facility in the region and the growing evidence of a deepening drug and alcohol use problem in the region, with methamphetamine tearing many families apart, the former Liberal–National government remained in denial, saying there was insufficient demand for a residential rehabilitation facility in the region. Finally, in 2015, the former government released “The Western Australian Mental Health, Alcohol and Other Drug Services Plan 2015–2025”, and with it came the first public acknowledgment by the former Liberal– National government of the need for a residential rehabilitation facility in the South West Region. The plan committed the government to commence the development and implementation of the 36-bed residential treatment and rehabilitation service in the region by the end of 2017. However, with no funding commitment, and comments from the former Minister for Health in 2016 pulling back from this commitment, it was clear that the Liberal–National government had no plan to deliver within the stated time frame, if at all. In the run-up to the state election I provided the then shadow Minister for Mental Health, Hon Stephen Dawson, a list of needs for my region within his portfolio responsibilities. I told him that if he could deliver on only one of these requests, the residential rehabilitation facility was the priority project. He did not need convincing. Hon Stephen Dawson understood that a residential rehabilitation facility was needed in the region, and as

590 [COUNCIL — Thursday, 25 May 2017] shadow minister he played a key role in ensuring the project became a Labor election commitment at the last state election. I want to put on the record my sincere thanks, and that of my constituents, to Hon Stephen Dawson for his strong support in delivering this election commitment. We are sincerely grateful. From my first meeting with the dynamic trio and driving force behind Doors Wide Open, I was committed to helping them achieve their objective of opening a meth crisis support centre in Bunbury. Mothers Lina and Julie were living the experience of parents with children with a methamphetamine addiction. Lina’s daughter, Courtney, had to see her brother, Taylor, at death’s door due to his meth addiction. With two young children, she is as determined as her mother to ensure that Taylor has the support that he needs to stay clean. They volunteer their support to other local families dealing with the impacts of a loved one with a meth addiction. However, demand for their support quickly grew beyond a volunteer capacity and they needed funding to open a crisis support centre in Bunbury. From our first meeting I knew these women had what it took to make this a reality; they just needed a little support and I was happy to provide it. Among a number of others, I set up introductions with the South West Development Commission for support and assistance with the preparation of a business plan, and with the south west police district superintendent. Despite preparing a detailed business case as requested, the group was let down terribly by the Liberal–National government in its request for funding. I arranged an introduction of the group to Don Punch, who quickly lent his support to its cause. The result of our efforts was a $100 000 funding commitment by Labor towards realising its business plan. Although it was not the full amount that it needed, it enabled it to get started. I am hopeful, now we are in government, that the funds may be found to provide Doors Wide Open with the balance of funding it needs to realise its plan to open a kitchen and become self-funded down the track. There is a strong demand in Bunbury for the services provided by Doors Wide Open, and it would be disappointing if the service could not be sustained because insufficient funding was made available to the group to establish the kitchen and become self-sufficient. Members will be aware of my strong advocacy on behalf of St John Ambulance paramedics and volunteers against the toxic and bullying nature and culture within St John, and my concern about the high number of suicides of St John Ambulance paramedics and volunteers over a short period of time. I experienced some of that bullying culture firsthand when I went public on this issue and St John senior management tried to silence me and publicly said that I did not know what I was talking about and that the claims I was making were baseless. After much pressure, St John Ambulance agreed to establish an inquiry. I thank the media for their role in exposing what was happening within St John Ambulance, and the brave paramedics and volunteers who spoke out at the risk of losing their jobs, and the families of those people for speaking out as well. The independent oversight panel found that the St John Ambulance workplace was toxic and had a culture of bullying, and made numerous recommendations, including the establishment of an independent body to oversight the implementation of the panel’s recommendations. St John Ambulance responded by saying that its board would oversight the implementation of the recommendations—a wholly inadequate and unacceptable response. After much pressure, the former Liberal–National government, in an equally inadequate and unacceptable response, said that the WA Ambulance Standing Committee would oversight the implementation of the panel’s recommendations. I am sure members will be as concerned as I am to learn that I continue to receive calls from paramedics and volunteers saying that little has improved since the panel’s report. I want to take this opportunity to reassure St John Ambulance paramedics and volunteers that they have not been forgotten and that I will continue to champion their cause until there is real change and improvement. To this end I have written to the new Minister for Health asking for a briefing on the status of the implementation of the panel’s recommendations, and I stand ready to take up the fight again if real progress has not been made. I will continue to monitor the implementation of those recommendations. I also called for a public and transparent review of the country ambulance service. The need for such a review was first identified in 2009 in the report of the inquiry into St John Ambulance, and in 2013 in the Auditor General’s report “Delivering Western Australia’s Ambulance Services”. The independent oversight panel also recommended a review of the country ambulance service. After a barrage of questions from me, both on notice and without notice, the former government relented by consenting to the development of a country ambulance strategy. This wholly internal and secret process was also an inadequate response by the former government. In stark contrast, the McGowan Labor government has committed to a public and transparent review of the country ambulance service. I have written to the Minister for Health asking for a status update on the development of the country ambulance strategy that was promised by the former government and the establishment of a public and transparent review of the country ambulance service. In view of my knowledge of the issues with the country ambulance service and strong advocacy role in securing this review commitment, I hope to play an active role in the review; if not, I undertake to closely scrutinise the review outcomes and speak out if the review fails to meet expectations. I want to reassure St John Ambulance paramedics and volunteers that I will continue to be a strong advocate on their behalf in government, as I was in opposition. They provide a critical lifesaving service in our community, and we need to ensure that stark improvements are made in their workplace.

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After the significant funding investment by the Gallop and Carpenter governments in improving road infrastructure in and to Bunbury with the construction of the Perth–Bunbury highway, the port road and one stage of the Bunbury outer ring-road, progress on completion of the Bunbury outer ring-road stalled under the former Liberal–National government. Labor’s commitment during the election campaign to progress the completion of the Bunbury outer ring-road has been warmly welcomed by the Bunbury community. My strong support for a Perth–Bunbury fast train is detailed clearly on the public record, including in my inaugural speech. Former Premier Alan Carpenter shared that vision when he committed during the 2008 election campaign to a feasibility study for a fast train and ensured that allowance was made in the Perth– Bunbury highway road reserve for a rail line. The feasibility study and planning stalled under the former Liberal–National government. However, I am pleased that intense lobbying by me has seen land set aside for a future train station at Koombana North, which is probably the closest point to the CBD for a station without the need to incur massive land resumption costs. The rapid population growth in the greater Bunbury area makes a strong argument for the need to invest in a fast train now to guide the resulting development driven by the rapid population growth. However, the dire state of the state’s finances, the need to address the congestion issues in the metropolitan area and the lack of advancement with the planning work under the former government means this is not possible. Labor has nevertheless committed to improving the Australind service as an interim measure and to progress planning for a fast train. Whenever the people of Bunbury are surveyed, they list a Perth–Bunbury fast train as their key project. I therefore put this government, and future governments, on notice that this project is not going to go away and cannot be deferred indefinitely. The benefits of a fast train from Perth to the greater Bunbury area and the South West Region cannot be overstated. I am confident that, once built, a Perth–Bunbury fast train will enjoy high patronage numbers, as are being experienced with the Perth–Mandurah train. I give my commitment to the people of Bunbury and the South West Region that I will continue to keep working towards a Perth– Bunbury fast train, noting that, all things being equal, it is now a medium to longer term project. Having been approached by the Withers Action Group in about 2011, I have been actively championing the cause of urban renewal for Withers. In 2011, through my work with the Withers Action Group, I led a delegation of the shadow cabinet, under the leadership of the then Leader of the Opposition, Hon Eric Ripper, MLA, on a visit through Withers so that they could see first-hand the issues of concern to Withers residents and hear from community representatives. The group secured a small funding commitment from the City of Bunbury, and through my introduction of the group to the South West Development Commission and our lobbying efforts, $1.5 million in funding was committed by the South West Development Commission in 2013 to progress the Withers urban renewal. Although there have been a couple of footpaths built, upgrades to a few parks and installation of CCTV cameras, the major urban renewal issues are yet to be addressed. Those issues are the high proportion of public housing tenants, which is higher than the Department of Housing’s stated policy; redesign of the suburb to design-out crime; activation of large tracts of undeveloped land; upgrades to the department’s old housing stock; enforcement of the requirement by the Department of Housing that tenants maintain their properties to an acceptable standard; closure of the remaining laneways that have been identified for closure; and implementation of traffic management measures. The community strongly supports the urban renewal of Withers and is frustrated and disappointed with the lack of progress under the former Liberal–National government. Four years after that $1.5 million in funding was committed by the South West Development Commission, a little over half of the allocated funds has been spent—approximately $896 205. The people of Withers deserved better from the former Liberal–National government and they deserve better from the City of Bunbury. The commitment by the former Liberal–National government of millions of dollars of funding for stages 1 and 2 of the Bunbury waterfront project, when it had failed to progress the Withers urban renewal, was not well received by Withers residents, who again felt that their real needs had been ignored in favour of a more glitzy project. I welcome Labor’s commitment to progress the urban renewal of Withers. However, based on past experience, I am not convinced that involving LandCorp will deliver the outcomes sought by the community. I also caution the government not to follow the most recent City of Bunbury Withers local area plan. The consultants used a divide-and-conquer approach and it appeared that the limited consultation that was undertaken was guided towards predetermined outcomes. I remain to be convinced that the Withers community has been properly and adequately consulted on the content of that plan, much less supports it. The stakeholders who were consulted and who have spoken to me say that their concerns and comments are not reflected in the final plan and the promised further consultation did not take place. That is not dissimilar to my experience. Urban renewal is never easy, but it is achievable, with very positive results, as is evidenced by the urban renewal projects undertaken in a number of metropolitan suburbs by former Labor governments. However, as with those projects, government investment is required. I look forward to working with Don Punch and the Withers community to deliver urban renewal for Withers of a nature, scale and form supported by the Withers community. The former Liberal–National government’s massive increase in TAFE fees put study at TAFE out of reach for many in the South West Region, with enrolment numbers decreasing starkly. Significant staff reductions and

592 [COUNCIL — Thursday, 25 May 2017] a reduction in contact hours have impacted significantly on the standard of education and training offered by TAFE. This is an issue on which I have shone the public spotlight throughout the electorate. I welcome Mark McGowan’s announcement to freeze TAFE fees, meaning that the increases projected by the Liberal– National government will now not occur. This is a welcome relief for many in my community. I understand that the dire state of the state’s finances has made it impossible to consider cuts to TAFE fees at this time. However, it is important to note that even though TAFE fees have been frozen, TAFE still remains out of reach for some people in my community Over recent years I have highlighted differences between the fees charged for courses at metropolitan TAFEs compared with the same courses at South Regional TAFE. The starkest of these differences was that students at the south west TAFE were being charged $3 000 more than students at metropolitan TAFEs for the same beautician course. There can be no reasonable justification for this disparity in fees for the same course. I ask the minister to undertake an annual review of fees charged by the various TAFEs for the same course to ensure regional TAFE students are not disadvantaged by higher fees than those paid by metropolitan TAFE students completing the same course. This would go a long way to making the courses more affordable for my constituents. Labor’s “Plan for Jobs” identified the need to diversify the economy, create jobs, maximise the number of apprentices and trainees employed on government projects and strengthen Buy Local guidelines on the use of local businesses and workers on regional projects, and addressed key concerns held by many of my constituents. It delivered a clear message to voters that Labor had a sound plan to address these concerns. Labor’s commitment to put education assistants back in the classroom and to invest in our schools was also a vote winner. During the election campaign I was outside a school in Busselton, talking to a group of parents. A mother who was sitting in her car by the side of the road was listening intently. She got out of her car, walked up to me and said, “I’m a mother of two children with learning disabilities. Voting Liberal all my life has got me nothing. My children need the support of education assistants and the Liberals have removed them from the classroom. When I sought assistance from the local member, she did nothing. This election I’m voting Labor.” Those sentiments were echoed by many who have experienced the impact of the removal of education assistants from classrooms. I want to raise a number of other issues, but with limited time I might need to race through them. I apologise if I do not do them justice. I refer to mental health. Members will be aware that I am a patron of Lamp Inc, a not-for-profit community organisation that provides support services for people with mental health problems. In her inaugural speech, Hon Alison Xamon said most of what needs to be said about mental health and what needs to be done. We are very privileged as a Parliament to have someone with Hon Alison Xamon’s wealth of experience and knowledge in this area. We have an opportunity in this Parliament to take on the matters raised by Hon Alison Xamon and put right all that is wrong in this area—there is much to be done in this area. I remain unconvinced that the National Disability Insurance Scheme is adequately addressing the needs of people with mental health problems. Mr Bonyhady, the former chair of the National Disability Insurance Agency, noted that people with a psychosocial disability and those in rural and remote areas were among the participants who were not benefiting as much as others. His evaluation report found that funding individualised support services, instead of group-based services, had negatively impacted on the social participation of some NDIS participants who no longer attended programs in which they had previously mixed with a range of people. In addition, he found that the NDIA’s current funding for community inclusion programs was not sufficient. That means that one of the key foundations on which the NDIS is being built is weak. The inconvenient truth is that a significant number of people with mental health problems are deemed ineligible for NDIS funding because they fail to meet the permanent disability requirement. Nevertheless, they have significant mental health problems and require support to live in the community. The supports that they have received have been provided by community not-for-profit groups through block funding provided to those organisations—previously referred to as tier 2 funding. With the rollout of the NDIS, this block funding is being cut. This means that people with mental health problems needing support to live in the community but deemed ineligible under the NDIS will soon be unable to access the supports which they have received to date and which they need to manage day-to-day living in the community unless they are able to pay for those services, and most do not have the finances to pay for the services. Hon Alison Xamon addressed this issue in her address, and probably a lot better than I am doing. With no register kept of the people deemed ineligible for the NDIS and no monitoring of these people once their supports have been withdrawn, they face a potentially very bleak future. We need to ensure that measures are put in place to monitor these people and that tier 2 block funding continues to be provided at some level, if not to the full level. If we do not do this, the ramifications will be significant for the people concerned, and the cost to the state and society will be far greater than the cost of continuing this block funding. I have already seen community not-for-profits in the lower south west cut staff and services because of the reduction in block funding, and I know that they have had to turn away clients deemed ineligible under the NDIS

[COUNCIL — Thursday, 25 May 2017] 593 and without the funds to pay for the organisation’s services despite having previously provided services to those clients. We need to address this as a matter of urgency if we want people with mental health problems to remain functioning and living in the community. I understand that in the lower south west, the mental health service agencies will no longer perform psychiatric assessments of people with mental health problems for the purpose of their NDIS eligibility assessment. I am told that the cost of a private assessment is about $2 000. Many people with mental health problems cannot afford this cost and the not-for-profit organisations providing mental health support services are not funded to cover these costs. This is a significant problem. I have written to the Minister for Health; Mental Health seeking confirmation that what has been reported to me is in fact accurate and, in case it is, calling on the minister to reverse the decision. I seek leave to continue my remarks at a later stage of this day’s sitting. Leave granted. HON (Agricultural — Parliamentary Secretary) [12.47 pm]: We are moving around the house, but it is important that we keep this important debate moving along. Before I start, I am not sure whether members are aware, but there is a birthday in the house today. It is Hayley Brown’s birthday today. Many happy returns, Hayley. There she is over there. I hope you have a wonderful day. I remind members that when I spoke yesterday, the focus of my contribution to the address-in-reply debate was the historic occasion that we have before us with not only our first woman President, but the first woman Leader of the House and, indeed, the first woman Governor to read the Governor’s speech. I touched on that. I forgot a fourth one, and I must say that the lady’s name has escaped me, but last weekend we saw the very first woman to umpire an AFL football match. There has been some fallout, sadly, and it is somewhat embarrassing that it has come from the Agricultural Region; I think that fallout was quite ordinary, but my congratulations to her. I believe her name is Eleni. If I have that wrong, I apologise. That is another groundbreaking role. Might I say that over the course of the year, the male umpires have left a little bit to be desired at times. I wish her well in her career and I will watch with interest as she continues that very important and difficult job of umpiring AFL matches. When I suspended my remarks last time, I was talking about Labor’s fantastic showing in the recent election. The McGowan Labor government was emphatically elected by the people of Western Australia and a collective sigh of relief was breathed around the state as the Barnett Liberal government was defeated and removed from office after eight torturous years in which we saw the state’s finances totally trashed. We had the best set of books in Australia in 2008. We had state debt at about $3.6 billion. We had a AAA credit rating firmly intact. We find ourselves coming into government, after having restored the AAA’s credit rating during the Gallop years, having to repeat that task again. It is becoming a bit tiresome, members opposite, when a Labor government has to come in and fix the mess, do its eight years and get the books in order. Then we have a change of government and the finances are trashed again. We are a very long way away from those heady days of a secure AAA credit rating. Several members interjected. The PRESIDENT: Order! I can barely hear Hon Darren West and he has the call. Hon DARREN WEST: Fancy that! Fancy being able to drown out my voice. That is what we have to do sometimes—talk over interjections. I know that from time to time I have been somewhat guilty of throwing in the odd interjection; it is part of the debate. I welcome constructive, well-thought-out and sensible interjections, but not all of them! Several members interjected. The PRESIDENT: Members! Hon Darren West, please do not invite any interjections when you are on your feet. I suggest you direct your comments to the Chair and not to the other members. Hon DARREN WEST: I shall do just that. I was talking about how tiresome it is for Labor governments to come into office and have to clean up the mess. The state is a long way from a secure AAA credit rating. We anticipate that our whole first term will be spent on budget repair and trying to right the ship from the financial and economic mess left to us by the cabinet members and all members of the Barnett Liberal–National government. Blame should be laid equally on both coalition parties. It is not fair to say that our friends in the National Party were lilywhite in their handling of the state’s finances, so my comments are not purely directed at the Liberal component of the coalition. The National Party has a lot of questions to answer for the people of Western Australia. Not only are we a government, we are here to manage the state of Western Australia and do the right thing by its people. When the Liberal–National government increased state debt by 10 times over its eight years, it was not doing what is best for the people of Western Australia. Hon Simon O’Brien: What’s the point of these remarks?

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Hon DARREN WEST: It is my contribution to the Address-in-Reply. I look forward to the honourable member’s contribution. We have had a thumping win and it is just great. The people of Western Australia think it is great too. Here is a concept, members: the McGowan government has come in to office and it has started to fulfil its commitments. It has been a long time since the state has had a government that fulfilled the commitments it laid out before the election. Earlier in my remarks I referred to commitments such as Geraldton Hospital. I will talk about some of those broken commitments later. It was quite torturous to sit in opposition for four years and see the train wreck of the Western Australian economy appear before our eyes. We are now the worst performing state in Australia. Go figure! We were the powerhouse of the Australian economy. In terms of minerals and gas resources, we were the jewel in the crown—the envy of much of the Western world. We are now performing behind Tasmania. I remember the former Premier Colin Barnett saying that when he got out of that job, he would go down to Tasmania and teach it how to run an economy. I do not think he would be welcome there anymore; Tasmania does not want its economy run like Western Australia’s economy has been run for the past eight years. There has been a collective sigh of relief and the Western Australian people have looked to us, the incoming McGowan Labor government, to sort out the mess, straighten up the ship and set sail on a more productive and progressive course over the next four years. It was hard to watch the poor economic management, but we knew that the day of reckoning was coming when someone would stand up and say that some hard decisions had to be made, that the budget needed to be repaired and that we had to put some real pressure on our conservative representatives in Canberra to fix up the unfair GST distribution. I remind members that the GST arrangements were signed in 1999 by then Premier and Treasurer Richard Court against the sage advice—plenty of debates in Hansard can be looked up—of the then shadow Treasurer Eric Ripper, who went on to become Western Australia’s first standalone Treasurer and finest economic manager. The then Labor opposition could see that it was not a good deal for Western Australia in the long term. It is true that for the first years Western Australia received over 100 cents in the dollar, but everybody could see that as the economy grew and Western Australia’s iron ore exports continued to grow, which they inevitably would because we had some of the finest resources and most secure conditions for companies to operate in the world, that our receipts would grow and our GST share would diminish. The Court government signed the deal anyway and now we are left with this mess that needs to be fixed. I hope that our conservative friends in government in Canberra will have some pressure applied to them by Western Australian Liberal members of Parliament. Some of them might be a little bit nervous about the next election. I hope that they take action and correct some of the imbalance. I will talk about Labor’s campaign in the regions. What a campaign it was! The regional people of Western Australia turned to the Labor Party to steer them out of the mire. As a regional MP, it was very humbling for the electorate to give us this mandate. I am not sure whether members opposite are aware, but there are 34 regional seats in the Parliament of Western Australia—18 in this place and 16 in the other place—that are decided at each election. Labor now holds 13 of those 34 seats—more seats than anyone else. The National Party, which contests seats only in the regions, holds nine seats. The Liberal Party holds seven seats. The other parties combined hold five seats. Labor holds 13 seats; that is by far the biggest make-up of regional MPs in one party in the Western Australia Parliament. I do not know whether that has happened for a while. It may have been the case after the 2005 election but it is certainly a first under the one vote, one value system. Hon Col Holt: As a regional MP, do you rule out changes to the way we elect regional representatives? The PRESIDENT: Hon Darren West, before you respond to that interesting interjection, I offer you the opportunity to seek leave to continue your remarks at a later stage of today’s sitting. Hon DARREN WEST: I seek leave to continue my remarks at the next sitting of the house. Leave granted. Debate adjourned, on motion by Hon Ken Baston. [Continued on page 600.] Sitting suspended from 12.57 to 2.00 pm WINIFRED MARGARET PIESSE Condolence Motion HON SUE ELLERY (South Metropolitan — Leader of the House) [2.00 pm] — without notice: I move — That this house expresses its deep regret at the death of Hon Winifred Piesse, a former member of the Legislative Council for Lower Central Province; and places on record its appreciation for her long public service, and tenders its profound sympathy to members of her family in their bereavement. Hon Winifred Piesse was known to her family and friends as Win. She was born on 12 June 1923 and would have been 94 in June this year. She fitted a lot into those years. She was a nurse and child health nurse in Victoria, Busselton, Narrogin, Wagin and Dumbleyung. She managed farms in Wagin after her husband died in

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1966. She was a Wagin shire councillor and justice of the peace. She had three children—two sons, Austin and Charles, and a daughter, Anne. She was, of course, also a member of the Legislative Council as a member for Lower Central Province, and she was the first woman elected to the WA Parliament for what was then the Country Party. That is just the bare bones of her activities. She was also very active in many organisations, both local and statewide, including the then Farmers Union of Western Australia; the Royal Australian Nursing Federation; the Country Women’s Association of Western Australia; Red Cross; St John Ambulance Brigade; the Wagin Golf Association; and the Wagin Bowling Club. Although I did not know Win personally, I have been provided with some notes on her history, and she seems to have been the sort of strong, self-reliant woman who emerged from a childhood in the Depression and war years into adulthood prepared to take on life’s challenges, and she did have challenges. She left school early through ill health, but afterwards completed qualifications in nursing, midwifery and child health. She lost her older brother, Cyril, who was on HMAS Sydney during the war. It was apparently Cyril, who had visited WA on the Sydney, who suggested that Win also should visit WA. She worked as a young single woman in country WA. The challenge of working in country hospitals had its benefits, though, as she met her husband-to-be, Mervyn Piesse, when she was working at Busselton Hospital. That precipitated a move to Narrogin to be nearer to him, which in turn led to their marriage in 1947. This was followed by the birth of their three children. However, after almost 19 years of marriage, she and her children were dealt a blow with the death of her husband, Mervyn, in 1966. He had been a prisoner of war on the Burma Railway during World War II, and there is no doubt those years shortened his life. He died of a cerebral aneurysm at the age of 53; I can only imagine the devastation this would have caused Winifred and her children, who were still teenagers at the time, but she soldiered on and took over the management of their 3 250 hectares of farmland. That must have been a monumental challenge, but she managed admirably. After her children finished their studies, she took on another challenge of returning to work as a child health nurse in Wagin. In 1971 she was elected to Wagin Shire Council. Then, at the age of 57, she decided that she wanted to make a difference for her community, for Western Australia and for women and children in regional areas, so she ran for and was elected to the Legislative Council, for what was then the Lower Central Province. She was the first woman from the Country Party to be elected to WA’s Parliament. She served a six-year term and championed the cause of quality education and health services for children and young people in the regions. In her inaugural speech, Win said, according to my notes — We have a great responsibility in preparing our children for life. We must give them the incentive to progress. We must encourage them to work on the traditions of their forebears; and to lift their thoughts beyond the immediate future. We must give them the vision splendid. She also worked hard to improve services for women in regional areas, and I understand she was instrumental in getting mammogram services to visit many regional areas in WA. Despite being defeated by just 400 votes in the 1983 state election, she forged on, stronger than ever, in working for her community. She became involved in the golf club and bowls club in Wagin, where she was known as an icon of the Wagin community, as well as working with the CWA. She was not, I have read, bound by the traditional ideas of what a woman should and should not do. Not many women in those times ran farms, but she did. Not many women of those times went on to become shire councillors, but she did. There were few women who ran for Parliament, but she did, and ably represented her community. The Wagin Argus, in an article of 13 October 2011 on the third Lipstick in the Limelight Empowering Rural Women forum, described her as a “Wagin icon”. The idea of empowering rural women—all women, in fact—is one that she pursued. It seems to me that she was one of those women who empowered herself and provided an example to the people around her. She was a woman who made a difference and I know she will be sorely missed, not just by her family and friends, but also by the wider community. I commend the motion to the house. HON MICHAEL MISCHIN (North Metropolitan — Deputy Leader of the Opposition) [2.06 pm]: I rise to support the motion and to comment on the life of Winifred Piesse. Winifred Margaret Aumann was born on 12 June 1923 in Narre Warren in Victoria, the daughter of an orchardist in what was then a rural community. She was educated at the local primary school and Dandenong High School, and completed a nursing general certificate, followed by midwifery and child health certificates. After commencing her nursing career in Victoria she came to Western Australia in December 1946, working first in Busselton, then in Narrogin. In September 1947 she married farmer Mervyn Piesse, the son of Hon Charles Piesse, who had represented the great southern region in the Legislative Council as an MLC for the South East Province from 1894 until his death in 1914. Three of Charles Piesse’s brothers had also served as rural members of the Legislative Assembly from 1890 to 1935.

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Winifred Piesse was widowed in 1966, aged 42, and returned to her nursing career in Narrogin, Wagin and Dumbleyung for 11 years, becoming the child health nurse in Wagin and also managing the family farms. She was active in a range of community organisations, including the Royal Australian Nursing Federation, the Farmers Union of Western Australia, the Country Women’s Association of Western Australia, the Red Cross, and the Wagin St John Ambulance Brigade, where she was the nursing officer. In 1971 Win Piesse was appointed as a justice of the peace and was elected as the first female member of the Wagin Shire Council, where she served until her election to Parliament in 1977. She had joined the Country Party in Wagin in 1948 and was a branch and divisional secretary, leading to her nomination as the National Country Party candidate for Lower Central Province when the late Hon Tom Perry, MLC, decided to retire. The Lower Central Province was a disparate and challenging electorate, with 24 500 enrolled electors. When created in 1965, it was an upper great southern seat dominated by Katanning, Narrogin and Collie, and was thus fairly safe for the Country Party. However, after a redistribution in 1972 it moved deep into the south west, comprising the Legislative Assembly seats of Katanning, Collie and Warren. It was a three-way marginal seat between the National Country Party, the Liberal Party and the Australian Labor Party. In five successive elections, Labor finished first, but always short of a majority. The NCP and the Liberal Party would battle for the second position and then rely on each other’s preferences to win the seat. In 1974, the other Lower Central Province seat had been won by the late Sandy Lewis for the Liberal Party. However, in 1977 Win Piesse reversed this result, receiving very strong support from her home base in the Katanning district that overcame deficits in the other two seats. She polled 7 277 votes, or 32.9 per cent of the vote, 1 000 votes behind the Australian Labor Party, but 700 votes ahead of the Liberal Party. The distribution of Liberal preferences gave her 13 195 votes, a majority of 4 200. Her final percentage of 59.6 was the highest winning margin for all contests in the Lower Central Province after 1970. Winifred Piesse thus became the first woman to represent the National Country Party in either house of the Parliament of Western Australia. In the combined coalition party room, she joined Margaret June Craig and the late Margaret McAleer, both of whom had been elected three years earlier. In her six-year term in the Legislative Council, Win Piesse is remembered as a very confident speaker, but one who never strayed towards personal attack and who would interject only in a helpful and friendly manner. She took every opportunity to convince her Legislative Council colleagues of the need to look after the rural community and she was tireless in promoting Wagin and the great southern. She would encourage members, regardless of party affiliation, to visit her electorate in groups of five or six so that she could show them local facilities. She used her nursing experience to act as an unofficial medical adviser to her colleagues, giving them sound direction on how to deal with sprains and other ailments. At the 1983 election, Win Piesse again faced a triangular contest for the Lower Central Province, which at that time consisted of the districts of Narrogin, Collie and Warren and had 26 000 electors. The redrawn Narrogin district included her home base of Wagin. Although the National Party had earlier broken away from the National Country Party, and rival NCP and National candidates both unsuccessfully contested the other lower central seat in 1980, the National Party did not oppose Win Piesse in 1983. She polled 6 129 votes, or 26.5 per cent. This was 4 400 votes behind the Australian Labor Party and 370 votes behind Bill Stretch of the Liberal Party, who won the seat by 850 votes after the distribution of her preferences. She was to be the only successful National Country Party or National Party candidate in any of the five contests after the province was substantially redrawn in 1972. After leaving Parliament, Winifred Piesse lived in Wagin and remained active in her local community and in such organisations as the Wagin Golf Association and the Wagin Bowling Club. She died aged 93 on 11 March. We extend our sympathy to her daughter, Anne, to her sons, Austin and Charles, and to their families, including, of course, her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The best we can say about our time on this earth is that we use the years available to us fruitfully, do the best we can with the opportunities that are available to us and try to leave the world a better place. I am honoured to acknowledge this lady’s life, her career and her service to her community and the public in this place and out of it. HON ALISON XAMON (North Metropolitan) [2.13 pm]: I rise on behalf of the Greens to also support this motion and offer my sincerest condolences to the family and the friends of Winifred Piesse. Winifred Piesse sounds like a woman I very much would like to have met. I have been very impressed to learn more about Winifred Piesse, her contribution to her family and her community and, of course, her contributions in this place. It is difficult for anybody to be left widowed, but even more so to have three children at a time when there were not the sorts of social services and supports that are more readily available now. Despite this, Winifred Piesse went on to manage farms, to be enrolled as a local councillor and to contribute enormously within her community. She sounds as though she was a woman who was formidable and determined. I particularly want to note some of the issues that Winifred Piesse appeared to focus on. I note that Winifred Piesse trained as a nurse and was particularly concerned about the issues of smoking, the position of

[COUNCIL — Thursday, 25 May 2017] 597 young people within society, and breast cancer—an issue that has affected, I suspect, a number of people in this place and certainly many people within the community. I note that Winifred Piesse at one point recounted that one of her fondest memories of her time in Parliament was when, after making a plea for finance and a strategy to combat breast cancer, members from both sides of the house and staff went to her office and thanked her for raising the issue. Based on what I am hearing about the sort of character she was, it sounds as though she came into this place with a great deal of integrity and compassion and tried to ensure that these sorts of issues, which can affect everyone, were given voice. I acknowledge that, as a woman, she has a very proud place in the history of the National Country Party, and I look forward to the contributions from her future colleagues—I was trying to think how to frame that—to hear more about that. I also note that Winifred Piesse went on to contribute so much within her own community after her time in Parliament. I agree that we should all be so lucky to leave such a wonderful footprint in our lives. We get only one life—at least I believe that—and, as such, it feels as though Winifred Piesse really made her mark as a family member, a community member and a woman in this place. I, too, again wish to offer my sincere condolences to Winifred Piesse’s family and friends. I am sure that they can take great pride in knowing that they come from such formidable stock and have known such a wonderful woman. HON JACQUI BOYDELL (Mining and Pastoral — Deputy Leader of the National Party) [2.16 pm]: I also rise this afternoon on behalf of my National Party colleagues to express our condolences to Hon Win Piesse’s family. Her family have joined us in the President’s gallery. I have just had lunch with her daughter, her niece and her grandchildren. I can tell the honourable member that they are a formidable lot and are proud of the history of their family, as they should be. I will make reference to a document compiled by David Black and Harry Phillips for the Parliament of Western Australia called Making a Difference—A Frontier of Firsts: Women in the Western Australian Parliament 1921–2012, and Hon Win Piesse was one of those firsts. I want to share with the chamber some of her reflections for David Black and Harry Phillips of her time in Parliament, what brought her here and what was important to her while she was here. These are Hon Win Piesse’s reflections during that interview — Prior to 1977, entering politics and Parliament were never on my list of ‘things I must do before I die!’ I think many of us would say that, yet we find ourselves here — The women’s liberation movement was gathering momentum in the 1970s. I was far too busy in those days to pay much attention to it. Besides, no one with my vital statistics could ever afford to burn her bra! My husband died in 1966, so I took over management of a fairly large farming enterprise until my sons were old enough to leave school and take charge. In 1971 I was the first (and until then the only) woman elected to the Wagin Shire Council. Because of this, I was invited to attend the ‘Women in Politics’ conference in Canberra in 1975. That was an educational experience for me, but I must admit that I was horrified at much that I heard and saw at that conference. It became clear to me that what many of the advocates at that conference were proposing was not equality for women but domination by women. Had they obtained that, I believe they would have been even more unhappy than they already were. No doubt there are flaws in our legislation concerning women, which should be adjusted, but I do not think domination is the way to go. On my return from Canberra, I was interviewed regarding my impressions and experience of the conference. Having voiced my disappointment at the attitudes displayed, I was asked what I intended to do about it … I answered that I would do anything in my power to help promote necessary changes, but without the radical aggression as displayed at the conference. It was following this that the then Country Party invited me to nominate for a seat in the State Parliament. On 24 May 1977, I was sworn in to the Legislative Council. I am a trained nurse of some years experience, and starting in State Parliament was something like starting in a new hospital except that in a new hospital someone ‘looks out’ for you for the first few days. Here I must pay tribute to each member of the then House staff. They were always most helpful to me. A member of the staff showed me where the main rooms were, for example, chambers, library and dining room. A member of my own party told me that there would be a meeting of our party at 10.00 am in the Country Party room and a meeting of the joint party (Country Party and Liberals) in the joint party room at 2.00 pm. I arrived at the joint party room at 1.55 pm just as the door opened and a man emerged, closing the door firmly behind him, he looked at me and said, ‘YOU can’t go in there!’, I replied, ‘I thought this was the joint party meeting.’ He said it was, ‘but YOU can’t go in there’. I told him I was the new member for Lower Central and he replied ‘Oh well, I suppose you CAN go in then.’ There were no other women in the room, but a number of the men whom I did not know.

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For some years I had run our farms, attended sheep and cattle sales, and arranged my own bidding if I was buying. I had inspected our wool on the showroom floor and attended the wool auctions—all places run by men—and I had always felt at ease in those situations. Parliament was a different environment. … I did not enter Parliament believing that I could move mountains, rather that I might be able to bring attention to matters of concern to people living in the country, and to the needs of women, (particularly in health matters) and of children (particularly in education). The worst thing during my time in Parliament, was the long distances to travel throughout Lower Central Province. Sometimes I had to change my dress in a parking place on the roadside, when going from a school sports presentation on to a formal dinner over 160 kilometres away. There are no freeways in the ‘bush’ and most roads are narrow, winding and hilly. I had no spouse to share the driving, and often I would be too tired to eat. I did find that a bit of cheese and a spoonful of honey helped one survive all day. One of the best memories of my time in Parliament — This was alluded to by Hon Alison Xamon — happened the morning after I had made a plea for finance and strategy to combat breast cancer in women—a problem becoming ever more prevalent among our young women. Quite a number of men— members of both sides of the House and staff—came quietly to my office and thanked me for raising that issue. Among them was Hon John Tonkin, ex–Labor Premier, retired. All of these men had lost family members or close friends to this dreadful disease, but had hesitated to raise the issue in Parliament. Perhaps the best memory from outside the Parliament was when a lady shire councillor proposing a toast to MPs in her area said, ‘Win Piesse has shown us that a woman can retain her femininity and still be very successful in public life. She does not have to adopt a masculine manner.’ I treasure that remark. I think those comments and reflections by Hon Win Piesse tell us a little bit about what sort of a woman she was. She was exceptionally dedicated. She was dedicated to her family, her community, and the issues that were really close to her heart. She had a sense of humour and I think that we all know as members that we need to retain a sense of humour in the things that we do. The funeral for Hon Win Piesse was held a couple of months ago. Her niece, Kate Walker, read the eulogy at her funeral, and Kate joins us today. For the public record and members, I would like to read to the house the eulogy that was presented at the funeral for Hon Win Piesse, because it really is a beautiful story. It is by Kate Walker. It reads — Campaigning with Aunty Win If you are lucky, in your family you will have that person who is your mentor, sounding board and ‘go-to’ person for when your parents are too close to the issue or you just need a sympathetic ear ... Aunty Win was this for me ever since I was a small child. The highlights of the year were holidays with her on the farm, so I didn’t need to think twice when she asked if I would like to be her driver and companion over the summer she was campaigning in the south west as a Country Party candidate for the Upper House. I was waiting for my first teaching appointment so it seemed an interesting way to fill the break until I had a job. My tasks would be to fill the thermos and make some sandwiches in the morning in case we were too far from anywhere at lunch time; to clean the windscreen and to drive. Navigation at times proved a two person task as some of the directions to the venues were cryptic to say the least! We spent many hours together out on the road—travelling to meetings in remote little country halls, farm sheds and small towns all over the south-west ... in potato sheds, an asparagus farm, numerous shearing sheds and knocking on front doors. As I drove she would be making notes or reading up on information in readiness for the next group of people she was to meet or speak to. Sometimes she would run an idea past me or ask what I thought about something she was reading. She would tell me background on our next stop or the people we were to be visiting. Afterwards she would ask me what people had been talking about or seemed most worried about. Sometimes we just talked … she told me stories of her childhood and tales of the family members I never had the chance to meet and some of those I only remember as old people. She was obviously extremely close to her Dad. She talked of when she first came to the West and of meeting Uncle Mervyn and the challenges of her early married life on the farm, with small children and being married to a returned POW. We shared a lot of laughs … and even sang a bit on the long hauls. I was impressed at the work she put into being prepared and trying to understand the people she was meeting. She was a good listener and always seemed to be genuinely interested in the issues and points

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of view they put to her. If she didn’t know something she would make a note to follow it up or find out more about it. She was particularly concerned about women and children’s health and children’s education. We put in some very long days and visited some very out of the way places. One evening meeting that sticks in my mind was at a little hall somewhere out the back of beyond, where she—and Mr Dick Old, then Leader of the Country Party, were to address a Party meeting. Mrs Old and I were delegated to the little lean-to kitchen in charge of supper. A lovely array of baked goods were brought by those attending the meeting … including a fabulous cream filled sponge—not cut! We could not find a knife anywhere. Win often had a little kitchen knife in her bag for cutting up fruit … but even that was not there on this occasion. However—she did have one of those large metal nail-files. Mrs Old and I gave it a good scrub with some detergent and steel wool we found under the sink and sterilized it with boiling water from the urn and it did an adequate job on the sponge. The sponge must have been enjoyed as there was none left at the end of the evening. That was one of the best summers I can remember. Win taught me so much about so many different things—about people, places and society … and how to make the most out of whatever came along. I was so proud when she was elected! That was the eulogy read for Hon Win Piesse by her niece, Kate, who is in the gallery today. The National Party, or National Country Party at the time, was also very proud when she was elected. She had a fantastic career. She obviously contributed much to the Parliament and her electorate, which is something all members aspire to do. To her family who sit in the President’s gallery today, you should be very proud of Win’s accomplishments. Win will be forever remembered as a powerful advocate for regional WA, fiercely determined and a courageous individual. Win showed us all that women can be both strong leaders and successful in public life. I will end with a reference to one saying that she held dear and she made often: if you put your hand out and have a go, it’s amazing what you can do. What a simple but powerful message. HON COL HOLT (South West) [2.30 pm]: I want to add my support to the motion to acknowledge the passing of Hon Winifred Piesse and to give my sympathy and condolences to her family. I would also like to thank Win for her service to the National Country Party, to this state and this Parliament, and, just as importantly, to her region, her community and her family. As Hon Jacqui Boydell said, her family should be extremely proud of her contribution to this state. The National Party family are very proud of what she brought to our party and the contribution she made to the state. Her picture hangs in our party room. Any member who comes to the National Party room will see her picture hanging there as a symbol of the first woman in Parliament for the National Country Party. In my mind, she is much more than just a woman who made that first groundbreaking news—she is a true regional champion. We want regional champions. We want people who are champions for their family, their community and their regions, and we want to bring that passion to the state Parliament and to political parties. That is exactly what Hon Win Piesse did. With those few words I acknowledge the passing of Win Piesse and give my condolences to her family. THE PRESIDENT (Hon Kate Doust): I also want to acknowledge the family of Winifred Piesse who are sitting in the President’s gallery today, and to pass on my condolences on the loss of a very amazing woman. A lot has been said today about Winifred Piesse’s achievements throughout her life. Many of us talk about balancing work and family life in our modern age. For each of those things, she had a substantial family whom she raised in the most part alone, ran a farm, had a nursing career, was active in local government, was engaged in party politics, was a member of Parliament, and then, in her post-parliamentary life, continued to be active as well. For a lot of people, any one of those activities, taken separately, can be life consuming. She was able to manage a number of those and juggle them at any one time and have a family as well, so I think she is a fantastic role model for all of us. Given the fact that she was the first woman for the National Country Party at the time, she was a very obvious trailblazer in this place. I pick up on the comments of Hon Jacqui Boydell and imagine what it could possibly have been like for her and those other couple of women who were here at the time. It was a very different place and probably a quite difficult place. Having heard about all the hard work she did with her family, the community and here in the Parliament, I think she would have felt quite comfortable in this place today, with more women being engaged and all of the issues that she was a champion for at the time—youth and children, women’s health and regional development—still being issues that we talk about a lot in this place. She would obviously have felt very comfortable with that. I want to acknowledge the great contribution she made raising a family, working in her community and being a member of this place. I think it is an outstanding role that she played for all of us and I pass on my condolences to her family. I ask members to now rise and stand in your places to indicate your support for the motion, and to observe one minute’s silence in memory of the late Winifred Piesse, our esteemed former member of this Council. Question passed; members and officers standing as a mark of respect. The PRESIDENT: I advise that in accordance with our custom and practice, a copy of the Hansard transcript of this condolence motion will be forwarded to Winifred Piesse’s family.

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ADDRESS-IN-REPLY Motion Resumed from an earlier stage of the sitting. The PRESIDENT: Members, we are returning to the Address-in-Reply. We have another first speech, so I ask that members observe our custom and listen in silence. HON LAURIE GRAHAM (Agricultural) [2.35 pm]: May I also take this opportunity to congratulate you, Madam President, on your election, especially for the place you now hold in history by being the first woman to hold this prestigious position in 185 years. Members, it is indeed an honour to address this house, something that in my wildest imagination I did not ever see as being a remote possibility given my age. Speaking of my personal life, I was born in Geraldton to Jim and Mary Graham in 1945 and have a sister, Kay Hopkins, and brother, Kerry. Both my parents were staunch Labor supporters all their lives. At the age of 18 months, whilst chasing after ducks in the next door property, I ran into smouldering ash from a burn-off the previous day. I received first-degree burns to my feet and legs and spent the next three months in hospital, and my walking days were over for the next 12 months. I am very fortunate that the only minor impact today is to my feet. Kids can be pretty cruel, and the nickname given to me by the kids in the street was “Nootes”, short for “no toes”. The family home had ovals, tennis courts, basketball courts, a Girl Guides hall and croquet rinks on the opposite side of the street. It was an ideal place to live, and I cannot remember an occasion when the front door ever needed to be locked. As children we slept on the verandah. I was educated at Stella Maris College for the first three years and then at St Patrick’s College for the rest of primary school and lower upper school. Not being an academic student, I left school in 1961 after completing year 10. This was only possible after the principal told my parents I was a poor student who would not pass year 12, and their approval was reluctantly given. After a short stint of employment with the railways as a casual, I was fortunate to be employed as a junior clerk with the Harbour and Light Department, which administered most of the WA ports at that time. In 1969 I transferred to the Geraldton Port Authority on its formation and worked my way up in that organisation, and in 1981 I was appointed general manager, a position I held for 15 years until I resigned in 1996 after 35 years’ service. Early in my working life I pencilled at country race meetings for an SP bookmaker, George Wright, and in the mid-1970s held a bookmaker’s licence for several years, betting on local races. It was a great hobby and fun, but not much financial reward was forthcoming. At that time race meetings were held in most towns, and community events were held in association with the races to raise funds for various causes. Attending smaller race meetings involved considerable travelling when there were no meetings in Geraldton. Following a race meeting in October ’70 I went to the Meekatharra ball, where I met my wife for the first time. We were married two years later. No doubt, that is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Dad always had a large fruit and vegie garden in the backyard in Sanford Street. I always complained about the jobs in the yard I was allocated, or no pocket money. From there I moved to Waggrakine onto a four-acre property in 1982, where my mother-in-law, Jen Eiffler, lived with us for many years. Being a keen gardener, she soon had a very large fruit and vegetable patch and today I am a keen vegie gardener myself. I do not have the green thumbs of my dad and mother-in-law, so I restrict the garden to mainly grow onions and beetroot. A number of my friends were very happy to see me elected to Parliament, but they were concerned that there will be no more pickled beetroot in the future. I hope that does not happen. When my friend Kim Chance became aware that I was leaving the port authority, he approached me to consider standing for the seat of Geraldton in 1996 and I subsequently nominated and was endorsed by the Labor Party. The chance of winning the seat was slim, given the margin and time frame available for electioneering. My first tilt at running for a seat in Parliament was unsuccessful, but the pleasing thing was halving the margin at that election and Shane Hill winning the seat easily in 2001. Although I remained very interested in politics and a member of the party, I could not see that I would be a candidate in an election in the future as had I decided to pursue other employment opportunities as a port and transport consultant. My first clients were Kingstream Steel, for which I developed options for loading slab steel at the proposed Oakajee port onto panamax ships, and representing Rail Services Australia’s business development section in Western Australia as it successfully expanded its New South Wales based rail and construction contracts into WA. Following this, my clients included a number of engineering consulting firms, providing advice on cargo handling infrastructure and port operations for their clients in Australia and overseas. Until recently I had a small number of Geraldton-based clients who sought advice on how to negotiate leases and port charges. During my working life I had exposure to computer programs and developed programs for recording aircraft landings and a cleaning contractors’ database. Both of these programs are still in use today and I assist from time to time upgrading the programs. I have participated in many sporting clubs and associations. In addition to being an active participant in most sports, I managed committee positions of treasurer or secretary of swimming, basketball, hockey, tennis and squash clubs or associations over a 20-year period. My first position was as the secretary of a swimming club when I was 16. I was a bit inexperienced with meeting procedures at the time and too slow to say no to the

[COUNCIL — Thursday, 25 May 2017] 601 nomination the night of the annual general meeting and was elected in a few seconds. I was fortunate to live in an era when competing in three or more sports each week was possible and not expensive at the time. Today’s parents shudder when the accounts for sporting fees arrive. Following my sporting endeavours, serving on community bodies followed. I was the treasurer of the St Francis Xavier Primary School board for 10 years in the 1980s, when the school was transitioning from a one to two-stream school, which involved doubling the number of classrooms and considerable financial challenges. The Geraldton Amateur Basketball Association formed a trustees committee to manage its finances to facilitate the building of additional indoor basketball courts. Management of its finances, at arm’s length to its association management committee, was required to satisfy the loan conditions set by the town council. I was appointed to that committee of four at its inception and was the chair or treasurer for 10 years. Most of the borrowed funds were repaid by the committee before it wound up, and it disbanded when the association was financially secure. In 1997, I was elected as a councillor for the Shire of Greenough and remained a member of that council until it was disbanded in 2007 to make way for the amalgamation with the City of Geraldton. During this period I was deputy president for two terms, chair of the planning committee for eight years, and served on numerous council committees. I was a strong supporter of the amalgamation with the City of Geraldton. A significant council appointment was to the Geraldton–Greenough Regional Council for six years. The Geraldton–Greenough Regional Council built and managed a new landfill facility for the City of Geraldton and the Shire of Greenough. Its operations were merged into the City of Geraldton–Greenough at the time of the amalgamation of Greenough and Geraldton councils. Today that facility receives waste from most local governments in the immediate area. Whilst a councillor, I was appointed a deputy member of the Local Government Grants Commission and the Local Government Advisory Board for one term each. I especially enjoyed being a part of the hearings on amalgamations, mainly initiated by larger councils proposing to join a smaller one. Generally, when council’s realised that government was not serious about forcing reform, the smaller council most affected by amalgamation would pull back as its residents became agitated at the proposal. This was really about losing identity. In 1997, I joined the board of Joblink Midwest and became chair the following year, a position I still hold today. Joblink mainly provides employment and training services to schools and young people finding their way into the workforce via contracts it administers for the department of employment and training. Profits from contracts administered by Joblink are mainly committed to disadvantaged groups, which is fantastic, and older people seeking to re-enter the workforce in the midwest Gascoyne areas. Joblink was formed by Jeff Carr about 30 years ago to help youth in the transition from school to work and still provides the same service today. The most pleasing part of being on this board is hearing of the staff successes of placing a young person in a job. Young people are often job ready, and a suitable position has been found but they do not have the financial resources to either get to the job or pay for tickets or safety clothing required. This cost is often not able to be funded from other employment contracts. The investment of a few hundred dollars by Joblink achieves an employment outcome in more than 90 per cent of the clients helped in this situation. It is a shame governments cannot take a risk and provide funding for bodies to provide such a service, because although it is risky—we sometimes filled up a car with petrol to find it ended up in Perth instead or Perenjori, where it was supposed to go—the 90 per cent of the time when it is successful, it is well worth the investment. Also in 1997, I joined the board of Apprenticeship and Traineeship Midwest when its core government funding was in jeopardy. I served on that board for six years; the last three years I chaired the organisation. ATC Midwest, as it is better known, is a group training company that was the hosting employer for more than 300 apprentices and trainees for 100 businesses in 2000. In 2001, I was appointed as a board member of the Mid West Development Commission and served on the board for six years, chairing it for the last four years and was its representative on the Regional Development Council. At that time, the Regional Development Council was an advisory body made up of the chairs and CEOs of the commissions and chaired by Ian Taylor. It was tasked with providing direct advice to government on issues affecting regional WA. This structure, which I believe worked very well, was disbanded shortly after my term at the commission ended, which was most disappointing. In 2007, I joined the Monsignor Hawes Heritage Interim Board and in 2010 was appointed as the treasurer of the incorporated association. I remained a member of the management committee and treasurer until the 2016 AGM. Monsignor Hawes Heritage Incorporated was formed to raise the awareness of John Hawes’ legacy and to assist with securing funds for the local communities’ maintenance of the 17 heritage-listed buildings in the midwest. These buildings are mainly churches and are the main tourist attraction in many of the midwest wheatbelt towns today. With the injection of funding from royalties for regions and Lotterywest, the Monsignor Hawes Heritage Centre was recently built in Geraldton. It adjoins St Francis Xavier’s Cathedral and houses a museum that tells the story of John Hawes and displays the movable objects that are now able to be put on public display for the first time. In 2013, concerned with the rates increases that had occurred and those proposed for future years, I again stood for council and was elected as a councillor of the City of Greater Geraldton. I was pleased to be part of the council whilst it restructured its operations, and the proposed rate increases under its long-term financial plan were able to be reduced considerably.

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The community concern with the rate increases resulted in most of the sitting councillors who stood for re-election in the 2013 and 2015 elections losing their seats on council, which gives members some idea of people’s concerns with rates. As a doughnut council, the amalgamation of Greenough and Geraldton councils was inevitable, due to the rapid increase in the Greenough population in the urban areas. However, the jury is still out on the benefits of the subsequent amalgamation of Geraldton–Greenough and the Mullewa councils. The main reason for the amalgamation in 2011 appears to be the desire of Mullewa council to reduce the need to expand its staff to operate under the changed Local Government Act and the new financial requirements that were being implemented. As part of the terms negotiated by Mullewa council, representation by two councillors for eight years was provided for in the governance orders for the Mullewa ward. The City of Greater Geraldton council has expressed support to reduce the number of councillors due at the 2019 election from 15 to 10 or fewer, but it has not formally voted to confirm this. If one vote, one value principles are strictly followed in the ward review of the Mullewa ward, a small number of electors will disappear. The rural areas of Greenough make up 98 per cent of the land area of the City of Greater Geraldton and have 2 000 electors compared with the urban area’s two per cent land area and 25 000 electors. The challenge for a ward review will be to provide appropriate representation for rural areas. I also believe that de-amalgamation proposals will be forthcoming if Mullewa councillor representation is seen to be lost. I do not believe it has to be totally lost but at least it has to be seen to be there. I turn to the recent election. It was fantastic to be part of the campaign team supporting Lara Dalton’s attempt to win the seat of Geraldton. It was an extreme disappointment for Lara and her large band of supporters that she got so close and election looked likely on election night. I hope that Lara, who is a fantastic candidate, is willing and able to run again in 2021. Just a few weeks before nominations for the election closed, I was preselected for the Agricultural Region ticket. To be truthful, I did not believe that Labor could win a second spot but hoped my being on the ticket would help Lara get elected. A true believer is looking at me. Special thanks to Lara Dalton, whose outstanding dedication to try to win the seat of Geraldton resulted in me being elected to this house. Also, thanks to Darren West, who helped the candidates run great campaigns in the seats of Roe, Central Wheatbelt, Moore and Geraldton. Labor had its best vote for many years thanks to Darren’s efforts. Thanks also to Carol Martin and Luke Clarkson for being part of the Agricultural Region ticket with Darren and me. No doubt this helped our vote. To the large band of party members and Lara’s friends who doorknocked, letterboxed, folded pamphlets, attended functions and worked on polling booths, a sincere thank you. Thanks to Reg Clarke, who passed away a few years ago. Reg was the inaugural manager of the port authority and my boss for 20 years. No doubt, his influence helped with my appointment to the various positions on the board, especially my elevation to general manager. Reg was a brother-in-law of Senator Don Willesee. If Geraldton had not been in the safe Labor hands of Bill Sewell, he would no doubt have been a Labor candidate for the seat at some time. Thanks to my wife, Heather, and my children, Gemma, Stacey and Ross. Without their unwavering support, it would not have been possible to have been involved in the many community boards and committees I served on to the extent I did. When I indicated that I was putting my hand up for Labor for the Agricultural Region, I was shocked when they were fairly supportive of me doing that. I had expected that they may well tell me it was time to move on, as I had been threatening to do in recent times, and wind back my community involvement. Thanks to the staff who facilitated the attendance of my six gorgeous grandchildren—James, Kate, Ben, Flynn, Emma and Sam—and Gemma’s partner, Dan at Monday’s swearing-in ceremony of. They really enjoyed being able to attend. There are many friends and acquaintances whom I could thank but the list would be very long, so I have kept my thanks brief and trust that no-one will be offended by this. I move on to some of the things I hope to achieve in the next four years. I will be advocating for changes to the Local Government Act, employment and training, community boards and committees in the not-for-profit sector. My concerns with local government are numerous so I will highlight the main ones I have. The new Local Government Act imposes unreasonable requirements on many small councils in WA. They total about 100. I do not believe that change in the financial area is required for the metropolitan or several of the larger country local governments. A key change I see as being required is for the act to allow local governments to voluntarily merge their management via parish councils or a similar model that allows each council to retain control over representation, construction and maintenance operations, and income and expenditure setting within their local government area. There are currently several regional councils, mainly managing large landfill operations in the metropolitan area, and several smaller informal regional councils in WA. These or new entities created could manage groupings of smaller councils that wish to merge their management if the act allows that. This change would remove the high costs for small councils individually complying with the current Local Government Act. Having served for 13 years as a councillor, I am concerned with the negative impact on all councils’ reputations from the recent events in Exmouth and the City of Perth. These councils are governed by some 1 000 councillors

[COUNCIL — Thursday, 25 May 2017] 603 who generally work tirelessly in the interests of their electors. Their efforts to deliver good governance are tarnished regularly by the actions of a few. Changes are needed to the Local Government Act such that those responsible for breaches can be suspended or dismissed more easily than is currently possible. Changes are also required to the act to protect councillors who commit technical breaches of the act that result in their dismissal by the State Administrative Tribunal due to incorrect advice being given to a councillor on the provisions of the act. The capacity to allow vacant councillor positions to be filled by unsuccessful candidates from the last council election up until the next ordinary council election is another desirable change. Election provisions could be structured in a similar manner to that in place for unsuccessful candidates in this house who are able to fill the balance of a term when a vacancy occurs. This would result in more people standing for election against strong candidates than currently occurs when the prospect of election is slim. It would also encourage councillors who would like to resign due to changed employment or family circumstances to more easily make the decision to do that. Councillors tend not to resign in these circumstances due to the high cost of by-elections and feel obliged to complete their term. When it was introduced, the waste avoidance and resource recovery levy was originally intended to fund waste- management initiatives and reduce the volume of waste to landfill. Now 75 per cent of that levy funds the activities of the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation, which means that government is dependent on what is essentially a pollution tax to fund the department’s budget. Only a small proportion of the levy is now being invested in waste management programs to help reduce the volume of waste to landfill. With the financial state of the budget, I recognise that it will be difficult to change how the funds are currently being used. However, with increases in the levy of $5 a tonne scheduled for the next two years, it would be most beneficial if these increases could be allocated to the reduction of waste to landfill programs, as was originally intended when the levy was introduced. If the future rate for the levy for the next five to 10 years and the potential expansion of that levy to larger non-metropolitan landfill operations were known, this would also be a catalyst for industry and councils to plan for a certain future. I believe the wheels are currently spinning, waiting for government to indicate where levy charges are going. Obviously, the problem we have is that the increase in that levy will drive change. Plastic bags are an ever-increasing pollution problem that needs to be addressed. A large number of councils are supporting the introduction of laws in this area. These councils should be encouraged by government to do so. With my long involvement on management committees of incorporated associations, it is clear that the recruitment of members to serve on management committees is most difficult in these busy times. When people who are interested in serving on an incorporated board attend a training or briefing session on their obligations and personal exposure if things go wrong, the majority tend to lose interest in serving their community in this way. Other than employees of organisations who have the vested interest of their employer to serve on a management committee, it is rare to see community members under 50 years of age serving on management committees of non-sporting bodies. Changes to make sure that incorporated association management committees are less exposed when they have a demonstrated track record of managing well but get caught up by a single issue when the management decision looks questionable are most desirable. The patient assisted travel scheme is a great program but needs streamlining to remove some of the impediments, such as the need for patients to consult their own doctor again to sign a form to justify the travel claim after a specialist has seen the patient at a county clinic and advised that a procedure is required in Perth. The application process should be far simpler and be available for lodging online without the need for visiting a PATS office or the doctor. Country hospitals need to be better funded to accommodate more visiting specialists so that the costs of PATS can be considerably reduced. Apprenticeships and traineeships used to be monitored by departmental field officers and were later monitored by community groups under contracts. They provided invaluable services to apprentices, trainees, their families and employers and saved many apprenticeships over a long period of time. These services are now provided centrally from Perth and there are delays, sometimes of days, before they get back to the employers. With no intervention available at the local level in regional WA, many apprenticeships are needlessly lost. Local support for an employer experiencing problems with an apprentice or trainee should be restored in some form. With no support in dealing with indentured apprentices or trainees, smaller employers find it much easier to part company with an employee. The reintroduction of monitoring and support services to cover the regions would not only save many apprenticeships but also identify opportunities to place new apprentices and trainees with employers. That used to happen in the past when, in most positions, an apprentice completed their time, their position would be backfilled with another apprentice. That does not happen these days. In closing, I congratulate all members in both houses for their success in being elected and look forward to working constructively with all members in the interests of all Western Australians. Thank you. [Applause.]

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HON CHARLES SMITH (East Metropolitan) [3.03 pm]: First of all, Madam President, I congratulate you on your election, and I look forward to working with you in this place over the next four years. I would also like to thank all the parliamentary staff members who have been most helpful and accommodating throughout the transition period since the election. I congratulate the Leader of the House on her recent appointment, and I also congratulate all the new ministers, parliamentary secretaries and Whips. They have a very important duty to carry out, and I wish them well in their endeavours. Political allegiances aside, all of us in this place have an obligation to serve the interests of our constituents and speak on their behalf. We have been entrusted by the people of Western Australia to perform one of the most important duties in public life. The Westminster form of government that we inherited from Britain has served Western Australia well since the nineteenth century. As elected members of the fortieth Parliament we have an obligation to respect the enduring traditions and uphold the integrity of this place. I also wish to acknowledge the Whadjuk people, traditional custodians of the land on which we are meeting. I would also like to acknowledge the early pioneers and their descendants, who laid the foundations of modern Western Australia. Today, like others before me, I speak for the first time in this place with a variety of emotions, but above all I have a great sense of opportunity, and I am incredibly grateful to have been given this opportunity to represent everyday Australians—the forgotten people, whom Sir Robert Menzies defined so well in his famous radio broadcast in 1942. I am one of the many Western Australians who made the choice to move to this great state from elsewhere. I was born in a small market town called Hitchin in North Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom, about 60 kilometres north of London. I take this early opportunity to acknowledge my parents, who instilled in me—of course, the young man does not realise it at the time—a good sense of right and wrong, and later on a sense of wonder and inquiry. They are, and continue to be, the most wonderful parents any child and man could hope for. Although they unfortunately cannot be here today, they may be watching from the UK, through the modern wonders of the internet, and the parliamentary live streaming service, which is a victory for them as much as it is for me. If so, I say to them that I am so very happy that they can see me here today serving the Western Australian people at the very highest level. In the UK I became a qualified biologist, and a student of crop protection, studying at the Scottish Agricultural College. However, as I am sure that all members can attest, career paths are seldom linear or follow predetermined plans. In the early 1990s, employment in the UK was very hard to come by—very similar to Western Australia at the present time, and I fortuitously fell into the world of banking and investment. I became fascinated by the global financial and commodity market, with its combination of risk and analysis at the forefront of making informed decisions. It is truly exciting and awe-inspiring to behold hundreds of thousands of dollars changing hands actually in seconds. Although it was initially riveting and rewarding, I gradually became disillusioned with it all, and decided a change in direction of life was needed—not merely a change in career, but also a change of environment. At this time, my interest in Australia grew, and I began to seriously examine the possibility of emigrating to the other side of the globe. In many respects, I was following a great tradition. Millions of people from the British Isles have moved to this land over the past few centuries, seeking to build a new life in a country with boundless potential. I arrived in Perth from the UK in January 2005, with my wife and baby son, straight into the rather confronting heat of a southern summer. I came with a sense of renewal and with fresh opportunity about what lay before me. We had never before been to Perth, or even Australia. I have always taken calculated risks, and living with the regret of not knowing what I could have achieved was the driving force in selling up and jumping onto the plane. It turned out to be the most momentous decision in my life, and I am eminently grateful to Western Australia and its people for the opportunities they have afforded my family and me. Coming from the financial industry, I now had ambitions to change my outlook and serve the community. I joined Western Australia Police in the same year as I arrived, and it is a decision that I do not regret in any way, shape or form. I heartily recommend that everybody live in the shoes of a frontline police officer just for a short time. It will forever change their lives and their outlook on life. I encourage members to go and ride along for at least a week of night shift, if they have the fortitude. In January 2007, I shipped out to Kalgoorlie–Boulder, where I stayed until 2015. The goldfields was an entirely different world from what I was used to, but in time I began to appreciate the region and its colourful collection of characters. I remain convinced that Western Australia’s eastern regions are underdeveloped and offer an immense economic potential. I also believe that people in regional Western Australia quite rightly feel undervalued and ignored by the major parties, who often seem obsessed with issues that only people in wealthy inner-city suburbs care about. While stationed in Kalgoorlie with Western Australia Police, I had the fortune of meeting Hon Dave Grills, a former member of this place. Mr Grills deserves a special mention, as that meeting in Kalgoorlie ultimately led to a warm friendship and my reinvigorated interest in politics, which culminated in my election to this place. As a police officer, one gets to see life—real life. One witnesses the worst, and sometimes the best, of human nature. Through working in the real world, I have a good understanding of everyday people’s concerns and what the important issues are. What my party and I represent to people is commonsense, hard work, understanding

[COUNCIL — Thursday, 25 May 2017] 605 and traditional values. I fear that too many people within the political and media classes are detached from ordinary people and tend to look down upon those who do not share their so-called progressive values. At the state election just over two months ago, the public of WA overwhelmingly expressed their dissatisfaction with the previous Liberal–National government and voted for a change of direction. It was a sweeping victory and a total disendorsement of the former Premier and his cabinet. The size of the swing indicates that people will resoundingly turf out governments that fail to deliver. Voter loyalty to the major parties is disappearing and people will no longer vote for a party simply because that is how they have always voted. In my observation, many Western Australians are utterly fed up with all-talk, no-action career politicians, and are tired of hearing the same old promises from the same tired old politicians who never produce any results. I am here to represent those people, hold this government to account, and put Western Australians first. Those people have realised that politics is a battle of ideas—a philosophical contest, not merely a public relations competition, pitting reason against self-indulgent, self-righteous sentiment, which is divorced from objective reality. Throughout Western Australia I see strong warning signs of disaffection, malaise and cynicism. A growing chunk of the body politic lacks drive and common purpose. Many people feel that their country is at risk of losing the values that made it strong and had it being looked upon with jealous eyes from overseas. Many people feel that their country is slipping away, socially and culturally. They notice the decline in community-mindedness and watch as reminders of our Western Judeo-Christian and British heritage are erased from school curricula and the public sphere. They see the growing entrenchment of asymmetrical multiculturalism, consumerism and hyper-individualism. Significantly, they see a society in which responsibility and mutuality have been slowly eroded. It has been eroded through unemployment and chronic underemployment in low-paid insecure work. The healthcare system is creaking at the joints, our children’s education is at risk, and year after year, our children’s educational standards tumble down the global tables. Our economy is failing to provide improvements in real living standards. There is fear on the streets. Levels of crime and substance abuse only seem to worsen, and the traditional family unit is falling apart like never before. The social cohesion we used to enjoy is increasingly being replaced by a sense of alienation. Is it any wonder people are fed up with the same old all-talk and no-action governments that just look after the few rather than the many? We must rediscover a society based on mutual rights and, most importantly, responsibilities. This is real social justice, in which people get something for something. This is the almost forgotten social contract which sprang from the Enlightenment of eighteenth century Europe and the great British philosophers, Hobbes and Locke, and also a Frenchmen named Rousseau. Simply stated, we each have a duty to society in which we accept the responsibility to work and to improve ourselves and our communities. To quote Edmund Burke — Society is indeed a contract. It is a partnership … not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. It is my view that we have inherited our state and society from previous generations, but do not possess it. Rather, we are temporary custodians, tasked with conserving a precious inheritance that will, in turn, become a future generation’s inheritance. At its core, the party I belong to wants to generate a culture of service and responsibility in which we all pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. We know that individuals prosper best with a safe, secure and cohesive society. There has been much commentary—most of it widely inaccurate—about what One Nation stands for. Our supporters have been demonised and labelled with many vile epithets. I would like to now dispel some of the myths about our party. One Nation is comprised of working and middle-class Australians whose basic decency, quiet patriotism, traditional moral compass and vigorous work ethic defines them as the heart and soul of our society. One Nation serves as a voice for those who feel they have been forgotten or abandoned by the major parties, which now increasingly seem to pander to special interests and vocal minorities. The great Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey once warned — The more emphasis that is placed on the rights of minorities, and the need for affirmative action to enhance those rights, the more is the concept of democracy—and the rights of the majority—in danger of being weakened. For our democracy to remain strong, establishment politicians cannot afford to keep ignoring a large chunk of the body politic. I would now like to turn my attention to the East Metropolitan Region, which I have been given the great honour of representing. I am immensely grateful to the people of the East Metro Region, which encompasses Armadale, Bassendean, Belmont, Darling Range, Forrestfield, Kalamunda, Maylands, Midland, Mirrabooka, Morley,

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Mt Lawley, Swan Hills, Thornlie and West Swan. There a number of serious challenges confronting the fast-growing communities in the electorate. Wedged between the inner-city and regional areas, communities in the East Metro Region could be described as the ignored middle children of Western Australian society. Despite grand promises from successive governments, residents of Perth’s outer eastern suburbs continue to lack access to the infrastructure, services and jobs that inner city residents enjoy. As a resident of Aveley, I can attest to the nightmare that is the daily commute on our clogged eastern roads. Unfortunately, this situation is only set to worsen, with predictions that the population of Perth and surrounds will swell by around 75 per cent to 3.5 million, largely due to the high immigration policies pursued by the major parties at the federal level. As the 2016 Perth and [email protected] million planning document noted, this rapid, forced population growth will place increased and unsustainable pressure on our natural environment, our economic wellbeing and our highly valued way of life. I am obviously a migrant myself and I understand that some level of continued immigration is desirable. However, I do not believe the current rate of immigration-fuelled growth is sustainable or beneficial to the pre-existing population. We have seen over the last decade how incumbent residents have borne the costs through greater congestion on roads and public transport, as well as more expensive housing and reduced amenity. Perth’s freeways have become car parks, our trains are overcrowded and our schools and hospitals are overloaded. Residents seeking affordable housing have been squeezed out to the urban fringes, far away from employment and services. The huge infrastructure costs associated with this population growth has also forced increased state debt borrowings and unpopular proposed asset sales. Yet the plan from the established parties is to continue the policy of high immigration, without any real measures to cope with the influx. To put it mildly, this is a recipe for disaster. Western Australia urgently needs its own population policy, aimed at protecting the quality and way of life of the existing population. We also need new ways of funding infrastructure in WA to ease crippling congestion, lift productivity, generate economic growth and jobs and keep our assets in domestic hands. Another major issue facing communities in the East Metro Region is the volume of crime—not only reported, but actually committed—and in particular burglary, assaults, domestic violence and alcohol-related incidents. I have a strong commitment to the rule of law and order. I do believe that there is a strong community perception that our criminal justice system and our corrections system is a failing and dysfunctional one. From simple observation it is obvious that our courts have slanted too far in favour of the accused, and no longer reflect the views of everyday Australians. Our communities want to see more robust sentencing from magistrates and judges, who are rightly perceived to be consistently out of touch with community expectations. When magistrates fail to meet community expectations they are in danger of losing their legitimacy. I fear we have reached that point. Those who commit crime have no fear of the police, no fear of being caught, and no fear of going to court, because the chances are they will receive very little in the way of any punitive measures against them. The fact of the matter is that the law, in most cases, is adequate, in that it contains provisions for magistrates or judges to impose a custodial sentence. However, in many cases, the sentencing is perceived to be excessively lenient for the crime committed and there is a view amongst many lawyers and judges that society is to blame for the crime rather than the offender, and this has to stop. This approach to crime has created a society without personal responsibility, in which there are no consequences to bad behaviour in school, bad behaviour on the sports field and bad behaviour in public life. It has created a society of excuse-makers and blame-shifters, where criminal and bad behaviour is seen as a less favourable career choice. It has taken away people’s responsibilities for their actions. I believe individuals should be held fully responsible for their actions. Committing crime is fundamentally a matter of rational choice. It will be my role in this Parliament to send a strong message of support to the police on the ground, who do such a difficult job so well with little resource and support from successive governments and, in particular, the judiciary. I will be seeking to increase the number of police on the front line and to secure the health, safety and welfare provisions that our police so desperately need. It really is tough enough. Our police deserve access to adequate resources. To improve law and order, we need to ask: what are the ideological aims of policing—crime control, the protection of citizens and their property, the upholding of justice, the denunciation of criminality, the maintenance of order? I would suggest that our police currently fail all these tests. The fact is that there are simply not enough police on the streets. It is very, very straightforward. I know of case after case of police not even attending a job, or forensic officers not attending burglaries because of the enormity of the workload and the backlog of jobs. To put it bluntly, the police are in crisis. I fully support the call for an additional 1 000 police officers over the next four years and the associated resources required. If members do not believe crime is out of control, again, I invite them to ride along with the police. Policing is, by its very nature, difficult and dangerous. Police make mistakes and get it wrong. Police officers have to live for the rest of their lives with decisions that they made in a split second. Rarely do they see good

[COUNCIL — Thursday, 25 May 2017] 607 things when policing and, because of that, they become cynical, which makes them seem hard and uncaring. Policing damages good people. When they leave the service, every police officer has issues that they must rationalise before moving forward. Some, sadly, never rationalise them. Many members of the police have been treated absolutely disgracefully, having been left to fend for themselves after being medically retired. Why is it that the police do not have a tailored workers’ compensation–style scheme? I want a scheme to be introduced as soon as possible with retrospectivity to give peace of mind to those who are currently living a daily struggle. Every police officer of some years’ experience carries with them post-traumatic stress disorder of varying magnitude. The rate of mental illness, especially depression, divorce and anger issues, is simply not acceptable for those people who sacrifice to serve and protect with very little reward. I would like to recount to the house a short story of a former police officer’s life that fell apart after witnessing too much trauma and distress. I will keep her real name secret, so I will refer to her as Nikki. At the age of 20, Nikki joined Western Australia Police, following in her father’s footsteps. She served for 15 years doing pretty much what every front-line police officer deals with today. She witnessed death, violence, car accidents and families ripped apart by alcoholism, drug addiction and domestic violence. Towards the end of her career, Nikki noticed that she was wracked with sadness and mood swings and would relive some of the trauma she witnessed. She eventually admitted to herself that she could no longer do the job and she was medically retired. She was told by doctors that she was experiencing depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Nikki suffered with excessive suicidal ideation, along with the break-up of her marriage. She became mentally unable to work and relied upon a disability pension to get by. Eight years after being medically retired, she was eventually referred to a PTSD specialist and admitted to hospital, where her finances went from bad to worse and she had to declare herself bankrupt. Needless to say, the effect of Nikki serving in WAPOL has been devastating on her and her children. The whole family is in counselling and they struggle through every day. After experiencing severe mental illness that sprang directly from her work, Nikki, like hundreds of others, was just left out in the cold to fend for herself. Is this how we treat those who serve and protect our communities? Every state in the Federation has a workers’ compensation package for their police, except WA. I am sure honourable members will agree that it is now time to change that. I, along with my colleagues, will offer to assist in the passage of government legislation, but as a One Nation member, I will continue to insist on certain conditions being met—conditions that bring the very best outcomes for WA and my electorate. Our support for the government will not be taken for granted and we will reserve the right to vote against any or all government legislation. This new government has talked about putting Western Australians first in local content provisions and employment. We want to see it now deliver on those promises. I would also like to see the government ensure that Western Australians receive a fair return for the exploitation of our mineral and energy resources. WA has an abundance of natural gas, but we are failing to properly capitalise on this natural advantage. We must make sure that sufficient reserves of gas are set aside to meet the current and future needs of the local economy. We must also make sure that local companies, workers and communities benefit from gas projects and that the state receives sufficient revenue. In closing, it is usual and right in an inaugural speech to also thank family, friends and supporters. Firstly and most importantly, I thank my wife, Helen, whose love and support knows no depth. I thank my children, Tristan and George, for their enthusiasm; my parents, Mike and Myra; my brother, Andrew, all of whom encouraged me to stand up in the face of abuse, insults and lies from political opponents. You are my driving force. Without support and guidance from the following people I would not be standing here today: I thank Ron McClean and Marye Louise Daniels, Senator Pauline Hanson, Lincoln Stewart, George Copley, Sonia Dixon, Jenny Bennett and Sandra Old. I would also like to acknowledge my One Nation WA parliamentary colleagues, Hon Colin Tincknell and Hon Robin Scott, for their encouragement. Finally, I thank my supporters who came out to volunteer on election day and who were verbally abused and bullied in the name of our democracy. You are true heroes to stand up for your beliefs and values in the face of that hostility. With your continued assistance and support, I hope to achieve the best possible results for the people of the East Metropolitan Region and Western Australia. Thank you. [Applause.] HON JIM CHOWN (Agricultural) [3.30 pm]: I join with others in this place in giving this Address-in-Reply contribution. Prior to doing so, I would like to acknowledge and commend Her Excellency the Governor Kerry Sanderson, AC, for officiating at the opening of the fortieth Parliament and especially for her presiding over the swearing-in of this significant chamber in this Parliament. I think we are all quite privileged to have the first female Governor of the state carry out these very special functions. I find it hard to believe that this is the first time we have had a female Governor in this magnificent state of ours and, quite frankly, I hope we have more of them. Yes, shock horror, as a proud father of three daughters I think it is time that the female part of the equation stepped up, and it is great to see that happening at such high levels in this state. In fact, we have also set a first in this Legislative Council in having the first female President, Hon Kate Doust. I commend

608 [COUNCIL — Thursday, 25 May 2017] everybody here for selecting her. I am sure she will be a magnificent President. I believe she has a challenge in front of her, because Hon Barry House set standards of impartiality that I hope Hon Kate Doust achieves, and I have no doubt that she will do so. We have all witnessed her dedication here in the last couple of days. Obviously, it is a steep learning curve, and we wish her well and give her some leniency for at least another sitting week until she gets a grasp of what is required as President! I also commend the Labor Party on winning the election. I mean that sincerely, but in reality I am disappointed with its performance two months in. The Labor Party put up a raft of promises to the community of this state that were believable. In fact, I almost voted Labor, but then I decided that it would be a bridge too far on my behalf! I thought that the chairman of the Commonwealth Grants Commission must have had a whisper in the ear of Hon Mark McGowan and let him know that our GST return was actually going up to 80c, such was the spending spree the Labor Party promised and undertook to the people of the state. I reflect on the comments of the Leader of the Opposition, Hon Peter Collier, yesterday when he said that never before had he seen such arrogance so early in a government of two months. At this stage I have yet to find any promise or commitment that this government has upheld. I hope that as the Labor Party goes forward and learns the responsibility of government, and the gravity of that position, that it stands by the commitments it made prior to the election. Hon Alanna Clohesy: How many promises did you keep? Hon JIM CHOWN: Quite frankly, we kept every one except for the rail line to—where was it? Please help me. Hon Stephen Dawson: Ellenbrook. Hon JIM CHOWN: It was the railway line to Ellenbrook. Several members interjected. Hon JIM CHOWN: I am more than happy for opposition members to interject. The people of this state expect the Labor Party to perform better. The Labor government’s transparency at this stage, which it committed to, is negligible. I think the standard of the Labor government is reflected at question time in this house. The Labor government’s response to questions from this side of the house is absolutely abysmal; it is shocking. When I was a parliamentary secretary and we had ministers on the other side of the house, we did our absolute best to answer questions honestly. On a number of occasions I withdrew answers because I was not happy with the answers I had received, and that is on the public record. I ask the government to lift its game to the level that this Legislative Council expects it to perform, especially at question time. Obfuscation is not the standard that I expected, practised and witnessed over the last eight years. I shall move on, because I will have more to say about this on future occasions. Government ministers need to lift their game and the cabinet must fulfil at least some of its election commitments. I shall move on to the reason I am standing here today. Hon Stephen Dawson: Remind us! Hon Col Holt: It is a wideranging debate, surely. Hon JIM CHOWN: Yes, surely. How long have we got? On Monday, 8 May I attended a funeral in my home town of Dalwallinu where I spent most of my life farming. The funeral was for a gentleman called Mr Ormond Cail, who happens to be the father-in-law of my daughter. Ormond was born in the district in 1937 and, along with three brothers and sisters and his parents, lived and worked on a property in Goodlands. If members are not familiar with where Goodlands is, it is near Lake Moore, and across Lake Moore is the pastoral country. It is as far east as we can get in the agricultural area in that part of the world. The funeral was attended by well over 300 people who knew Ormond well. Ormond was one of nature’s gentlemen, a hardworking farmer. Many people had played a hand in Ormond’s life and in his role of the last 29 years as a local government councillor, an outstanding sportsman, a family man, farmer and community member. It was a sad occasion for the family, and for my family and I, and we offer our sincere condolences to Nola and her family. What impressed me at the time was the fact that Ormond was a second generation of pioneers in the Agricultural Region. As far as I am concerned the first generation were people like Ormond’s mother and father who went there from Europe, all over Australia and the south west, which was developed well beforehand, and took the risk of going to unknown areas and developing and clearing land. Those people found it pretty hard, and Ormond’s generation, who came along in the late 1920s and early 1930s, developed the industry we have today—that is, the grain industry. Necessity is the mother of invention and these people had to invent a lot of things. The Cail family was 70 miles from the nearest town; I have no idea how long it would take by horse and cart. They started their own school, which was called the Cailbro School, with the support of the education department at the time and paid for a teacher. To keep their numbers up they employed staff—married couples with as many children as possible! There is an anecdote about one of the brothers who was in Wubin and met a gentleman walking down the street in a coat and tie, which is a bit unusual in regional WA at any time, let alone in the 1920s or 1930s, but this would have been in the 1930s. The brother asked the gentleman what he was doing and he replied that he was a school inspector and he had come to inspect

[COUNCIL — Thursday, 25 May 2017] 609 all the local schools. Of course, the brother hopped on his horse and dray and went back to the property as quickly as possible. The Cailbro School had closed down two days prior, so he had to muster all the students up again and put them in the school for the school inspector’s arrival the next day! Anyway, it is the men and women throughout the Agricultural Region, as I said the second generation of pioneers, who developed the agricultural industry of today, especially the grains and wheat industry. They adopted any innovation, because they were working to try to make a living growing crops in one of the driest and hardest farming environments in the world. It is an environment with one of the shallowest soils in the world. There were enormous issues with acidity, of course a lack of rainfall and varying soil types. To overcome all those things and remain viable is an ongoing challenge. They adopted initiatives and technologies, things that we take for granted and that we do not even think about. For example, it was a massive transition to go from steel wheels to rubber wheels. A lot of properties took them up after the Second World War when rubber tyres became more plentiful. Just for the house’s interest, going from steel wheels to rubber was a more comfortable ride of course, but it also increased productivity between 25 per cent and 30 per cent. Whereas before farmers had done three rounds of the paddock on steel wheels, they could do four rounds with rubber tyres. Of course, with every adoption of technology there is an adverse outcome—steel wheels never get punctures! Learning how to change rubber tyres became an art in itself. Initiatives have gone on in the grain industry to this day. There were little things such as superphosphate and trace elements. I can remember a time in my farming career when we went from bags to bulk. What a massive transition that was. The efficiency gains were enormous. Today, technology is certainly beyond comprehension. People even have mobile phones on most properties today. I am proud that it was my government, the previous government, through royalties for regions, that enhanced or put in place around 350 mobile phone towers throughout regional Western Australia. What a great adjunct that is — Hon Adele Farina: We could do with a few more in the south west. Hon JIM CHOWN: I thank Hon Adele Farina for that. Now that her party is in government, I certainly hope that it keeps the program going, because there are still deficiencies throughout the south west and even in the member’s region. I certainly hope that the government finds the money to keep that program going, because information technology in any industry, but especially the grain industry and especially in isolated areas, is paramount to remaining commercially viable. Of course, wheat varieties have changed over the years. We can all remember wheat crops about so high. Nowadays there is dwarf wheat, short-period wheat, high efficiencies and a whole number of things, including water requirements. That technology takes time to develop. One thing we have done in Western Australia—the figures change a little depending on the conditions in the eastern states—is that, as a rule of thumb, we export between 70 and 80 per cent of Australia’s crop. We do that year in, year out. The grain industry, and the wheat industry especially, which is the major crop grown out there, is probably worth $3 billion to $4 billion annually on average—it varies from season to season. We have had a market for our grain especially in Indonesia with the Bogasari mills. I am not sure if members are aware of this, but the last time I went through the Co-operative Bulk Handling Ltd terminal down in Kwinana there were two bulk ships plying backwards and forwards between Indonesia and the CBH port on a weekly basis carrying Western Australian grain. About 40 per cent of the grain grown in this state in any year ends up in the Bogasari mills to be ground into flour and used as a quality lifter for other grains that are purchased around the world and milled in those mills in Indonesia. Of course, we all know about the Australian Wheat Board and the differentiation between the prices on the east and west coasts. I was involved for at least four years, along with a number of other good, hardworking people, in putting the AWB as a monopoly exporter of grain out of this state, and certainly Australia, in the bin. I cannot believe any government would nowadays endorse the legislation that protected the Australian Wheat Board from prosecution and even from ministerial intervention. That was unbelievable, but that is all history now. I would like to use this address today to voice some serious concerns about the prospects going forward over the next 10 years at least, if not into the future, for our wheat industry. We have a massive threat that is growing and growing from around the Black Sea in Russia and surrounding countries. I will get on to that in a minute. Just before I do, out of interest I will give the house some figures on the number of people who are farming in the Agricultural Region today. I am talking about farming families, who are the backbone of the industry. In about 1994, there were about 14 600 farming families in the agricultural area, give or take a couple of hundred. At the turn of the century there were 10 700. Today, there are about 4 100. The attrition rate in the number of people farming out there has been enormous, but the same area of land is still under cultivation. Efficiency gains in the production of grain in this state have almost peaked. I do not know what else we can do to become more efficient using fewer people and bigger machinery. Certainly our transport routes could be better and certainly the grain delivery points could become more efficient. I am a believer in competition. We need competition there, and that will happen. CBH has done a great job, but I think its day is coming very quickly, as I have said before in this place. Monopolies become lazy and inefficient and charge the end users what they believe they can get away with. That is what happens. That is where competition comes in. As we know, when competition comes in, you sharpen your pencil; otherwise, you lose market share. That is what is required.

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Let me get back to the topic of Russia. Russia possesses two and a half times more arable land than this country. Unlike Australia, it has significant reserves of fertile land. Today, 70 per cent of all Russian agricultural land is privatised. I am sure we remember from our days at school when Russia had the old communal kolkhoz during the communist era. They were totally inefficient. Hon Michael Mischin: Collective farms. Hon JIM CHOWN: They were collective farms; I thank Hon Michael Mischin. They were totally inefficient. In fact, the most efficient forms of agriculture when the collective farms were operating were those owned by private individuals in their backyards. That is what they lived on. Everything else was put in properly but nobody cared about it and it just rotted away or was sold or put on the black market. Today, 70 per cent of all Russian land is in private hands, and has been since the 1990s. The rich black soil lands of south Russia near the Black Sea are some of the richest agricultural lands in the world. From what I have read, the Russian agricultural industry is becoming more and more sophisticated. It is being backed by the Putin government. Agricultural produce out of Russia now exceeds its gas exports into Europe or its arms exports to the rest of the world. From a Russian perspective, agriculture is its main form of foreign exchange. Around the Black Sea, Russia has a number of deepwater ports. They are few in number, but they have been upgraded significantly and have had billions of dollars of foreign investment in them by international grain acquiring countries because those countries can see that they can make money out of the Black Sea export of those grains. The supply chain in Russia has had significant investment. I am talking here about fertiliser, chemicals, machinery and the labour force. In fact, they are becoming more and more westernised along the lines of the efficiencies that we have in Western Australia. Quite frankly, it is believed that Russian wheat exports will increase by 60 per cent over the next 15 to 20 years. I believe that we will be lucky to increase our wheat exports by 10 to 15 per cent. Just to give an example, the Russian Federation exported 30 million tonnes of wheat and is the largest wheat exporting country in the world today. These are last year’s figures. The United States exported 26 million tonnes; the EU, 25 million tonnes; Canada, 21 million tonnes; and Australia, 20 million tonnes. If I combine the Black Sea countries—that is, Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan—the total tonnage exported on the world market is 54 million tonnes a year. It has a combined value of $US7.5 billion, in comparison with Australia’s $US3.6 billion. I am standing here today out of great concern, because these massive exports and the increase in Black Sea grains—wheat especially—are now targeting our Asian markets. We sell the most expensive wheat in the world. In May, Australia exported wheat from Western Australia at $287 a tonne. Russia exported wheat at $247 a tonne. Russia is exporting wheat $30 to $40 below what we are asking for in the international marketplace. But, more importantly, Russia’s cost of production is a third of ours. The cost of production for every tonne of grain in this state today varies between $240 and $270 a tonne. In effect, most growers in this season, at current wheat prices, will be selling their grain at below production cost, yet Russia can make money at production costs of $US200, which is $US87 less than we are asking for our grain today. Hon Adele Farina: Can I ask why? Hon JIM CHOWN: Why is what? Hon Adele Farina: Why is there a stark difference? Hon JIM CHOWN: The stark difference is that their production costs are 30 per cent lower than ours. They do not need as much fertiliser because their soils are far more fertile, they have more regular rainfall, they have cheaper sources of labour and their machinery—it used to be state-produced; it still is in a way because it is made in state factories—is cheaper to purchase. Most of our machinery here is imported from the United States. For example, if someone wants to buy a class 7 harvester today, it will cost anywhere between $800 000 and $900 000, and they will utilise that piece of machinery for possibly six weeks of the year. A 10 000-hectare property here, which is pretty much the average wheat-growing property, could be worth between $8 million and $10 million, and they could very well need $4 million to $5 million of machinery to operate that property efficiently. That is before we get into the cost of fertilisers, fuel and transport. Russian transport costs alone are about 30 per cent cheaper than ours by rail to port. The shipping costs would be comparable, but when we add all those figures, we find that the Russian cost of production is a cost production we dream of having but will never achieve, due to our structures and input costs. One of the great concerns is that these massive Russian wheat exporters are now targeting Asia. One of things we always had in Australia was quality wheat for milling with good protein content. But the variation in price is now bringing it to the point that Asian mills are saying they cannot afford to buy great quantities of Australian wheat. In fact, a number of mills in Vietnam are using the latest technology in their grinding processes to calibrate their grinders to grind more Russian wheat so that its specifications—its milling or flour and baking quality—will come very close to Australian wheat. I do not know how widespread that is, but we all know that technology has the ability to overcome a lot of deficiencies so that we would not know the difference between real leather, for example, and synthetic leather. With good quality synthetic leather today, people would be hard-pressed to tell the difference; even the smell test would defeat people. That is the issue.

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We have certainly seen great variations in climate in Western Australia in the last decade. I saw a little bit of it when I was farming. All the scientists say that if climate change becomes a reality in the next 10, 15 or 20 years, it will certainly affect agriculture in this state. The effect in Russia will be beneficial; they will actually have warmer winters and may even have a bit more rainfall. Once again, they will capitalise on climate change and we will be deficient because of it. I am saying this because this issue has been ongoing in my mind, and I have had discussions with people with greater knowledge than I have on this matter for at least the last 12 months. I am talking about academics, certainly Co-operative Bulk Handling Ltd, leading industry groups and buyers of our wheat. I am talking primarily about wheat, which is the largest crop we grow; there is a reason for that. Wheat can be grown year in, year out; with canola the hectareage is growing in larger numbers every year. This year, for example, we will probably have the largest hectareage of canola ever grown in Western Australia. There is a very good reason for that; it is all about budget. Canola is worth about $500 to $550 a tonne and wheat is around $240 to $260 a tonne, so when the farmer goes to the bank manager and says, “We’re breaking even or losing money on our wheat production, we’ll throw in another 1 000 hectares of canola”, the bottom line looks better. But canola cannot be grown year in, year out; it needs at least a three-year break because of disease issues that are now occurring out there. Monocultures always end up with disease, and canola is very susceptible to fungi and other diseases so the break has to be longer. Wheat is the predominant crop. I have said that a number of people, not only me, are very concerned about what is likely to occur in the marketplace, how wheat goes to the marketplace and the threat from the Black Sea countries. What is the solution? The solution is more research. The solution is to increase production, or at least, as Hon Adele Farina quite correctly said, drop our input costs. For the same input costs, if we can grow more grain, our input costs per hectolitre or per tonne become less. The future of our wheat industry, I believe, is in genetically modified wheat. We need greater water efficiency. Greater water efficiency means that in a drying climate the plant can utilise more water or more rain from the ground. A lot of people probably do not realise that the driest piece of clay that can be found still has 18 per cent moisture in it. We need more efficient use of fertilisers and more crops that are resilient to frost damage. Last year we witnessed one of the best seasons ever, but frost wiped out thousands and thousands of hectares just before harvest time. Frost is becoming a real issue. We can have either GM or natural breeding. It is interesting that the School of Plant Biology at the University of Western Australia has received a grant of $2.5 million to look at the three things I have just discussed. It is doing it through the natural breeding process. I spent a number of hours meeting with a very knowledgeable person, Professor Jacqueline Batley, discussing this issue. She agreed with everything I am saying about the threat to our wheat market from the Black Sea countries. She and a number of other people in her team received a $2.5 million grant for four years made up of $1 million federal in funding, $500 000 from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and $1 million in kind from commercial entities. Quite frankly, $2.5 million for agriculture research is an absolute pittance, but it is better than nothing; it is better than a poke in the eye. Professor Jacqueline and the School of Plant Biology at UWA are trying to utilise strains—or genomes, as they call them—out of Chinese varieties of wheat, and put them in varieties that we grow in Western Australia. Obviously, there are a number of strains, and China is the biggest wheat producer in the world. It does not export much but it grows more wheat than any other country. China grows wheat in a climate very similar to ours. The soil type might be different but the climate is very similar. Obviously China’s scientists and plant breeding technologies have strains that we could adopt in the varieties we grow here. That is what these people are about. The professor made a very good point when I asked her about the lead time—from finding, let us say, a genome, putting it into wheat variety utilised across the board here—from development to putting it out on a commercial cropping basis. She said it was a minimum of 10 years or possibly 12. That is a long time. I am disappointed that the Minister for Agriculture and Food is away on urgent parliamentary business — Hon Stephen Dawson: Member, I will make sure she sees a copy of your contribution. Hon JIM CHOWN: Thank you. One of the issues that the good professor mentioned was that the team had received funding for three to four years for something that could be significant to the industry and worth $4 billion to $5 billion to this state. When we say $4 billion to $5 billion, we forget that that accumulates by four times year in, year out. Halfway through the process, they would have to apply for more funding. They are dedicated scientists; they are not fly-by-night scientists. They are not going to disappear. Professor Batley also said that, from her experience in Australia as a very senior geneticist, there is no coordination between developing crop strains or developing strains of grain that will benefit a certain area. Everybody is in their little silo, including the Department of Agriculture and Food. They are all doing their own thing. Some of them are aiming for the same outcomes as the one down the road but there is no correspondence between them. It is crazy. It comes down to a lack of hundreds of millions of development dollars. I appeal to the Minister for Agriculture and Food to use her department to try to get some coordination. At the very least, somebody should say, “Tom down there has developed this; what do you think about it?” If they do not want to share the idea, at least A should be talking to B so the whole process is fast tracked to some degree. I assume that one of the reasons for a lack of coordination at a professional level is that

612 [COUNCIL — Thursday, 25 May 2017] for a lot of academics, if they do not publish, they are dead. If they lose funding, they lose credibility. In reality, surely some coordination would help everybody. I quote Professor Jacqueline Batley, PhD, MSc, BSc. She stated — Wheat and crop development is absolutely critical to the future of broadacre farming in Western Australia. If more funding for R&D is not made available then we won’t have an agricultural industry. Our ever changing environment, both climatic and economic, will leave us with varieties of wheat that are not competitive in a global market. Funding not only needs to be increased in a monetary value but also needs to be a longer term investment than the current funding arrangements that are put in place for 3 to 4 years. Better co-ordination is needed between all research facilities and agriculture departments. Funding will be more effective if everyone is sharing their knowledge and research break throughs, ultimately we are all working towards a common goal. I support that quote. As responsible members for the Agricultural Region, we should pursue some sort of outcome along the lines advocated by the good professor through the current Minister for Agriculture and Food. Agriculture has been—I was going to say “the backbone”—the basis of the community in Australia ever since Captain Cook arrived on our fair shores. Today we are an urban society but in our blood we still think of when dad was on the farm or out shearing. It is still there in our genetic make-up and certainly in our psyche. Agriculture is certainly essential to this state, if not the whole nation. Its value to Western Australia is immense. Yet—I will keep repeating this—our investment in agriculture from a research and development perspective is abysmal in comparison with the rest of the world. I will quote from an article that appeared in The Australian written by Sue Neales. Before I read the quote, let me say that we have heard the mantra—mining boom to dining boom. Apparently, we are going to be saved by our food exports. DAFWA says that by 2025 we will have to double agriculture production in this state. That is rubbish. It is just a line. It has no foundation unless we invest in R&D and we carry that R&D through to the farms. We need R&D that works. Sue Neales states — Australia’s ability to become a food bowl feeding a fast-expanding Asia is being undermined by continued funding cuts to agricultural research. John Muller from Charles Sturt University and Mick Keogh from the Australian Farm Institute revealed to the Australian Agricultural Economics Society in Sydney this week, that as agricultural research spending has dropped since 2000, the ability of Australia’s farmers to produce more food has stagnated. I agree with that. It continues — Mr Keogh said for Australia to be a food bowl for Asia by 2030 and for agriculture to become the next boom industry, farmers needed to be more productive, growing more food on the same amount of land using less water. Earlier I outlined all the ways in which we can get to that point. I do not believe that we cannot get to that point because, as I said previously, our forebears overcame all the adversity this land throws up when living in the agricultural region and growing a crop. Australia used to be placed ninth internationally in R&D into agricultural research. We are now placed sixteenth. Government, ministers for agriculture and departments, certainly in this state—I am a representative for Western Australia and certainly the Agricultural Region—need to take these statements on board and readdress the issues. Hon Adele Farina: But wasn’t it your government that gutted the department of agriculture? Hon JIM CHOWN: I will take that. I do not have the figures in front of me. I will be happy to look at the figures if the member has them in front of her. The depletion of the department of agriculture’s budget started in the previous Labor government. Hon Adele Farina: No. Hon JIM CHOWN: Yes, it did; and to some degree it was carried out by the government that I belonged to. The member made a very good point. In reality, there has been a vacuum in the department of agriculture for many years and that has been taken up by the commercial side of R&D. A number of fantastic groups of farmers are carrying out their own R&D with support from the Grains Research and Development Corporation and other commercial entities on a region-by-region basis. I do not believe that the old agriculture department ought to be revisited because we will never get it back. As I have said previously, a good role model in the growing of grain would be coordination of R&D projects in universities and commercial entities and whatever has been taking place in the department of agriculture. Hon Adele Farina: But won’t they claim commercial-in-confidence or commercial in research?

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Hon JIM CHOWN: That is fine but, as stated, it is for a common goal. I do not have all the answers but I am saying that the lack of coordination is making developments slower, more expensive and probably less viable, and we do not have that time. We do not have time, and it is not because the communists or the Russians are coming and they are going to swamp us with wheat exports and our markets are going to accept them. Hon Diane Evers: So if the government had supported the department of agriculture through the past eight years, wouldn’t we be in a much better place? Hon JIM CHOWN: Not necessarily. Why would the member think that? Most of our wheat varieties — The PRESIDENT: Order! It is not question time. You should be talking to me, Hon Jim Chown. Hon JIM CHOWN: I am more than happy to, Madam President. I did not see you come into the Chair. Welcome. Nowadays, most of our wheat varieties are sourced from the development programs in . From a wheat perspective, I cannot think of one that has been developed in Western Australia for the last 10 to 15 years but Hon Darren West might be able to name one. No, obviously not. From that perspective, to catch up on R&D in these sorts of developments does not happen overnight. If we have fallen behind by that much, we may as well get out of the game. The research and development in lupins, for example, is very good, and certainly apples and all those sorts of things. Hon Colin Tincknell: We’re not actually interested in who’s responsible for cutting funding. What we want to see is advances made now. The past doesn’t matter now. We need to do something about it. Let’s look at the future. Hon JIM CHOWN: That is correct. I could not agree more. Let us move forward because we do not have the time. If it takes 10 years to develop something, and that is fast tracking, and then we lose another three to four years through lack of coordination, it makes it very hard to make anything work. I have another five minutes. What am I going to say now? Do we have afternoon tea in five minutes? I just thought I would bring this to the attention of the house. As I said previously, I know that Co-operative Bulk Handling Ltd has done a lot of work on this matter, not that I have seen it. There are certainly academics in Western Australia who would like more funding, and I have just given members a quote from one, which encapsulates the issues that I have discussed. If we do not do something, and if we do not take notice, it will be too late. I would be loath to see, as I said, the reduction in numbers back to 4 000-odd farmers, and small towns going. In 10 years’ time, that could be halved again. In 10 years there could be just a couple of regional towns out there, living on Centrelink. One of the things we need is alternative crops. Let us get away from the monoculture of wheat and see whether we can find something that will grow out there. By “out there” I mean from Esperance right through to Kalbarri. It is a massive tract of land, and it is still outstanding agricultural land today, but we need more barrels to shoot—put it that way. With the monoculture of wheat, with the burgeoning threat—it is a very real threat—from the Black Sea, we will find our crops virtually unsaleable due to the expense. I would hate to see our growers, who work hard all their lives— most of them are third or fourth generation farming families—become unviable through the lack of innovation and the lack of the adoption of new technology. If that includes genetically modified crops, so be it; there is nothing wrong with GM crops. Part of our responsibility in this place is to get up and speak on issues of concern, and speak to the relevant ministers by giving them help, assistance and ideas. They are not the fount of all knowledge—we are, collectively. Hon Darren West: What about the rail? Hon JIM CHOWN: What are you on about? I used to have a little kelpie named Trixie. She would yap, yap, yap, yap all the time. She was not a bad little dog, but she was always outside the yard; she was never in the yard. She never quite knew what her job was. Hon Darren West reminds me so much of her. Several members interjected. The PRESIDENT: Hon Jim Chown, I seek some assistance here. When we return after question time today, we have another inaugural speech. Do you want to seek leave to continue your remarks at a later stage of today’s sitting? Hon JIM CHOWN: Madam President, I am more than happy to wind up in a couple of minutes, and thank members for their interjections, and for their patience. I look forward to a response at some stage, if necessary, but I certainly look forward to discussing this with the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Hon Alannah MacTiernan. If any of my colleagues on either side of the house want to give me some support in those discussions, they would be more than welcome to come along. I will inform them of when the meeting will take place, and we will take it forward from there. Debate interrupted, pursuant to standing orders. [Continued on page 621.] Sitting suspended from 4.13 to 4.30 pm

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QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE DISABILITY JUSTICE CENTRE — LORD STREET 120. Hon PETER COLLIER to the Minister for Disability Services: It is an easy one, do not worry. I refer the minister to comments made by Hon Dave Kelly in the Eastern Reporter on 13 March 2017, in which he said that he would be seeking a review of the disability justice centre on Lord Street. (1) Has Hon Dave Kelly spoken with the minister regarding a review into the disability justice centre? (2) Is the minister undertaking a review into the disability justice centre; and, if so, what is the format? (3) Does the minister support the disability justice centre? Hon STEPHEN DAWSON replied: I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. (1) Yes. (2) I have spoken to my agency about undertaking a review; however, no final decision has been made. (3) Yes, the disability justice centre is supported by me and also by the community. SCARBOROUGH BEACH PRECINCT — REVITALISATION 121. Hon PETER COLLIER to the minister representing the Minister for Transport: I refer to the answer to question without notice 68 on 18 May 2017. (1) With which small business owner did the minister meet, and when and where did the meeting take place? (2) Was this meeting before or after the announcement of this disruption payment? (3) Will the minister please list the other traders with whom she met; and, if not, why not? (4) Will the minister table a copy of the letter to the City of Stirling; and, if not, why not? Hon STEPHEN DAWSON replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question. There is an answer in my file but I am not happy with the answer, so I will provide an answer at the next day’s sitting. SIR CHARLES GAIRDNER HOSPITAL — HAZARDOUS MATERIAL 122. Hon MICHAEL MISCHIN to the parliamentary secretary representing the Minister for Health: (1) What advice has the Minister for Health made public regarding the chemical scare at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital on Friday, 19 May? (2) What was the hazardous material involved, and when and how did the minister disclose this to the public? (3) If there was no disclosure, why did the minister refuse to be open and transparent about this issue? (4) Will the government now undertake an audit of all hospitals for similar risks? Hon ALANNA CLOHESY replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question. (1)–(2) The chemical in question was picric acid, a chemical used in clinical investigations in laboratories. The chemical was found in a laboratory operated by the University of Western Australia. UWA clarified in response to a media request on Monday, 22 May that the chemical involved was picric acid. (3) Not applicable. The incident was fully disclosed to the public on Friday, 19 May 2017 by the North Metropolitan Health Service via a metro-wide media alert. The identification of the material was disclosed by UWA on Monday, 22 May 2017. (4) The government does not intend to undertake an audit of all hospitals. METROPOLITAN REGION SCHEME AMENDMENT 1271/41 — LOT 59 WILKINS ROAD, KALAMUNDA 123. Hon to the minister representing the Minister for Planning: I refer to metropolitan region scheme amendment 1271/41, lot 59 Wilkins Road, Kalamunda. Can the minister advise when the amendment will be tabled in the Legislative Council? Hon STEPHEN DAWSON replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question. The amendment remains under consideration by the government.

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MEDIA STATEMENTS EMAIL SERVICE 124. Hon NICK GOIRAN to the Leader of the House representing the Premier: I refer to the answers to my questions without notice on 16 and 24 May 2017 in which the Leader of the House informed the house that the Premier’s director of communications, Daniel Pastorelli, who is claimed by some to be good on detail, is, firstly, responsible for authorising media statements prior to public release and, secondly, has had that responsibility from 20 March 2017. (1) Would the Premier not expect that his director should have known that the Minister for Regional Development was not a member of the Legislative Council until 22 May 2017? (2) Further to (1), why then did he authorise the public release of 11 media statements from the Minister for Regional Development, falsely claiming that she was a member of the Legislative Council? (3) Further to (2), will the Premier assure us that he will implement new measures so that the people of Western Australia can retain confidence in all the content of the government’s media statements rather than having to sift through them to determine which parts are accurate and which parts are not? Hon SUE ELLERY replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question. (1)–(3) Further to standing order 105(1)(b), it is my understanding that questions in this place may not seek an opinion. However, to assist the honourable member I can confirm that the use of “MLC” was an administrative error, misused due to internal Department of the Premier and Cabinet templates. Several members interjected. The PRESIDENT: Members! One person has the call, and that is Hon Jacqui Boydell. ROYALTIES FOR REGIONS — PROJECTS 125. Hon JACQUI BOYDELL to the parliamentary secretary representing the Minister for Regional Development: I refer to the answer given to question without notice 3, in which the Minister for Regional Development stated that all royalties for regions projects are being reviewed. Does that include stages 1 and 2 of the Central East Aged Care Alliance senior housing project; Collet Barker Court, Mt Barker; Avon Well Aged housing project; Beverley, Brookton and Pingelly aged housing; Brunswick River Cottages; Midland Centres aged housing development; Cunderdin, Tammin and Quairading Well Aged precincts; the Wheatbelt South Aged Housing Alliance aged housing; Bridge Street affordable housing; Waroona Housing Options Village; Killarney Retirement Living, Hannans, Kalgoorlie; expansion of aged care for the Esperance community; the Leonora Ageing in Place project; and the Laverton primary health and aged care facility? Hon DARREN WEST replied: I thank the member for some notice of the question. On behalf of the Minister for Regional Development, I provide the following answer. I can confirm that “all” in answer to question without notice 3 means all. From time to time, in the lead-up to the budget, some decisions on particular items may be made and announced. The review of all items will be finalised in the budget. SOUTHERN INLAND HEALTH INITIATIVE 126. Hon MARTIN ALDRIDGE to the parliamentary secretary representing the Minister for Health: I am struck by the conciseness of the last answer. I refer to Legislative Council question without notice 48, answered on 17 May 2017. (1) How many general practitioners, and in which towns do they operate, are currently receiving financial attraction and retention incentives provided from the Southern Inland Health Initiative funded by royalties for regions? (2) What communication has the minister, the Department of Health or the WA Country Health Service had with those general practitioners currently in receipt of payments mentioned in (1) in relation to the impending expiration of funding? (3) When will the minister provide certainty to regionally based general practitioners and their patients given that funding to this program will cease in less than six weeks?

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Hon ALANNA CLOHESY replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question. I am informed — (1) The royalties for regions Southern Inland Health Initiative currently funds 79 general practitioners for a range of incentives covering 37 towns across the five southern inland regions. This includes 51 GPs who receive emergency department cover and service incentives, and attraction and retention incentives paid to seven GPs to cover Northam, Merredin, Collie and Esperance. (2) The WA Country Health Service advises that day-to-day communication regarding GP payments with inquiring GPs is currently occurring. (3) The WA Country Health Service advises that notice of the extension of current Southern Inland Health Initiative–related GP payments will occur directly with GPs commencing the first week of June 2017.

SCHOOLS — YEAR 7 STUDENTS 127. Hon RICK MAZZA to the Minister for Education and Training: I refer to this government’s opposition to the forced transition of rural and regional year 7 students to high schools, requiring some children as young as 11 years old to relocate to cities or regional centres. (1) Can the minister advise whether these children and families are successfully adjusting to these changes? (2) Does the minister have plans to wind back the scheme; and, if not, why not? Hon SUE ELLERY replied: I thank the member for the question. (1)–(2) The first part of the question was about whether I understand how they have adjusted to the change. Was that the first part of the question? Could the member repeat the first part of the question for me? Hon Rick Mazza: Sure. Can the minister advise whether these children and families are successfully adjusting to the changes? Hon SUE ELLERY: Thank you for that. I would think that if the member wanted me to answer that properly, he would let me investigate that so that I could give him an accurate answer. I cannot give the member as fulsome an answer as I would like because I did not know he was going to ask the question so I did not seek any briefing notes on it. However, I can say that during the election campaign, we were asked to consider whether we would review the date. Remember, there was an exemption period. Hon Peter Collier interjected. Hon SUE ELLERY: Yes, and that exemption period ends this year. I indicated that we would review that, but we have not begun that process. Was there another part of the question that I missed? Hon Rick Mazza: Does the minister have plans to wind back the scheme? Hon SUE ELLERY: I think I have answered that. We said during the election campaign that we would review it. I note that the former Minister for Education made the point by interjection that at this point not that many are taking advantage of that. Nevertheless, it was an election commitment and we will honour that.

YOUTH PREVENTION AND DIVERSIONARY PROGRAMS — TRANSFER 128. Hon ALISON XAMON to the minister representing the Minister for Corrective Services: I refer to the machinery of government changes announced on 28 April 2017, and specifically to the announcement that youth prevention and diversionary programs will be transferred from the current Department of Corrective Services to the new Department of Community Services. (1) Which programs will be transferred to the Department of Community Services? (2) Will any staff be transferred from the Department of Corrective Services to the Department of Community Services? (3) If yes to (2), how many? (4) Why are these programs being transferred? (5) Which stakeholders were consulted about the decision to transfer these programs? (6) If a decision has not been made, when will this be decided?

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Hon STEPHEN DAWSON replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question. The following information has been provided to me by the Minister for Corrective Services — (1) The machinery of government steering committees for both the proposed Department of Justice and the proposed Department of Community Services have commenced meeting. The programs to be transferred are currently being deliberated by these steering committees, with associated specialist advice being sought as required from other entities such as the State Solicitor’s Office. At this stage, a final determination has not been made at the program level. (2) In accordance with the information provided in part (1), these matters are also being deliberated by both steering committees. No decision has been made on the transfer of staff. (3) Not applicable. Please see response to part (2). (4) Not applicable. Please see response to part (1). (5) As part of the machinery of government change process, there has been broad consultation across a number of stakeholders within the Department of Corrective Services, as well as across external agencies such as the other constituent agencies of the two aforementioned steering committees, as well as subject matter experts such as the State Solicitor’s Office and unions representing staff members impacted by the machinery of government changes. (6) Stage 1 of machinery of government changes needs to be completed by 30 June 2016. PETROGLYPHS — TWO MILE RIDGE, NELSON POINT 129. Hon ROBIN CHAPPLE to the minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs: I refer to my question last week concerning site 11943 Two Mile Ridge and the minister’s response. (1) On what date was the money granted? (2) To which person or organisation was the money granted? (3) What, if any, works have so far been carried out at the site and, if none, where was the money spent? (4) Have discussions with traditional owners been entered into to develop a broader management plan for the Two Mile Ridge heritage site? (5) Why is the fence still down? Hon STEPHEN DAWSON replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question. (1)–(5) The Department of Aboriginal Affairs offered a grant to the Marapikurrinya Aboriginal Corporation in June 2016. Ongoing discussions have occurred with the Marapikurrinya Aboriginal Corporation regarding the release of the funds and the project management plan. The funds have not yet been released by the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and no work has been carried out to date. The Department of Aboriginal Affairs is continuing to work with the Marapikurrinya Aboriginal Corporation to release the grant and complete the works as soon as possible. Hon Peter Collier: We don’t have a Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. Hon STEPHEN DAWSON: At the moment, there is. EMERGENCY SERVICE VOLUNTEER ORGANISATIONS 130. Hon to the minister representing the Minister for Emergency Services: Under the previous government, emergency service volunteer organisations were provided with an emergency service volunteer fuel card of up to $2 000 a year. (1) Will this important resource for our volunteer emergency service organisations continue under the current government? (2) If no to (1), what will this government do to ensure our state’s volunteer organisations do not suffer additional financial imposts in maintaining the important services they provide? Hon STEPHEN DAWSON replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question. The following information has been provided to me by the Minister for Emergency Services. (1) Yes, the program is continuing. However, all royalties for regions funding is currently under review for the upcoming budget. (2) Not applicable.

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TAXI INDUSTRY — REGULATION 131. Hon SIMON O’BRIEN to the minister representing the Minister for Transport: I refer to the regulation of taxis in Western Australia. (1) How many full-time equivalent government officers are currently engaged, directly or indirectly, in regulation of the taxi industry? (2) How much does it cost to regulate the taxi industry and from which sources of revenue are these costs met? Hon STEPHEN DAWSON replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question and acknowledge his longstanding interest in the regulation of taxis. The following information has been provided to me by the Minister for Transport. (1) In 2015–16 there were 49 FTEs in the on-demand transport business unit of the Department of Transport administering and regulating the taxi and charter industries. This does not include FTE numbers from the driver and vehicle services business unit, which administers the F and T driver licence endorsements for taxi and charter drivers and the vehicle registration records for taxi and charter vehicles. (2) The total 2015–16 actual cost for the on-demand transport business unit was $23 539 157. This does not include any budget allocated for subsidies that are not taxi or charter related. The revenue is sourced from the appropriation account and the taxi industry development account. CANE TOADS 132. Hon JIM CHOWN to the Minister for Environment: (1) What has been the annual expenditure since 2014–2017 by the department to implement the Western Australia cane toad strategy? (2) Does the department or the Minister for Environment consider this expenditure to be an adequate amount to arrest further southern movement of this substantial threat to the state’s environment? (3) As we are midway through the 14/19 cane toad strategy, will the minister please state how effective this strategy has been to date? Hon STEPHEN DAWSON replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question. The following information has been provided to me by the Department of Parks and Wildlife — (1) For the financial years 2013–14 to 2015–16, the total expenditure was $2.1 million. (2)–(3) The Department of Parks and Wildlife continues to implement the “Cane toad strategy for Western Australia 2014–2019”, which was developed under the previous government. The current approach, which is consistent with the strategy, provides direction on quarantine efforts and preventing hitchhikers from colonising ahead of the cane toad front line. The strategy has been effective in identifying and removing hitchhiker toads, and broadening community education and understanding of cane toads, which is essential for the strategy. In addition, the McGowan government is supporting new research through a partnership with the University of Sydney to develop landscape scale methods aimed at mitigating the impact of cane toads by making vulnerable native species more resilient. BIOSECURITY — PRAWN WHITE SPOT VIRUS 133. Hon KEN BASTON to the parliamentary secretary representing the Minister for Fisheries: Is the Department of Fisheries considering any changes to biosecurity measures to help protect WA’s prawn fishery from white spot virus, which has recently devastated prawn producers in east Queensland? Hon DARREN WEST replied: I thank the member for some notice of the question. On behalf of the Minister for Fisheries, I give the following answer — Following the outbreak of white spot syndrome virus, I am advised that the Department of Fisheries, as the lead agency, took immediate action to help prevent the spread of the virus to Western Australia. Measures included a prohibition on the importation of live and uncooked prawns from affected areas, and this prohibition remains in place; the testing of imported prawns from Queensland already in WA; inspections of prawn consignments from the eastern states; raising public awareness of the virus outbreak and the importance of not using food prawns as fishing bait; and the introduction of stricter consignment labelling requirements. The import restrictions continue to be subject to review.

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BIOSECURITY — TOMATO POTATO PSYLLID 134. Hon STEVE THOMAS to the parliamentary secretary representing the Minister for Agriculture and Food: I refer to the discovery of the tomato potato psyllid in vegetable crops in south west Western Australia, and the decision of state authorities that was made in Adelaide in early May to agree to lift the quarantine requirements for the transport of non-host fruit such as stone fruit and apples. (1) Are all states now accepting non-host Western Australian fruit such as apples and stone fruit? (2) If no to (1), which states are not accepting this produce? (3) When does the government expect the normal export of this non-host fruit to these states to resume? (4) What is the government doing to re-establish the export of non-host fruit? Hon DARREN WEST replied: I thank the member for some notice of the question and his interest in this very important biosecurity issue that is affecting agriculture in Western Australia. On behalf of the Minister for Agriculture and Food, I provide the following answer — (1) Yes, subject to import conditions in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. Import conditions are as follows: for New South Wales, methyl bromide fumigation and inspection or insecticide plus inspection; for Victoria, part state area freedom or methyl bromide fumigation and inspection; and for South Australia, part state area freedom or treatment and inspection by an approved program or methyl bromide fumigation plus inspection or insecticide plus inspection or approved washing protocol. (2) Not applicable. (3) It is not likely that the previous unrestricted access will resume. TPP is now established in WA, so some level of restrictions should be expected. (4) The recent workshop in Adelaide led by the Department of Agriculture and Food Western Australia reached in-principle agreement on conditions for entry for non-host fruit. These conditions now need to be placed into each state’s entry requirements. DAFWA is in dialogue with jurisdictions and local industry on this. START COURT — REGIONAL EXPANSION 135. Hon ALISON XAMON to the Leader of the House representing the Attorney General: I refer to the Start Court. (1) Given the demonstrated success of the court and the clear need in regional areas will the government commit to expanding this court to regional areas? (2) If no to (1), why not? (3) If yes to (1), when? Hon SUE ELLERY replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question. (1) Not at this point in time. (2) The Start Court operating at the Central Law Courts Perth is currently funded until only 30 June 2019. Any expansion to regional areas would be considered as part of the future business case to continue the Start Court post-June 2019. (3) Not applicable. POLICE — BUSSELTON 136. Hon MICHAEL MISCHIN to the minister representing the Minister for Police: I refer to the resources available to the Western Australia Police in Busselton. (1) When will the additional four detectives committed to by the previous Liberal-led government and announced in March be deployed to Busselton Police Station? (2) What additional police resources will be deployed in the South West Region in the next six months? (3) How many FTEs currently work at the Busselton Police Station and what positions do they currently hold?

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Hon STEPHEN DAWSON replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of this question. The following information has been provided to me by the Minister for Police. (1)–(3) The previously announced transfers have been issued and the staff will commence duty imminently. As was the practice of the previous government, due to operational sensitivities, specific information relating to staffing levels of individual police stations is not released. Any further advice with regard to the future deployment of police resources will be released as and when appropriate. TANAMI ROAD — SEALING 137. Hon JACQUI BOYDELL to the minister representing the Minister for Transport: Given that sealing the Tanami Road will require state and federal funding — (1) Can the minister confirm the state government will contribute the funding required to seal the Tanami Road? (2) Has the minister contacted the federal government regarding the commonwealth’s financial contribution to the project? Hon STEPHEN DAWSON replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question. (1)–(2) The government will continue to work with the federal government to seal the Tanami Road to support the economic opportunities sealing this road will bring to northern WA. REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT COMMISSIONS — CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICERS 138. Hon MARTIN ALDRIDGE to the Leader of the House representing the Premier: I refer to the state government’s machinery of government reforms. (1) What advice has the Public Sector Commission provided to the chief executive officers of the nine regional development commissions on their tenure in that capacity? (2) Has the Public Sector Commission advised the regional development commissions that the chief executive officers will cease to hold that position as of 30 June 2017? (3) Has the Public Sector Commission asked the chief executive officers of regional development commissions to continue in any other capacity post 30 June 2017? Hon SUE ELLERY replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question. (1)–(3) The Public Sector Commission has advised regional development commission chief executive officers of the government’s machinery of government changes and how the changes may impact their role. MIXED MARTIAL ARTS — MESH ENCLOSURES 139. Hon NICK GOIRAN to the Leader of the House representing the Minister for Prevention of Family and Domestic Violence: I refer to reports that the government is expected to gazette the lifting of a ban on mesh enclosures for mixed martial arts fighting. (1) Has the minister or the department been consulted on the proposed lifting of the ban? (2) If yes to (1), what form has that consultation taken? (3) Does the minister or the department have any concerns about the proposed lifting of the ban? (4) If no to (3), can the minister inform the house how the lifting of the ban will aid the minister’s efforts to prevent family and domestic violence? (5) If yes to (4), when will the minister so inform the house? Hon SUE ELLERY replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of this question. (1) Yes. (2) The now minister was consulted prior to the state election about the proposed policy on mixed martial arts. (3) The government remains committed to addressing the serious issue of family and domestic violence. This includes looking at ways to challenge attitudes and beliefs that condone violence against women.

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The government has recently signed up to Our Watch, established to drive nationwide change in the culture, behaviours and power imbalances that lead to violence against women and their children, and has committed to implementing the national framework for primary prevention of violence against women and their children in Australia. (4) Working toward the elimination of family and domestic violence remains the government’s focus. In the work ahead, the government plans to engage with sporting organisations and the broader community as powerful influencers on gender relations to challenge violence-supportive attitudes. (5) Not applicable. EDUCATION CENTRAL POLICY 140. Hon DONNA FARAGHER to the Minister for Education and Training: I refer to the answer given to question without notice 30 asked on 16 May 2017. What was the total cost of the visit to Sydney on 12 April 2017 by the minister and those who accompanied her including airfares, accommodation and any other costs? Hon SUE ELLERY replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question. The costs incurred were: $28 008.39 for airfares, $2 244.70 for accommodation and $627.35 for any other costs. UTAH POINT AND FREMANTLE PORT — FINANCIAL ADVICE 141. Hon ROBIN CHAPPLE to the minister representing the Treasurer: I refer to the “Report on Consultants Engaged by Government: For the Six Months Ended 30 June 2016”. (1) Can the minister please provide an itemisation of expenditure on financial advice provided by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu on the sale of Utah Point? (2) Can the minister please provide an itemisation of expenditure on financial advice provided by Rothschild/Deloitte on the sale of Fremantle port and Utah Point? (3) Can the minister please provide information and itemisation of expenditure on any financial advice provided on the sale of Utah Point and Fremantle port not included in this document? (4) Will the minister please table any reports produced by the consultants? (5) If no to (4), why not? Hon STEPHEN DAWSON replied: I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question. The information requested is not possible in the time required. Therefore, we ask the honourable member to place this question on notice. MINISTERS AND PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARIES — CONFLICTS OF INTEREST Question without Notice 24 — Answer Advice HON SUE ELLERY (South Metropolitan — Leader of the House) [5.01 pm]: I undertook to get some additional information for the Leader of the Opposition on a question he asked in this place on Tuesday, 16 May 2017 to the Premier. I have done this behind the Chair, but I will also do it on the record. I apologise for the delay in getting the further information. Ministers do, from time to time, raise issues in relation to potential conflicts of interest, and guidance as to the nature of the conflict of interest, be it real or perceived, and how best to handle that conflict, is provided. The Premier may direct that a minister withdraw from decisions in relation to a conflicted issue should it arise. Ministers may also declare conflicts and withdraw from cabinet discussions. If the member is aware of any specific issues that he believes may have created a perceived conflict of interest for a minister, the Premier will consider providing further information. ADDRESS-IN-REPLY Motion Resumed from an earlier stage of the sitting. The PRESIDENT: I again remind members that we are about to listen to the first speech of a new member, so I ask you to listen in silence.

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HON STEVE THOMAS (South West) [5.02 pm]: It was tough, but I am back! For honourable members who are unaware, I was the member for Capel in the Legislative Assembly of the thirty-seventh Parliament of Western Australia. The seat of Capel was constructed under a redistribution prior to the 2005 state election, and was then deconstructed immediately afterwards under Labor’s one vote, one value legislation, which was, coincidentally, the first piece of legislation that I got to debate in the thirty-seventh Parliament. The 2008 election in Collie–Preston was tough, as it was a notionally one per cent Labor seat. I will never forget receiving a phone call a week prior to the election telling me that, unfortunately, party polling had me three per cent behind and, sadly, I was not going to get there. As history shows, I lost Collie–Preston by 0.9 per cent, needing 206 of the 25 000 or so eligible potential voters to shift their preference from Labor to Liberal. But it is very hard to lose a seat. Today I express my sympathy to all those people from all those parties, and their staff, who lost their seat in the March election this year. It is a tough job. Afterwards, the public frequently treats you with some suspicion because you have nailed your political colours to the mast. Businesses may not want to offend their clients who politically lean the other way by employing you, and your former parliamentary colleagues will not infrequently treat you dismissively because you lost, even though they are sitting in safe seats or on unlosable upper house tickets; however, some will not. I will also never forget Hon Peter Collier coming to Donnybrook to open the upgrades to Donnybrook District High School, which was an election commitment of mine and also an election commitment of the Labor candidate, Mick Murray, at the 2008 election. I stood proudly on the stage with the honourable member—the then minister—and he might remember that I then presented him with a framed copy of the media story and photo of the two of us the year before, lobbying the then Labor government for those upgrades. I thank the member. It was a great lesson that, even after losing a seat, the benefits of what you have done for the community can carry on. In my first speech in the Legislative Assembly in 2005—a rather dour and uninteresting affair of which I am fairly embarrassed—I thanked a number of people. Sadly, after my stint in that place, some people thought I would support their attempts to form a new faction in the south west of Western Australia. When I would not do so—it is something I continue to oppose—I came to know them as a problem for the Liberal Party and the greater community of the south west. Today, it is not my intention to read out a list of names but to simply thank all those people—members of the Liberal Party in the south west and on the state council, and of the general south west community, including a large number of friends—who have supported me over the last eight and a half years. There are many and I hope to repay each and every one of them in proportion in the years to come. Madam President, with your permission, I would like to correct a terrible oversight in my first speech in 2005. I take this opportunity to finally thank my family—my wife, Leah, and my four daughters, Staci, Lauren, Hannah and Olivia—for their constant support of their always cynical, sometimes grumpy and frequently stubborn husband and father. Madam President, I salute your elevation to the high office to which you have been called, from this, I must say, highly appropriate, though at this point somewhat isolated, right wing of the Liberal Party. I now want to quote from Hansard my speech in the Legislative Assembly in May 2008, and I have a copy for Hansard, although it will be an abridged version because although I have not added or altered any words, I have removed some extraneous sentences from that original speech, which was two hours long. I quote — I will build a case to demonstrate to the house that Western Australia is missing out on what should be the greatest period of growth and development it has ever experienced. … As members can see, revenue between 2002 and 2006–07 exploded. … Around 2007 things suddenly changed. Growth in expenditure for the first time in well over a decade started to switch and outstrip the growth in revenue. … The first point I make is that Western Australia has experienced a boom that occurs once in a generation, and we are in the middle of the process of blowing that boom. Our revenue will level out. … Commonwealth government grants rose significantly in the decade leading up to 2006–07 and 2007–08. Those commonwealth grants are beginning to level off significantly. As I will explain later, one of the great threats to the Western Australian economy is that goods and services tax revenue will begin to decline, not only in real terms and in terms of the amount that Western Australia receives in proportion to its population and the size of its economy, but in overall actual dollar amounts. That will cause significant stress. …

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Although the community of Western Australia will receive less from the commonwealth government, the state government will continue to draw significant amounts in taxation. I will return to that point because it is important to recognise the way in which growth in the fiscal economy—that is, the expenditure of the government of Western Australia—will be funded by taxation revenue… … The third point … is that we can see that although mining royalties were relatively stable in the lead-up to the early 1990s, there was significant growth in the early 2000s. Mining royalties are also predicted to contract at the end of the forward estimates, largely due to the significant price increase in iron ore royalties, in both this and the previous year … … Western Australia’s production of iron ore will continue and that iron ore will continue to sell and make good dollars for the state’s economy and the gross state product. However, the government of Western Australia will not continue to enjoy additional gains in mining royalties. What problem does the state government face? Its income will start to stagnate. … it cannot make up for the reduction in goods and services tax revenue and commonwealth grants and the slowing of the boom growth in terms of mining royalties—not the mining sector, but mining royalties, which are completely related to price. … Those are the key points about the general growth of the economy—growth in taxation, a shrinking of commonwealth GST payments and a stagnation of the mining royalties that Western Australia will receive. That paints a very difficult picture for a number of reasons. First, if there is likely to be stagnation, there must be a response in expenditure. … Any small or large business person … knows that one of the first things that needs to be done when facing a revenue issue is to address expenditure. There are only two options—either address expenditure or start to move heavily into debt. Debt in Western Australia is an issue that I will return to later. … While the economy of Western Australia, which relates to the mining sector, domestic consumption and all those areas, will continue to do well, the fiscal economy, the economy of the state government, will struggle with declining revenues in relation to expenditure. … It will drive up debt levels, start to increase repayments and start to have an impact upon all sorts of levels and potentially threaten our AAA credit rating. … The decline of GST revenue is a significant problem … I think we need to look at some sort of renegotiation of the GST sharing arrangements between the state and the commonwealth. The Treasurer and I agree that maybe some other form of GST arrangement is required or, at the very least, the commonwealth needs to recognise that the drivers of the GST revenue that it receives is not the fiscal economy of the government of Western Australia, but the general economy as it relates to the mining boom in Western Australia. … If the commonwealth government wants to drive its revenues forward, it needs to look at the GST component and decide whether to change the way GST is calculated … There are two ways the commonwealth can increase its revenue; it can rejig the GST arrangement or it can invest in infrastructure. I thank you for that largesse, Madam President, and I have a copy for Hansard so they do not have to dig it out through the various parts of the speech. That speech came from the Hansard of the Legislative Assembly of May 2008, and it was mine as shadow Treasurer. I was not 100 per cent accurate in everything I said in that speech, but in lots of ways I was not too far away. How do we define the boom in Western Australia? I am sorry to do this to members, but I am going to do it in graph form. The fiscal boom of Western Australia, Madam President and honourable members, looks like this. It started way back in the late 1990s, when revenue and expenditure stayed fairly even, and effectively finished in 2014. There is a little bit when revenue failed to grow at the same rate, and members will be interested to know that that represents the global financial crisis of 2008. We can divide the boom in Western Australia into two distinct periods—that of the previous Labor government and that of the next Liberal government. That is the fiscal boom in Western Australia in graphic terms. I ask members to take note,

624 [COUNCIL — Thursday, 25 May 2017] particularly as we start to get to the end; at the end, Madam President, I am happy to table these documents for Hansard, and provide electronic copies. Honourable members, it is my intention to try to change the debate about the GST to one I believe to be far more economically literate, rather than simply being one of asking for more. When I move around Western Australia, the issue of the GST always comes up. Members are generally of the opinion that our revenue has stayed fairly steady, and then for some reason those people in Canberra who do not like us took away a great slab of it and our revenue has struggled ever since. Honourable members should note from the previous chart that total revenue did not flatten out until 2014 because of the growth in iron ore royalties and other taxes such as payroll taxes. Honourable members should take note that if they compare, in this case, mining royalties over that time and GST—it declines in comparison—and the combination of the two, in effect we hit a problem when GST really starts to fall in about 2014. Members might note that with a little boost in the price of iron ore, our royalties went up in the last year and things looked better; that will, unfortunately, in a couple of years result in the equivalent drop in the GST payments as we go down. Unfortunately, I admit that I got the boom wrong in the speech of 2008. I expected it to finish about 2008, and was confused by the global financial crisis. I did not expect it to travel on for another six years. What does the Commonwealth Grants Commission do? The Commonwealth Grants Commission assesses each state’s capacity to raise revenue. It then assesses a state’s capacity to provide services and the cost of that. It then attempts, perhaps with arguable and questionable results, to average this out to provide an even playing field. It has done so for some 60 years. Before 2000 the mechanism was the federal government grants. Since its introduction, the mechanism available to the Commonwealth Grants Commission is the GST distribution. This process has the unfortunate and rather complex name of horizontal fiscal equalisation. The question is whether such a process is a good thing. We need to be completely honest here. If we oppose horizontal fiscal equalisation outright, we are effectively saying that we oppose the sharing of any windfall in any state with the rest of Australia. We talk about GST per head of population. The GST is a consumption tax and it is very directly related to population, but when we say we want it per head of population, we are effectively saying that we want all our GST back and we are not going to share. A number of other proposals that are out there concern me greatly. The problem we have is that we cannot ask the commonwealth government to change the rules arbitrarily in our favour without having an impact on other states. It is like playing a football game and asking to get a special rule in our favour. I have heard suggestions that 25 per cent of royalties should be exempt. That sounds good because the numbers can be made to work, but at the end of that process what happens in Queensland when things get tough? Do 25 per cent of coal royalties get exempt at that point? What happens in South Australia? Do the royalties coming out of Olympic Dam suddenly become exempt? That is not going to work. That is not the worst suggestion. Unfortunately there was a suggestion during the election campaign, and held since, that the solution to this GST problem is to increase royalties; that is, increase the revenue raised by Western Australia. As we know and as we concede, the reason that Western Australia’s GST payments are so low is that our royalties income and other incomes—for example payroll tax, which, over the period of the boom, went from about $1 billion to $3.5 billion—are so high. A solution that simply increases revenue is like pouring petrol on a fire. In a policy sense this is the equivalent of a rural fire brigade pouring petrol instead of water on a fire. As our revenue goes up, our problem gets bigger, and the solution to that is never-ending. We are in a paradoxical situation. I ask honourable members to leave behind a proposal to boost revenue by taxing mining companies and, unfortunately, to leave behind the concept that we simply ask for more funding because it is very tough. How do we manage this process? Do we go to Canberra, like Oliver Twist, and say, “Please, sir, can I have some more?” Do we go to Canberra and throw ourselves on the floor, beat our fists, stamp our feet and scream like a child in a lolly shop and say, “We demand more”? I cannot imagine Sir Charles Court, that great statesman, doing either of those things when he opened up the North West Shelf. I believe Sir Charles Court went to Canberra with an economically legitimate argument and said, “In order to develop these resources, we need commonwealth investment in Western Australia. We need you to help us with infrastructure”, and he negotiated a deal whereby royalties that would have gone from the oil and gas industry to the commonwealth were sent to the state as a method of support. He did not change the rules or add taxes; he worked with the commonwealth constructively to get a better financial outcome. That is the kind of statesmanship and leadership that I ask honourable members to consider now. We can no longer afford to be bogged down in arguments that are not legitimate and are economically illiterate. We have to be smarter. I will add one more chart, just in case members have some concerns about the price of iron ore in the long term. The chart I am holding up shows the price of iron ore over 60 years. I did this research in conjunction with the federal Parliamentary Library. It is in 2006 dollars, so we have adjusted for inflation. The long-term iron ore price sat between just under $US20 and $US40 a tonne up until the early 2000s, when it boomed. Just in case members do not trust my calculations, Citi Investment Research, an analysis company, went all the way back to 1900 and did the same thing. Iron ore royalties only struck that level again in the 2000s. Again, I was a little

[COUNCIL — Thursday, 25 May 2017] 625 wrong. I called this a once-in-a-generation boom but it was not a once-in-a-generation boom. I thought my chart showing the iron ore price over 70 years was of a once-in-a-lifetime boom. It was not a once-in-a-lifetime boom because it goes over 100 years. This may well be a once-in-a-millennium boom. We are coming to the end of it, so we need to have literate economic arguments to make this work. I would like to raise one other issue stemming from the 2008 election. During that campaign, I had a very good struggle with Hon Mick Murray, the member for Collie–Preston. He and I went toe to toe. I pass on my deepest respects to him and his wife, Anna, who is much nicer than he is; no-one is divided on that. An issue arose during that campaign. My family and I had sold a house and were in the process of building a second one. For a few months, we sought a rental just to keep a roof over our heads. We rented what we called “the rat house”, which was a house on the edge of a mineral sands mine, and which was owned by the mine. This house brought my wife to tears almost daily. Unfortunately, it was my decision to take it and I lived with that guilt while we were there. The rainwater tank had rusted and the gutters did not work. We went to Perth for the weekend. When we got back, every bed was filled with rat manure. It was a very difficult place to live but, unfortunately, it was where we lived for a few short months. My wife and children literally spent every day in tears. We rented it from a mineral sands company. During that election campaign someone in the Labor Party decided that that was inappropriate. Using an ex-staffer from Geoff Gallop’s office, a story ran in the newspaper that we were receiving some sort of special deal by living in this house. The next day, journalists rang and every time I explained to them that we paid the same rent as the people before us and the same rent as the people who would move in after us. Any journalist was welcome to come out and take a photo of it because they would be amazed at what they saw. Each of those journalists went away and said, “That is fine.” The person who rented this house afterwards confirmed all those issues. Hon Mick Murray, the Labor candidate at the time, did not make use of that story; he did not attack. In fact, when asked for comment, he left it well alone. I thank him for that. I hope he did so out of a sense of fairness and justice. I would like to think that he did. Unfortunately, my political opponents had to find somebody who was willing to throw mud about the places in which somebody lived and the circumstances of their family. In my view, they had to find somebody with the lack of moral character and zero moral worth who would sink to those levels, and they did. They found the member for Rockingham, the current Premier of the state of Western Australia. My final comment is that it is business but it is personal. I dedicate my time in this house, in the Parliament of Western Australia, whatever length of time that will be, to his removal, and I intend to see it done. The PRESIDENT: Members, before we move on, I acknowledge the speech just made by Hon Steve Thomas, and I appreciate that he is new to this chamber, but I want to pick up on some of the final comments that the member made. When we are in this chamber, in accordance with standing order 45, all imputations of improper motives and all personal reflections on members shall be considered highly disorderly. We also do not make comments about members in the other place. I thought I would note that for the member for future reference. In relation to the charts that the member referred to, perhaps the member would want to seek leave to table the charts for the remainder of the sitting, and provide A4 versions of these charts as the true copies for the tabled papers. Hon STEVE THOMAS: Thank you for your guidance, Madam President, and for your tolerance. I seek leave to do exactly that. Leave granted. [The papers were tabled for the information of members.] [Applause.] Debate adjourned, on motion by Hon Ken Baston. MINISTER FOR REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT — MEDIA STATEMENTS Statement HON NICK GOIRAN (South Metropolitan) [5.25 pm]: Earlier today, during non-government business, I moved a motion on palliative care, and I mentioned to members at that time that it is important for us to find areas of commonality. We had a very good and constructive debate on that motion, and I thank members for their contribution to that debate. Another area in which there ought to be commonality between members is respect for the institution that is the Legislative Council. Indeed, that would be consistent with the concluding remarks of the former President of the Legislative Council, Hon Barry House, to the house last week that the Legislative Council ought to be considered as an institution and we ought to ensure that we respect it. I want to draw to members’ attention to a series of unfortunate events that occurred this week. I start with Tuesday, 23 May, when the Minister for Regional Development, who unfortunately is away on urgent parliamentary business, improperly failed to table documents that I had requested. When that happened, it immediately caused some suspicion. I thought: why would the Minister for Regional Development not table documents that I had requested? Be that as it may; this has been a very busy week and we have all had a lot of

626 [COUNCIL — Thursday, 25 May 2017] important business to undertake. I am indebted to the hardworking Hon Jim Chown, who the following day, on Wednesday, 24 May, pursued the matter a little further. The result of that pursuit by Hon Jim Chown was that the Minister for Regional Development proceeded to table the documents that I had requested the previous day. Those documents were 12 media statements that have been issued by the minister from the time of her appointment as a minister. I now have a copy of those 12 media statements. Having been a bit suspicious the previous day about why the Minister for Regional Development would be so shifty and not wish to table the documents that I had requested, I have taken the opportunity to review these documents. It is very interesting that last week, the Leader of the House, when responding to a question in her capacity as minister representing the Premier, indicated that ministers would be taking responsibility for the content of their media statements. Indeed, I was very pleased on Tuesday this week when the Minister for Regional Development, in response to a question that I asked about taking responsibility for the content of her media statements, said that she would take responsibility. However, after scrutinising those media statements, we find, disturbingly, that in 11 of the 12 media statements tabled by the Minister for Regional Development, the minister purports, falsely, to be a member of the Legislative Council. Admittedly, that is 11 breaches; it is not quite at the Scaffidi level of 45 breaches. However, to get it that wrong in 11 out of 12 media statements is a pretty poor start by the Minister for Regional Development. Interestingly, the Leader of the House, in her response to my question earlier today, said — However, to assist the honourable member I can confirm that the use of “MLC” was an administrative error, misused due to internal Department of the Premier and Cabinet template. That is the level of ministerial responsibility displayed at this early stage—somebody fobbing it off as an administrative error, and no apology to the house. Nevertheless, no member, including the Leader of the House, should consider this to be some kind of trivial matter and, as indicated by the Leader of the House, an administrative error, misused due to the internal Department of the Premier and Cabinet templates. I note that the government webpage for Hon Alannah MacTiernan, as far back as 8 April this year, well before the member was sworn into this place on 22 May, indicated that the member was a member of the Legislative Council, once again misusing the postnominal MLC. I suspect that the Leader of the House will once again tell us that this is an administrative matter, handled by somebody else, and we cannot blame Hon Alannah MacTiernan for this. I now turn to the Facebook page for Hon Alannah MacTiernan. Interestingly, what did I find as far back as 8 April this year, well before she was sworn in as a member of this place? I found this person indicating that she was a member for the North Metropolitan Region. On this occasion, neither the minister nor the Leader of the House can possibly suggest this is an administrative error done by somebody else other than the minister, because right at the bottom of the page it says, “Authorised by A. MacTiernan, 953a Beaufort Street, Inglewood, WA, 6051”. There are only 36 members of this chamber. There are not 36 plus however many Hon Alannah MacTiernan wants to add. There are only six members for the North Metropolitan Region. On 8 April this year, there were still only six members for the North Metropolitan Region, and she was not one of them. I consider this to be quite a serious matter. This institution, the Legislative Council, is not some kind of social club to which we can add a few members from time to time: “You’re going to be the member for North Metropolitan today; I think I’ll just claim it on my Facebook page, because really what I’m interested in is a bit more publicity and it sounds very good.” This is a serious matter. I hope that the Leader of the House, who has responsibility for her team in this place will ensure — Hon Sue Ellery: I’m jealous; you’ve shifted your affections and I’m jealous. Hon NICK GOIRAN: Do not worry, I am getting to the Leader of the House; there is no chance of me forgetting her. I hope that the Leader of the House will ensure that this is properly dealt with, because I remind members, and the enthusiastic Leader of the House, of section 87 of the Criminal Code, which makes it an offence to impersonate a public officer. A member of the Legislative Council is a public officer, so this is a serious matter. I hope that the Leader of the House will not see this as a trivial matter. We cannot have this institution tarnished by people simply treating it like a social club. I hope that there is a way forward here, because it is after all only the first week for the Minister for Regional Development in this place. Taking the lead from Hon Ed Dermer, one of the excellent things I learned from him in his time in the chamber was that we should try to take a charitable interpretation of things. I choose to take a charitable interpretation of this. I am going to assume that this is incompetence and not wilful intent, and I hope that, during the non-sitting period over the next fortnight, the minister will reflect on this, and the Leader of the House will take her responsibility as leader of her team to ensure that this institution is properly respected. I trust that when we return here in June the minister will rise from her chair and deliver a ministerial statement and apologise to the house for this. Also, I trust that she will confirm that there will be no further infractions.

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ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS — 1967 REFERENDUM — FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY Statement HON DARREN WEST (Agricultural — Parliamentary Secretary) [5.35 pm]: I will speak very briefly, because I know members want to get going, but I think it is important to acknowledge that this Saturday marks the fiftieth anniversary of the referendum for Aboriginal people. I want to give a short version of what transpired on 27 May 1967, as outlined by the National Archives of Australia — On 27 May 1967 a Federal referendum was held. The first question, referred to as the ‘nexus question’ was an attempt to alter the balance of numbers in the Senate and the House of Representatives. The second question was to determine whether two references in the Australian Constitution, which discriminated against Aboriginal people, should be removed … The sections of the Constitution under scrutiny were: 51. The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to:- …(xxvi) The people of any race, other than the aboriginal people in any State, for whom it is necessary to make special laws. 127. In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives should not be counted. The removal of the words ‘... other than the aboriginal people in any State...’ in section 51(xxvi) and the whole of section 127 were considered by many to be representative of the prevailing movement for political change within Indigenous affairs. As a result of the political climate, this referendum saw the highest YES vote ever recorded in a Federal referendum, with 90.77 per cent voting for change. It is interesting to note that because the majority of parliamentarians supported the proposed amendment, a NO case was never formulated for presentation as part of the referendum campaign. … The Constitution was changed, giving formal effect to the referendum result, by the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginals) 1967 (Act No 55 of 1967), which received assent on 10 August 1967. For Aboriginal people all across Australia, this was a momentous day. Although we still have much to do in the areas of reconciliation with Aboriginal people and the conditions for Aboriginal people in Australia, this was a big step forward and I hope we can take many more in the future. House adjourned at 5.37 pm ______