Parliamentary Debates (HANSARD)

THIRTY-EIGHTH PARLIAMENT FIRST SESSION 2012

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

Wednesday, 7 November 2012

Legislative Assembly

Wednesday, 7 November 2012

THE SPEAKER (Mr G.A. Woodhams) took the chair at 12 noon, and read prayers. BELMONT WATERSKI AREA Petition MS L.L. BAKER (Maylands) [12.01 pm]: I have a petition that reads as follows — To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of Western Australia in Parliament assembled. We, the undersigned, condemn the Barnett Government for proposing to retain and extend the Belmont Ski Area on the grounds that it threatens the safety of river users, creates confusion amongst river users now that a 5 knot speed limits applies at the Windan Bridge, reduces the Maylands Yacht Club’s racing area by 200 metres and disturbs the special bird breeding area at Berringa Reserve. Now we ask the Legislative Assembly to ensure that the Barnett Government honours its promise to implement a new plan and management framework for the Riverpark in time for the 2012–13 boating season and, as part of this, closes the Belmont Ski Area. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that you will give this matter earnest consideration and your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. The petition bears 115 signatures and I certify that it conforms to the standing orders of the Legislative Assembly. [See petition 669.] METROPOLITAN RAIL NETWORK — THORNLIE LINE EXTENSION Petition MR C.J. TALLENTIRE (Gosnells) [12.02 pm]: My first petition concerns an extension to the Thornlie train line and reads as follows — To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of Western Australia in Parliament assembled. We, the undersigned, say • Traffic congestion on our local roads is becoming intolerable; • Good public transport and particularly safe, reliable and inexpensive train services will make the most difference; • The Barnett Government’s Public Transport Plan does not consider extending the Thornlie Line until after the year 2031, which is far too late; Now we ask that the Legislative Assembly call upon the Barnett Government to embrace the extension of the Thornlie Line and fund urgent planning work without delay. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that you will give this matter earnest consideration and your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. The petition has been signed by 22 petitioners and it has been certified as conforming to the standing orders of the house. [See petition 670.] CONTAINER DEPOSIT SCHEME Petition MR C.J. TALLENTIRE (Gosnells) [12.03 pm]: I have a further petition concerning the introduction of a container deposit scheme; it reads — To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of Western Australia in Parliament assembled. We, the undersigned, say it is time to address the number of beverage containers recycled in Western Australia and assist in improving the ongoing litter problem we have in our state.

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Discussion about the introduction of such a scheme for Western Australia has been ongoing for too long and it is now time the Government took action. Now we ask that the Legislative Assembly call upon the Barnett Government to immediately introduce a Western Australian Container Deposit Scheme, similar to the system that operates in South Australia. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that you will give this matter earnest consideration and your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. The petition has been certified as conforming to the standing orders of the house and it has been signed by 35 constituents. [See petition 671.] COST-OF-LIVING INCREASES Petition MR C.J. TALLENTIRE (Gosnells) [12.04 pm]: I have one further petition concerning the rising fees and charges people face; it reads — To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of Western Australia in Parliament assembled. We, the undersigned, say 1 The State Government’s recent increases in fees and charges to householders are disproportionate and unfair. 2 Many people are struggling to get by and these increased charges are causing unnecessary hardship. Now we ask the Legislative Assembly 3 To voice the case of householders aggrieved by these increases in fees and charges. 4 To give relief for WA householders trying to balance the household budget. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that you will give this matter earnest consideration and your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. The petition has been certified as conforming to the standing orders of the house and it contains 28 signatures. [See petition 672.] PAPERS TABLED Papers were tabled and ordered to lie upon the table of the house. STATE AGREEMENTS LEGISLATION REPEAL BILL 2012 Notice of Motion to Introduce Notice of motion given by Dr K.D. Hames (Leader of the House) on behalf of the Mr C.J. Barnett (Minister for State Development). BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE — PRIVATE MEMBERS’ BUSINESS, GRIEVANCES, ALL STAGES OF BILLS, AND COUNCIL MESSAGES Standing Orders Suspension — Motion The SPEAKER: Now to business of the Assembly, notices of motion. Leader of the House, I think you have a motion regarding the suspension of standing orders. DR K.D. HAMES (Dawesville — Leader of the House) [12.07 pm]: Yes, I do, Mr Speaker, thank you. I was looking around for the aforementioned brief ministerial “statementer”, if such a word existed, which it does not! I move — That so much of standing orders be suspended as is necessary — (a) to give private members’ business priority on Wednesday, 7 November 2012, between 4:30 pm and 6.00 pm; and for the remainder of this session unless otherwise ordered — (b) to suspend grievances; (c) to enable bills to be introduced without notice and to proceed through all stages on any day; and

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(d) to enable messages from the Legislative Council to be taken into consideration on the day they are received. This is a standard process. Usually at this stage of sittings, variations are made to what normally happens with private members’ business. We have reached agreement for this week that one and a half hours will be allocated. We will have further discussions about next week and move an alternative motion then, but the remainder of the motion, which is for both sessions, is a standard procedural motion that is always moved in the lead-up to the end of the yearly sitting and, in fact, particularly, to the end of a government sitting. The SPEAKER: Members, given that the suspension of standing orders has been provided to us, it does not need an absolute majority to succeed. Therefore, I put the question that the motion moved by the Leader of the House be agreed to. Question put and passed. SCHOOL EDUCATION AMENDMENT BILL 2012 Second Reading Resumed from 17 October. MR P. PAPALIA (Warnbro) [12.09 pm]: I am the lead speaker for the opposition on the School Education Amendment Bill 2012, and at the outset I indicate to the minister representing the Minister for Education that the opposition will support the bill, and that we endorse the objective of including in the compulsory years of education an additional year of preprimary schooling, so that in effect this state will have 13 years of compulsory education. I also indicate to the minister that there will be a number of speakers on this bill, because obviously education is vitally important, and a number of members on this side wish to contribute to this debate. I understand that the member for Alfred Cove may wish to contribute as well. I also indicate to the minister that I would like to go into consideration in detail on this bill, not because we are in any way objecting to the bill, but in order to elicit some information, and I will be giving the minister an indication of the sort of information that I am hoping to garner from the advisers that the minister will have with him in the chamber. I will say at the outset that there is a line in the second reading speech that indicates where I intend to go in this debate. That is the statement that the intention to extend compulsory education by an additional year was announced by the Premier on 8 December last year. What was also announced on 8 December last year was the shift of year 7 students into high school. The point I want to make is that there was very little consultation about that announcement. There was also no transparency with regard to the planning for that move. Subsequently, there has been very little advice to the house or to the public of Western Australia on how well prepared, or otherwise, the Department of Education is for accepting year 7s into high school in 2015. Therefore, I am interested to find out how much additional planning been put in place to prepare for this move to an additional year of compulsory education—which will come in advance of the move of year 7s to high school, because it will occur next year—and how much resourcing has been allocated to it. We know that for the move of year 7s to high school, the resourcing is completely inadequate. We know that the funding for high schools to accept year 7s has been given to only 29, or about one-third, of the high schools around the state. We know that there is a great deal of consternation in the community about the move to constrain the schools that did not receive funding by requiring them to take in only students in their local catchment area. That undermines a number of specialist programs that have been built up over the years by dedicated community, family and teacher groups in those schools. We know that there has been very little, if any, transparency about what workforce planning has been done to prepare for that significant shift of year 7s to high school in 2015. So I will be interested to know from the minister’s advisers what the consequences of this amending bill will be, because it will be enacted in a much closer time frame—that is, next year. I will also be interested to know whether there has been adequate workforce planning and adequate resourcing, and whether any modelling has been done to determine whether the education department is prepared for this move. As we go through the second reading speech, we are alerted to the fact that the Australian curriculum will come into force next year. That is part of the reason that it is proposed to make the preprimary year part of the compulsory years of education, because that is the age at which the Australian curriculum will become applicable. But there are questions about how well prepared the Department of Education is for the introduction of that curriculum. The Barnett government has slashed the education budget. In 2009, it cut the education budget by $41 million. In the May budget, it cut the education budget by another $30 million. The Treasurer recently—in September— slashed another $6 million from the education budget. We know that that $6 million cut—that final straw on the camel’s back—has had a significant impact on the professional development of teachers. It has had a significant impact on the ability of particularly regional and country teachers to travel to the city for professional development training. It has also imposed restrictions on the ability of central office staff responsible for

[ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] 8057 preparing the state for the national curriculum to travel around the state. So I am interested to find out whether those cuts have had an impact on the preparation for this move. The government has not been at all forthcoming with information about those cuts and the impact of those cuts. The government continues to claim that the cuts are not hurting front-line services. But we know that they are. We know that there are significant impacts now on front-line services in education in Western Australia as a result of the harsh budget cuts made by the Barnett government in recent times; and the most recent cut is having the greatest impact. We also know, because the Treasurer has told us, that the cuts are having an impact on the ability of the education department to recruit people. So it will be interesting to learn whether a proper workforce plan has been developed to support the move proposed in this legislation, and also to know whether the departure of people from the current workforce will impact on the ability of the education department to enact that plan and provide the services that are proposed. Another area that I am interested in, and that I would certainly like to investigate during consideration in detail, is the planning and preparation for the challenge of improving education services for Indigenous children in regional and remote communities. Indigenous students are still significantly behind non-Indigenous students, particularly in literacy, but also numeracy. I will ask the minister’s advisers a question about this matter, and I hope that the advisers that the minister has here will be capable of answering this question, because it goes to the heart of a significant statement in the second reading speech. That statement is that messages are being developed specifically for parents of children with special needs, and parents of children from diverse backgrounds, including Aboriginal families. I do not know what that means. I do not know what the messages are. I want to know what they are. I also want some more information about some of the claims made by the government this year. I understand that the federal government gave the state a significant amount of reward money for improvement in literacy rates for, I believe, Indigenous students in years 5 and 7. I will be interested to know what that $27 million, I think it was, of reward money was given for, what was successful, and where it was successful. I am also interested to know exactly what our system is for analysing that success, and for conveying the message about what we did right to the entire system, because that will go to the heart of whether this will be successful. We will not be successful in communicating with the Indigenous families of Western Australia and getting them to get their preprimary kids into school if we cannot tell our own system what we have done right in Indigenous literacy improvement that resulted in this state getting a $27 million reward. I have to say, as a forewarning for the minister’s advisers, that I go around the schools and I talk to principals, and I talk to representative organisations of teachers and principals, and no-one has been able to tell me what we did right to get that money. I am concerned that we do not have a systematic response to good things, let alone the bad things. I am also concerned about the superficiality, perhaps, of the process that results in that reward money being given. I say that because it does not take too much delving into the results from our National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy testing to raise quite a few questions about Indigenous literacy levels in this state. For instance, the Centre for Independent Studies has put out a media release saying that Western Australia is second only to Queensland in improving Indigenous education. That is, I understand, why we were given that reward money. But it does not really highlight some of the negatives. Those negatives are pretty significant. One negative that I think will be very important to the effectiveness of this move to make preprimary compulsory is the statement in the Centre for Independent Studies’ 2012 report on Indigenous education that Western Australia has a large absentee problem and seems to have great difficulty retaining Indigenous students to year 9. But, also, we have the lowest participation rates in NAPLAN testing in the country. I understand that the reward money that we receive is given for NAPLAN results; I assume that NAPLAN is a component of that literacy analysis. I wonder whether our outcomes are because we are getting better or because fewer Indigenous kids are sitting the test. We know that the number of students whose whereabouts are unknown to the Western Australian education system has tripled over the course of the Barnett government. It has gone from 400 under the previous WA Labor government to well over 1 200 this year; it was 1 500 last year. There has been an outrageous increase in the number of students whose whereabouts is unknown. There is no effort to tackle truancy. There is no effort to bring a complete, whole-of-government response to find out where these students are and why they are not in school and to develop some sort of response. Sending coppers to the local shopping centre in between responding to burglaries and violent assaults is not a response to truancy. It is a ridiculous, absolutely pointless and superficial response that was intended to achieve nothing other than a front page in the local newspapers, which it achieved on the day that it was announced. There were a couple of follow- ups and the odd reference to it by the Director General of Education and the Commissioner of Police every now and again when they are asked about it—but that is not a response. That sort of ridiculous, superficial response will not get these children into preprimary. These are the sorts of things I want to know. When the people of Western Australia are told, as they were in the second reading speech, that messages will be developed specifically for parents of Aboriginal families, I want to know what the government is talking about. I want to know that it is not silly, fluffy rabbit commercials that cost

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$240 000, which could have been spent more effectively on doing something about education, rather than advertising on television during the Olympic Games when advertising is really expensive to tell us that public education is a good thing. I want to know that it is more than that. I want to know that we will get something that is real and backed by bodies on the ground to do the job of going out to these Aboriginal families, particularly in remote communities, particularly in damaged communities where there is a serious issue that needs to be tackled from the very beginning through education, using education as the tool for identifying and isolating the problem and developing a response, and bringing all agencies of government to bear in breaking down some of the siloing that bedevils the response to this challenge. I want to hear about that. That should be part of the planning for this legislation. Yes, this is only a small bill and a small amendment, but it is a significant change. There should be resources, planning and a comprehensive response attached to this move. I am disturbed by the second last paragraph of the second reading speech, which reads — It is anticipated that the implementation of the compulsory preprimary year of school education in 2013 will not incur an additional cost to government. When I was in the military working with the Army, the special forces guys used a term that is used right throughout the Army, not just in special forces. They referred to “situating the appreciation”. They had a process for determining a way ahead and developing a plan. It is a very structured, good process that enables anyone from the most junior ranks up to generals to develop a comprehensive plan and to avoid overlooking significant points. They call that an “appreciation”. They start by analysing the situation comprehensively—your side, the enemy’s, geography; all sorts of different factors—and they work through the appreciation and, as a consequence of working through the structured process, they come to a conclusion. They used to say is that if you situate the appreciation, you decide what conclusion you want, and then you go in front. You lift that right over the top and put that in front of the situation part of the appreciation and say, “This is what we will find; therefore, we have to change our situation to reflect our conclusion.” The second last paragraph in the second reading speech states — It is anticipated that the implementation of the compulsory preprimary year of school education in 2013 will not incur an additional cost to government. I fear that this is an example of the Barnett government situating the appreciation. The Barnett government is saying, “We have blown the budget. We have destroyed the state’s debt situation.” This government has gone from debt of $3.6 billion when we handed over from the excellent management by the member for Belmont as the Treasurer of the state during those two terms of the Labor government. The Barnett government has blown debt out to over $18 billion now. It is on its way. It is soaring northwards—that phrase that the Treasurer likes to use, “north of $1 billion”—and this is north of about $20 billion, it is north of $22 billion. It is on its way. It has destroyed the budget; therefore, the government has no money to spend on important things such as education. It is too busy spending it on Elizabeth Quay. It is too busy destroying the traffic flow along the foreshore of the Esplanade and annoying everyone in the western suburbs. It is too busy building the “Emperor’s Palace”. It is too busy building monuments to the ego of Premier Barnett in the centre of the city to worry about funding essential processes such as educating the children around this state. That is a stark example of where the government’s priorities lie. Look at where the government is spending money, and then look at what it says. This legislation is not as big a change as moving year 7s to high school in 2015, but it is a pretty significant move. We will make preprimary schooling compulsory. We will make compulsory education 13 years rather than 12 years. A whole cohort of children will be caught up in this. A whole generation will either benefit or suffer as a consequence of our preparation or lack thereof. When I say “our”, I am being very generous—it is actually the Barnett government’s preparation or lack thereof. I am interested to see during a short consideration in detail stage what preparation has been made and whether the Barnett government is getting its solution, stating that it will not cost anything, and then working through and making everything comply. That is the method employed for managing the budget elsewhere. The government states that it will not grow the workforce and will achieve a certain efficiency dividend, which is just a cut. It will cut the budget but it will not impact on front-line services. We have seen it in policing, we know about it in education, although the government is refusing to acknowledge it, and we know about it in health and other services that have already taken the cuts in 2009. In 2009, the education department said that it cannot cut any more. It was supposed to make cuts of $71 million. It said it had only made cuts of $41 million but it could not make the rest. It was cut some slack. The government acknowledged that it could not make those sorts of cuts in education and continue to provide a standard of front-line services that the people of Western Australia expect. How are we to believe that now in 2012, after education made those $41 million of cuts in 2009, it is all okay? We could not make any more cuts in 2009, but now we can make cuts of an additional $36 million and it will not impact front-line services, it will not impact professional development of teachers, safety standards in high school, essential travel required for preparing the schools for the Australian curriculum next year, and our

[ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] 8059 planning for the biggest change to education probably in the last decade in the shift of year 7s to high school. It will not impact any of those things. We are expected to believe that view, but we are not given any evidence to support that argument. I will ask for that information. Those are the areas of interest. Those are the reasons I would like to go to the consideration in detail stage. It is not because we do not support this bill; we do. It is a good move, but I want to know more and I believe other members on this side of the house will have other questions to ask about education that their constituents have raised with them. This is an opportunity for them to air their concerns and the concerns of their constituents. The implementation of this move will cost the Department of Education time, effort and resources, and we have to wonder what impacts it will have elsewhere, because there is no extra money coming in for it. Those are the things I will be very interested to talk to the advisers about. With that, I will sit and allow some of our other speakers to make their contributions, because I think there are quite a few. DR A.D. BUTI (Armadale) [12.30 pm]: I rise to contribute to the second reading debate on the School Education Amendment Bill 2012. As mentioned by the member for Warnbro—the opposition’s lead speaker in this debate—it is in many respects a very simple bill that seeks to make preprimary schooling compulsory in Western Australia. Most preprimary-aged children are already in school, so in some respects there may not be a significant increase in numbers, but there will of course be some changes in numbers. I will be interested to find out from the government what arrangements there are for children in alternative education such as Montessori and Steiner, whose parents may not wish them to start school at preprimary level. We have received indications that the minister is prepared to consider requests from parents who send their children to Montessori and other alternative education schools to have their children’s entry to school delayed. We will be interested to hear from the government about that. There will always be debate about when children should start school, and for a number of years the trend has been to start at an earlier age. In 2001, the school entry age was raised by six months, which meant that most children were older when they started school, so in many respects it makes sense for us to have a legislative mechanism in place to make preprimary schooling compulsory. That, of course, has raised issues at the other end of primary schooling, and the government has indicated that it will make year 7 at high school compulsory from 2014, I think. Mr P. Papalia: It is 2015. Dr A.D. BUTI: There will be some leeway in country areas. The government’s way of operating is to introduce legislation, which of course is what governments do in Parliament, to change things. But this government seems to have the mindset that legislation on its own will solve all problems or be the solution to pressing political issues, and never more so than in the area of law and order. I will be interested to know what resources will be attached to the changes proposed in this legislation. As I said, there may not be an enormous need for an increase in resources because many children are already in the preprimary education system, but it would be interesting to know what the percentage increase of children going into the preprimary system will be as a result of the compulsory element of this bill. Resource allocation becomes very, very important. I have been incredibly disappointed by the government’s lack of resource allocation to education in general. In my electorate a number of schools have pressing issues that require extra specialist staffing, and it is my understanding that very little extra money has been put into education, especially in the more needy areas of society where there perhaps needs to be a greater involvement of specialists to cater for potential problems at the home environment level. Increasing preprimary resources is also important—not just because there will be more students attending preprimary, but because it is a fundamentally important area of the education cycle. Recently I was speaking to the principal of one of the schools in my electorate and I said, “Look, if you were made education minister, what would be your number one priority?” Without hesitation he said early childhood education. The government has gone missing on the issue of early childhood education. It would have been great if, in conjunction with this relatively simple bill that will make preprimary schooling compulsory, we had a complementary bill for early childhood education. It is often too late by the time a child gets to school at the age of five or six; there is a need for early intervention, and for that early intervention to work we need to pump significant additional resources into the education system. We also have to educate many of the parents. As some members of this house will be aware a school in the Armadale electorate, Challis Primary School, has a fantastic early childhood program that was initiated by the principal. She basically had to work outside the Department of Education in many respects to make significant gains. She has involved the parents in the education of their children and also educated them to be good parents. If a child starts school at four years of age and is unable to read, write, count or even hold a basic conversation, and there has been major trauma at home, teachers have a very difficult time making any significant change. As this principal was telling me, the area of early childhood education is where governments need to focus a

8060 [ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] considerable amount of resources in the education budget. Yes, there is logic in making preprimary schooling compulsory, particularly since the school age was changed in 2001, resulting in most kids starting school six months later than before; but we have to go beyond that and look at how we are going to increase the allocation of resources to the area of early childhood education. The member for Warnbro made reference to the issue of the education of Indigenous children. I will be interested to know what policies, strategies and resources the government has put in place to ensure Indigenous children and other groups in society with a generally bad track record in school attendance comply with the legal requirement of compulsory preprimary schooling. It is no good making preprimary education compulsory if we do not have any strategies in place to ensure that people who have historically had trouble attending school on a regular basis will conform with the legislation. What strategies does the government have in place to ensure Indigenous children and other groups with a poor record in school attendance will comply with the legal requirement to attend preprimary? I will be interested to hear the government’s response to that. I was shocked also to find out how long it takes for the Department for Child Protection to intervene if children do not attend school. My understanding—please correct me if I am wrong, minister—is that the child has to be absent for a considerable amount of time before the Department for Child Protection will become involved. Of course we want to learn from history; we do not want governments to intervene and take children away from their families if that can be avoided. I am not arguing that kids should be taken away from their families; I am arguing that the Department for Child Protection and other agencies need to intervene when children do not attend school. A child can be away from school for two days in a fortnight, or even two days in a week I think, without the Department for Child Protection intervening. I may not have that completely correct; it might be two days in a fortnight. But even two days away in a fortnight over a year or two, or even three or four, is a considerable amount of time for a child to be away from school. As we know, there is a direct link between absence from school and antisocial behaviour, criminal activity, possibly bullying and other negative developmental factors that affect a child’s ability to grow up and make a significant contribution to society. Governments and oppositions have to change their mindset about education. The Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, Robert Reich, who is an economist and now an academic at the University of California at Berkeley, wrote a brilliant book that I read a few years ago, the title of which escapes me at the moment. Ms M.M. Quirk: Locked in the Cabinet. Dr A.D. BUTI: That is it—Locked in the Cabinet. Thank you, member for Girrawheen. It is an excellent book. He referred to the need to change our mindset when we look at the budgetary calculation for education. He was quite radical in his view. He argued that education needs to be taken out of the budgetary process because it should be seen not as an expense per se but as an investment that will be recouped later. By investing a dollar, the nation will become wealthier by $3, for instance. But because we are stuck in this mindset of education being seen just as an expense not an investment, the ability of government in the political process to invest in education is severely limited. It is well known that the more educated a society is, the more productive it becomes, the greater its economic progress, the better the health outcomes, the better the community cohesion et cetera. Although Robert Reich made a radical proposal, he is not a radical economist in any respect; he is a Rhodes scholar who had a senior portfolio during the eight years of the Clinton administration in a period when even the Republicans would agree the economy was well run. Hopefully, in a few hours, there will be another four years of Democratic rule. Mr P. Papalia: He’s won. Dr A.D. BUTI: He has won? I believe that President Obama has been re-elected. That is fantastic news. Robert Reich, who was well respected by both sides of the aisle in Washington and is now a leading academic and commentator in America, has stated that we need to look at the budget allocation of resources for education in a different manner from that which we have previously. We are hamstrung if we look at it as purely an accounting expense rather than an investment. If the government also made announcements when it introduced this bill about significant resource allocations for early childhood education, it would have gone a long way to improving the future economic benefits to society. Rather than worrying about introducing a future fund, which has very limited benefit in the current and future economic cycle, greater expenditure should be put into education. I am sure that no member of the government or the opposition would disagree that we should be putting more money into education, but because of the need to balance resources and so forth, decisions are made. Mr P. Papalia: To build palaces and foreshores. Dr A.D. BUTI: That is right. It is an issue of priorities. As the member for Warnbro mentioned, one wonders what wealth will be generated and what future benefit there will be for Western Australian society from Elizabeth Quay vis-a-vis increasing the resource allocation to preprimary education. That is a question that can be answered only one way.

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Mr P. Papalia: There’s $440 million or whatever for Elizabeth Quay, but $36 million is being cut out of the education budget. Dr A.D. BUTI: Yes; it makes no sense whatsoever. I urge the government to rethink its priorities. It has many priorities wrong. One of the major priorities it has wrong is not elevating the need to have a properly funded education system. Many, many children are leaving the government education system for the private education system. I think they are. Dr M.D. Nahan: It’s actually levelled off for the first time in 15 years. Mr P. Papalia: Rubbish! Absolute rot! The SPEAKER: Members! Dr A.D. BUTI: The trend has been — Mr P. Papalia interjected. The SPEAKER: Member for Armadale, you have the call in this debate and I do not want anybody from either side interjecting on you. Dr A.D. BUTI: Thank you for your protection, Mr Speaker. Whatever the actual figures, there is no doubt that the trend has been movement away from the government system to the private system. We always will and should have the ability to choose the system we want, but if there has been that movement over a period of years, one has to be concerned about the resource allocation in the public education system. Mr P. Papalia: There are 470 fewer year 8 enrolments this year than there were 10 years ago. In that time, the population of the state has grown by 25 per cent. So anyone suggesting that somehow there has been a plateauing of enrolments is completely engaged in spin and nothing else. [Member’s time extended.] Dr A.D. BUTI: In addition, there is a need for greater emphasis on, and a greater resource allocation to be granted to, early childhood education. While I am on my feet, I recognise the great work done in policy development in this area by Hon Linda Savage from the other house. She has produced substantial work in this area. I think it is very important for that issue to be looked at. The experts are telling us that early childhood education is fundamental to the future success of a child and the future success of the education system, because if we get that right, there will be less dysfunctional behaviour as we move up the chain of the education system and therefore maybe we will not need to allocate as many resources to try to correct that dysfunctional behaviour at the upper primary school and high school levels. As we know, year 7 children are moving from primary school to high school. There are two main reasons that the government has made that decision. The first is the national curriculum. The way that the science curriculum is designed makes it very hard for it to be complied with in the current primary school science curriculum in Western Australia. That was one reason the government had to agree to year 7 students going to high school. The other reason was that private schools had decided that year 7 students would be in high school. Over the past few years many children left state schools at year 6 and went into private high schools in year 7, so the government had to look at that. The jury is still out on whether year 7 students should be in high school. But, as a couple of teachers have told me, with that change in 2001 in which children start on average six months later, many children in year 7 are ready for high school; so there is a maturity aspect. I still have concerns about year 7s being in high school from a social perspective, but basically that argument is over; the decision has been made. I do not think the government had any choice. Dr M.D. Nahan: You taught, didn’t you? Did you have year 7s? Dr A.D. BUTI: No; that was a long time ago. I do have a concern, but the horse has bolted there. In some schools that have years 1 to 10 the transition is not so great; but if a student goes from one school into another school, it can be quite stressful. However, over time that will become the norm and that stress will be removed. As the member for Warnbro said, the opposition supports this bill, which in many respects is a minor bill but in one respect is significant as we are making something compulsory. Even though most people already send their children to preprimary school, it will now become compulsory. We have to look at how we will ensure that children who come from sections in society that do not send their children to school on a regular basis will comply with the mandatory provision of this legislation. MS R. SAFFIOTI (West Swan) [12.52 pm]: I rise to talk briefly on the School Education Amendment Bill and make some comments on what the member for Armadale said about children at risk, in particular. The Labor Party supports compulsory attendance in the preprimary year. However, the more I have looked at what is happening in our community and talked to people, the more I realise we need a fundamental shift in how we deal with our children. Some issues are emerging, such as children not attending school or children being unable to

8062 [ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] read and write after going through the compulsory years of education. These are fundamental problems in our education system. I do not think we have the answer to those problems yet. The way we deliver services in the community through our departmental structures is a bit out of date. I have been thinking about this over the past number of weeks after talking to more and more school principals, more presidents and members of parents and citizens and parents and friends associations, and more parents. We are not doing as good as we should be doing. I know we use this line quite a bit, but in a state as rich as WA we should be doing better. We should not have children not being able to read and write after going through the education system. That is an absolute disgrace. I do not think we have the structure of government or service delivery that will achieve what we need to achieve. We need to fundamentally reassess how we deliver services in the community. Again, to use another very common term, we often talk about the silo mentality, which is one issue; but there is also the issue of how we deal with people in the community. There needs to be a lot more outreach and a more proactive approach to how we deal with our children in the community, so that that we are not responding in eight years’ time when the problems are so significant that we cannot fix them. Let me look at some of the issues that we see when we are driving or walking around our streets. We see young kids walking the streets with absolutely no care or responsibility about going to school. We see the tragic outcomes of high-speed chases in which young people are driving cars and, basically, killing not only themselves but innocent people. That should not be happening. It is a question of resources and how we go about our business. The opposition supports making another year of schooling compulsory, but that is not enough. The work done by Hon Linda Savage highlighted the importance of focusing on the zero to three years age group in particular. But we need to ensure that children over three years of age do not miss out because their parents are not in a position to assist them or, in the situation that I encountered recently, because even though the parents are diligent and caring they cannot seem to get the services their children require because our system is a bit too rigid. We need to rethink how we do business. We cannot have a situation in Western Australia in which we see things like the Perth Waterfront development and the “Premier’s Palace” going ahead while the government is not delivering a fundamental and key service like education. If we do not get our children’s education right, they will lag years behind or will be lost to education forever. In WA I think we are increasingly seeing some disparity between those who do not have opportunities and those who do. That is increasingly becoming an aspect in our community. I do not want Western Australia to go down the path some other states have taken, in which there is a big difference between the well off and the not so well off. I do not want to be like other nations that write off a person, a group, a cohort or a suburb because we have not structured our system in such a way that will deliver those key services. As I said, those are some fundamental problems, but I want to talk briefly about the issue of resourcing. I know that resourcing and funding are not the answer to everything, but one issue that needs to go hand in hand with this bill is an insurance act. All schools must have the ability and resources to deliver the education that children require in these early years. One of the examples put to me was that although schools were doing more and more in the early childhood learning area, they do not have the resources; they are not buying the books. There is no program that will ensure that schools have the resources to teach the children. I was given an example of a school in my electorate that does not have the resources to teach its five-year-olds and six-year-olds; I am not sure exactly why. I also want to talk about the lack of flexibility in the way the Department of Education operates. A situation arose at the beginning of this year with a family that was living across the road from a school that the two older siblings attended. This family also has a four-year-old. Its aim was that the four-year-old would go to the school across the road. I am not exactly sure why, but because of the rules that four-year-old child was not able to attend that school with their siblings. That four-year-old lives across the road from the school that their brother and sister attend but, even after significant lobbying of the Department of Education on the parents’ behalf, there was no flexibility to allow that four-year-old to attend that school. I know that we need rules and I know that we need some regulations, but at the end of the day is it not about looking at the circumstances of an individual child on any given day and what is best for that child? I have not got up to date on what happened with this four-year-old. However, do we not want to create incentives and do we not want to ensure that those children go to the school they had planned to go to? I was therefore very disappointed in that situation in that, because of the bureaucracy, what was best for the child did not eventuate. As I said, I also have recently been looking more and more at the debate on the method of teaching language. I understand that there are different names for the method, but let us call it “explicit instruction” or “direct instruction”. One of the reasons I am interested in this debate is that I have very young children who will be entering the three-year-old and four-year-old programs. I have therefore been trying to acquaint myself very significantly with these types of teaching. Another key reason that I am very interested is that one of the principals in my electorate who I have talked to quite a bit is a great proponent of explicit instruction. Like I said,

[ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] 8063 there are different names for it—explicit instruction and direct instruction. I understand it is all about teachers teaching children how to read. It is slightly in contrast to the whole-language approach, which I understand is all about children immersing themselves in the language, knowing a word and therefore being able to read the word. It is therefore seeing a word and knowing what that word sounds like. As I understand it, explicit instruction is more about teaching the components of the word; therefore, back to the whole idea of phonics as well. I have one principal in my electorate who is very, very keen on this method of teaching and who has shown me some results that are happening within their primary school. I must say that I have been, I suppose, taken aback at the results that are being achieved; and, moreover, what is being done more generally to assess this type of situation. As I said, I am acquainting myself at the moment with this whole sort of theory between whole language versus explicit instruction. I do not even pretend to be anywhere near an expert on this issue, but I do raise those questions again about how children can go through our education system and not be able to read and write at the end of it. I understand another aspect of explicit instruction is that it helps in teaching some children with learning difficulties. Again, I am not an expert, but I intend to inform myself more and more about this way of education because I think that it does seem to bring a lot of benefits to children—that is, all children including children at risk and children with learning difficulties. The opposition therefore supports this bill but believes that making another school year compulsory will not create better outcomes. There is a lot more that we need to do to ensure that our children get the education they so richly deserve. DR J.M. WOOLLARD (Alfred Cove) [1.03 pm]: I am pleased to support the School Education Amendment Bill 2012, which will introduce compulsory preschool attendance. I acknowledge Jenny Day who is in the Speaker’s gallery and who, with Barry Cable and some others, several years ago founded the Community Development Foundation, which later commenced a school passport program and which I will discuss later. I also acknowledge the support that has been given by the Liberal–National government over the past few years into early childhood development. I congratulate both the Minister for Health for the funding that he has put into child development services and the previous Minister for Education who has lobbied hard for the funding of early childhood centres at schools—I believe in the next few years there will be 20 of these. Some of the debate on this bill today has been about general education issues. As you know, Mr Acting Speaker (Mr P.B. Watson), our committee—the Education and Health Standing Committee—will be presenting next week, hopefully, our report into education outcomes for all ages. I therefore will not address some of the issues that have arisen today that the committee also looked at but will address those next week when we present our report. In relation to this bill, I guess it is important to acknowledge that the Council of Australian Governments in its National Partnership Agreement on Communities Making a Difference said basically that all children benefit from schooling, which promotes social inclusion and reduces the educational disadvantage of children, and in particular Indigenous children. That is why for many years now we have had funding to try to close the gap between Indigenous children and non-Indigenous children. But there is still a long way to go. Again, as we mentioned in some of our earlier reports, some simple things can be done to help close that gap, such as the Minister for Health in this place funding a mobile surgical unit and facilitating child health nurses to do ear checks to try to prevent ear infections. But back to this bill. Dr K.D. Hames: We are going to do that—ear checks. There is a big program for ear health. Dr J.M. WOOLLARD: I am so pleased. I am hoping that Hansard got that on the record. Thank you, minister. We are aware that high-performing schools are often able to engage with families and that through that engagement there are obviously benefits to children’s education outcomes. We know that the earlier we get parents involved with a child’s education, the more positive will be the outcomes for that child; therefore, earlier contact with parents and families has to be supported in all schools. We particularly need to focus on that earlier contact with parents and families when there are children at risk. We know from the Australian Early Development Index the various domains in which children are at risk and are failing. We know that there are Aboriginal students in remote areas who are failing and we know that there are children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds who are currently failing to achieve education outcomes. I would like to discuss something that is very relevant to this bill, which is how parental involvement can be fostered in our schools. That is where the Community Development Foundation comes in, because it has developed a school passport program that we know has led to significant impacts on the way parents and families are involved in local schools. This has been acknowledged not just in WA, but also in other states across Australia, and other countries are now starting to look at this. The Australian Trust Company has recently

8064 [ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] given money to Social Ventures Australia to prepare a strategic framework for the Community Development Foundation to roll out the WA passport program nationally. We could say that WA is leading the way with this program, which has resulted in parents and families throughout WA becoming involved in their local schools. I will name some of the schools later. Results show that this has led to less school absenteeism. Absenteeism is a serious issue in WA. The program has led to less school absenteeism and better educational outcomes. I would like to initially show members this map and chart, which shows the schools that are currently participating in the program and new requests from schools wishing to become involved. As we can see, the numbers have grown from four schools participating in 2009 to 44 schools participating in 2012. Now, in 2012, an additional 49 schools want to sign up to become involved in this program, but they need some funding from the government to do so. This chart shows the family involvement for just 23 primary schools in 2012. This chart shows that 1 222 families participated in the program in just 23 schools. I do not know whether members can read the names of all the schools. Mr Acting Speaker, am I able to ask whether these charts, which have been provided to me by the Community Development Foundation, could be incorporated into Hansard along with my speech? The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr P.B. Watson): I will look and make a decision. Dr J.M. WOOLLARD: Thank you, Mr Acting Speaker. The ACTING SPEAKER: Could we look at them? Dr J.M. WOOLLARD: Yes. Obviously it does not need to be that size; we can reduce them. This chart shows that 271 families are involved in the passport program in just five district high schools. About 40 schools are currently involved in the program in WA and many, many more—up to about 70—would like to be involved in the program. I will hand over this chart to you, Mr Acting Speaker. The passport program actively involves parents or guardians with the schools as early as possible. The passport program makes the school a gathering hub for the parents. Only the other week the Premier came along to a ceremony upstairs at which nine people involved in this program were given awards for the wonderful work that they have been doing. I thank the Premier for coming along and acknowledging their contribution to education and welcoming them and congratulating them. Through this program the school becomes a gathering hub. The program has been found to unite teachers; encourage parents to become involved in the school; and assist students by not only encouraging them to attend school, but improving their educational outcomes through increasing attendance. This program also caters for the cultural and linguistic diversity of students in schools. I will now show members this chart, which demonstrates that there are now 150 culturally and linguistically diverse families in just 14 of the 40 participating schools. This program is getting to children who need that assistance. The ACTING SPEAKER: How many charts do you have there? Dr J.M. WOOLLARD: There are only 10; they are very important. The ACTING SPEAKER: Are they related to the bill? Dr J.M. WOOLLARD: Very much so, because this bill is all about compulsory education. Compulsory education ensures equity in education. This program helps provide that equity because it is particularly being used in schools identified as schools in need by the principals, the Department of Education and others. The ACTING SPEAKER: Member, it is a very, very long bow. Dr J.M. WOOLLARD: Maybe we can look at them together, Mr Acting Speaker. They are very important. Mr Acting Speaker, I am sure you listened to what the other members were talking about. They were talking about the need to give more assistance to Aboriginal students and culturally and linguistically diverse students and families, and that is what this program does. I now show members this chart, which shows that 381 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families are involved in 25 of the 40 schools participating in the passport program in WA. It shows that the program is getting to those in need. I will hand up this one to you, Mr Acting Speaker. When I spoke to some of the principals the other week, I learned that the program involves parents and businesses from the local community. At one school several students’ parents are in custody. The principal went to the prisons and organised for those fathers to do work at the prisons that then went towards earning dollars as part of the passport program to assist students at school. Not only could the children see the benefits and that their fathers were trying to help them, but the prisons reported that the behaviour of those fathers within the prisons improved.

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The advantages of the program include increase in school attendance and the breakdown of barriers between parents and government services. Breaking down these barriers is important because it helps not only the children currently at school, but also other children in the family. As parents become more active within the school community, they learn more about early childhood development. They might learn more about the need to take their younger children along to the child health nurse for those early assessments. They might learn more about immunisations for their children, including younger children in the family. Through the program parents receive school dollar credits as a reward. The dollar credits assist parents to pay for school fees, lunches, school excursions and school uniforms. The money is used to benefit the students and the families. As I said previously, the program also encourages outside organisations such as local businesses to become involved and to contribute to local schools. That is because the program has an online program attached to it that identifies the type of activities that parents are involved in in the local schools and how the passport dollars are redeemed by parents. This chart shows that 124 community members are involved in 14 of the schools. The schools on this chart include Gosnells Primary School and Halls Creek District High School. [Member’s time extended.] Ruling by Acting Speaker The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr P.B. Watson): Member, I will make a ruling on your request. Standing order 86(1) states — Following the request of the member speaking, the Speaker may direct the incorporation into Hansard of material such as statistical tables, graphs and charts, to which a member has referred in debate but which are not suitable for presentation in the ordinary course of a speech. We will accept these graphs. Does the member have them on a thumb drive to make it easier for Hansard? Debate Resumed Dr J.M. WOOLLARD: I will give them to Hansard on a thumb drive immediately after my speech. As I was saying, the program also involves community members. This chart shows that there are 124 community members from 14 of the 40 schools, including Gosnells, Halls Creek, Katanning, Redcliffe, Roseworth, Tranby and Wirrabirra. The program not only involves the parents, but also brings the community together and gets the community to contribute towards early childhood education. I mentioned that there are 124 community members. The ACTING SPEAKER: You described what is on the graphs so you do not need to incorporate that one. That is what the standing orders say. You have described it, so you do not need to put a graph in Hansard. Dr J.M. WOOLLARD: I did not say how many people were at each school. I could go through that again. The ACTING SPEAKER: If every member asked to incorporate these types of graphs, Hansard would be flat out for 12 months of the year. There is a bit of leeway going on here, but if you are going to read them out, we will not accept them. Dr J.M. WOOLLARD: Thank you, Mr Acting Speaker. I accept your ruling. The previous graph showed that there are 124 community members in 14 schools. These community members give thousands of hours to the schools in which they participate, as shown by this graph. This program has been constantly monitored and evaluated since it commenced. This pie graph shows members how the dollars that are earned by the parents assist students at the school. I will go through the next chart because it relates to just one high school. It shows the type of activities that parents can be involved in. The parents at Halls Creek District High School help out at P&C fundraising events, they help out in the classroom, they help out with the passport program and they help out with reading in the classroom and working one on one with the students. They might stay with children and do puzzles and read stories. They attend school assemblies. They help by making classroom resources and they also go on excursions and assist with carnivals. The ACTING SPEAKER: Member, there are three graphs here that I do not think qualify. If you want to read from those and get them into Hansard, you can, but these ones could quite easily be read out. They do not qualify under the conditions of the standing orders. The following material was incorporated —

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Dr J.M. WOOLLARD: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will carry on and then come back to those. The final pie chart shows how the program has assisted children at Roseworth Primary School in Girrawheen. It shows that 62 per cent of the dollars earned have been spent in the canteen, 28 per cent of the dollars earned have been spent on swimming lessons and school fees and 10 per cent of the dollars earned by the parents have gone on excursions for the children. It really is helping children whose families may not be able to fund things that are being funded through this passport program.

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The bill that is on the table will mean that there is compulsory schooling in the early years. Through these graphs I have shown how this program is currently working in primary schools and high schools. Next year the passport system will be extended to three-year-olds. As you know, Mr Acting Speaker, through the work that we have done on the committee, those first three years are very important in influencing a child to be ready and able to start school and later succeed in school. Hopefully when this trial is extended to those three-year-old children, it will raise the awareness of the parents to that early contact with children, as it has done in primary schools. It will make parents more aware of other programs for children of that age, such as the universal child health checks and the immunisation programs. Where implemented, it will start to provide a tracking system on those children. The government met with the Child and Adolescent Health Service but it does not yet have all the data at the level that it wants to ensure that all children are followed through. This will be one way of trying to help those children. One school that the passport program is being introduced to is East Narrogin Primary School. Prior to the passport program, there were no Nyoongah parents participating at the school and now there are 20 Nyoongah parents with 50 children using the program. There has been a 30 per cent increase in attendance at that school as a result of the program. At Medina Primary School the school passport program has increased Aboriginal parent participation from 10 parents to 40, and I believe I was told that was on a weekly basis. That is a big number of parents becoming involved. The parents there are involved in breakfast clubs, lunches, literacy, reading and assemblies. Tranby Primary School has also taken up this program. Previously it had only one to two parents involved in the school; it now has 77. Wirrabirra School now has 50 parents—initially there were only 15. Avonvale Primary School is very interesting because at the recent awards Pat Davis, who is an elder in the Northam Nyoongah community, a languages other than English teacher and an Aboriginal and Islander education officer, and who came along for an award, referred to the Making up Lost Time in Literacy—MULTILIT—program and said, according to my notes — If we had this program which uses the Passport Program as incentives, our kids who are now in year 9, but still can’t read would have been different, it would have been different for these kids because they would have gone high school knowing how to read and write.... alot of them dropped out. From the evaluation done on this program, we know it is actually helping children throughout their school years. Engaging parents with the school community as early as possible is helping children to attend school and improve their performance. We were talking earlier about absenteeism: in 2009, 12 per cent of students at Avonvale Primary School fell into the severe risk category for attendance, which means they were missing the equivalent of about five years’ schooling. After targeting those children and their families through the passport program, that figure decreased to two per cent. It made a big difference on the rate of absenteeism. I have been told that one of the female Nyoongah students targeted for the passport program at Avonvale improved her reading by four years in 18 months—a vast improvement in her reading skills. As I said previously, compulsory preprimary schooling will help to ensure that more children start off on an equal footing. The passport program, particularly if it is applied to the zero to three years age group, will get parents involved very early on, and so will help those children. Western Australia is leading the way with this program, and it has already been adopted by South Australia in schools in Whyalla, Port Augusta, Port Pirie, Port Broughton and Maitland. The Community Development Foundation has heard that the South Australian education department is hoping to roll it out across their region and is currently looking at that. The program is also running in the Northern Territory, and four schools in Alice Springs have embarked on this program because they have seen how beneficial it has been for students and families. I believe that the foundation has recently been contacted by, I think, education authorities in China because, again, they had heard how well this program is running in WA and would like the benefits of this type of program to be applied to children in that country. I look forward to discussing the School Education Amendment Bill 2012 further during consideration in detail. I again congratulate the government for introducing compulsory preschool to try to ensure that all children start off on an equal footing, and I commend the passport program to the house. The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr P.B. Watson): We incorporated those papers, member, into Hansard, but if you could provide the thumb drive, that would be great. Dr J.M. WOOLLARD: Thank you, Mr Acting Speaker; I will get that now. MR A.J. WADDELL (Forrestfield) [1.36 pm]: I think the research is in, and it is fairly incontrovertible that the early years are some of the most important in our children’s lives, and that every dollar we invest in their education and health as early as possible pays off in many, many ways later in life. It pays off not only in the

[ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] 8069 health of the child and the child’s ability to learn and to actually enjoy their schooling years, but also in their ability to contribute to the greater society as they move through into their working years. It is also a very useful tool to identify problems that might be present in a child at an early stage in their life. Hon Linda Savage has done a lot of work in this area, and I think she has drawn the attention of many in this place to the fact that if we can identify the learning disabilities and other health disabilities of children at a very early stage in their lives, often remedial action and treatment courses can be delivered to those children that will enable them to overcome whatever minor or major disability they might face, which will enable them to lead full and productive educational and, later on, working lives. I do not think we can underestimate the value of that to our society. A small investment at three or four years of age can actually result in a saving of millions and millions of dollars to greater society later in life. Yet we seem to often lose sight of that fact when we divvy up the budget to educational facilities and services such as child health nurses, and subject them to extreme cuts and tight budgets to achieve other objectives such as, as the member for Warnbro indicated, things like Elizabeth Quay, where we will be able to get coffee on the waterfront—rather than worrying about whether or not our children are healthy. Mr J.H.D. Day: That was a project that was enthusiastically supported when you were in government. The ACTING SPEAKER: Minister, you will have a chance to speak. Mr A.J. WADDELL: I was not in government, minister. Mr P. Papalia: It was not our project. Mr A.J. WADDELL: It was not my project, and I might remind the minister that it was projects like that that turned the electorate against this party at the 2008 election, and I think the government is in severe danger of re- running the 2008 election in reverse. I look forward to seeing the same result. This debate is about making the preprimary year of school compulsory, and I will not sully it with cheap political discussions. Mr J.H.D. Day: Oh, as you just did! The ACTING SPEAKER: Minister for Planning, I call you to order for the first time today. Mr A.J. WADDELL: Thank you; I appreciate the protection, Mr Acting Speaker. The early years are very important. Of course, when our children attend school during those early years, they are really very much an unmoulded lump of clay. We have not yet determined what their capabilities are and we do not have any real sense of where they will fit within the general educational spectrum that exists. Therefore, it is appropriate that at the preschool level we have a one-size-fits-all approach, simply because we have no knowledge to differentiate the type of service delivery that we should give those students. Research has demonstrated that we can begin to identify those differences very quickly in the early years. We can identify children who not only find themselves somewhere on the autistic scale, are dyslexic or might have some other form of learning disability, but also have some form of giftedness that would enable them to prosper quite well within the education system. Unfortunately, within the Western Australian state education system, we are very poor at identifying those students and we continue to subject them to this one-size-fits-all approach all the way through their primary school learning. The Primary Extension and Challenge program and the junior PEAC program kicks in at year 4. But, as members can appreciate, when we introduce a compulsory preprimary age, a student could be in the education system for five or even more years before they are given the opportunity to have the kind of intellectual extension that might benefit them. I think it is a severe problem within our system that we are failing to identify those gifted children at an early age. If members were to speak to any parent of a gifted child, they would very quickly learn that gifted children are known as chameleons; they have the ability to blend in with their classmates and disguise their capabilities. As most of us learnt in the rough-and-tumble world of the childhood playground, if members remember back to their own school-age days, it can be quite a hostile and scary environment and differences are often drawn out, made fun of and not encouraged. Therefore, these children learn very quickly not to identify their differentness and to mask it. I had personal experience of this when I saw a child who has a significant reading ability pretend that they were virtually unable to read in order to fit in with their peers. We have to say that it is an absolute shame that that happens, but that is the consequence of a system that fails to properly identify those children. Unfortunately, some of those children continue to mask their abilities for many years and to such a sufficient level that they can be identified as having a learning disability, although, in fact, they are just incredibly good actors. These children later in life are put into programs for students who might have learning difficulties when, really, they require the exact opposite. I have spoken in this place many times about our one-size-fits-all approach to primary education and the need to develop greater streams to approach gifted education. I am aware of several programs, one of which is the primary academic class program being run at the moment at Wattle Grove in my electorate. A specific class has been set up for a group of students who are identified as having significant educational gifts. I can tell members that it has been an overwhelming success. It is still going through its teething stage—there are still certain

8070 [ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] problems with it—as it tries to integrate itself into the greater educational facility out there, but it certainly gives those children the opportunity to extend themselves in ways that they could not in a normal classroom setting. I think that is the way forward for a lot of this, rather than the one-size-fits-all approach. At this point, I echo the comments made by the member for Alfred Cove, who spoke about the passport program. The passport program has been implemented in my electorate at a Maddington school. Although it is a very new program, it shows a great deal of promise. In travelling through all the different schools within my electorate, it has been my experience that those schools with the greatest participation of parents have the greatest educational outcomes. There is no doubt that parental involvement really has a direct correlation with children’s educational outcomes. Those schools with the most active parents and citizens associations seem to also have some of the best educational outcomes. Hopefully, this passport program will go some way to encourage greater parental involvement in schools. Of course, it is a shame that we have to approach it with a reward process in which we give parents dollars to volunteer rather than them doing it for the good of their own children. I think that within our system there has been growing alienation of parents from the educational facility. In fact, quite recently I hit what I knew would come at some time in my own life, but I was surprised it happened so quickly, which I dreaded: my daughter, who is in grade 6, brought home some homework and when I looked at it, for the first time I was not able to just say the answer! She had finally hit the point at which I could not remember how to do the homework. I had to give her a lecture about how certain things in life that we learn do not necessarily ever get used again after the educational time is over. In this case, she was doing some geometry and I really could not remember the difference between the various interior and exterior congruent angles and so forth. I said to her, “Not a problem; this was always going to happen at some point. Now, it’s going to be a joint learning exercise.” I was going to relearn these things that I had not used in my life and work together with my daughter through the problem. I asked her, “Can you give me your textbook so we can work through it?” That is where we hit the wall; she has no textbook. Primary schools do not give textbooks to kids anymore, so they are not bringing textbooks home. Parents, who may not be familiar with the curriculum as it stands today, do not have the opportunity to read the book and work through with their child any problem that they might have difficulty with. Therefore, we are actually locking parents out of helping children do their homework. I do not think that that is a good idea at any level whatsoever. In that case, we had to revert to the old task of hitting Google and seeing whether it could help us out. My daughter quickly pointed out to me, “We’re not supposed to google everything; we’re supposed to use proper references.” I said, “We can only use proper references when they give you a book in the first place.” Thanks to the Maths is Fun website, I now know the difference between an interior and an exterior congruent angle. However, no doubt there will be many, many hours of googling in front of me as I try to learn other maths terms! The point is that I think we are failing our children by not allowing them to have these textbooks and bring them home. We are locking parents out of the process, so we should not be surprised when they do not get involved in their child’s education. Making the preprimary year compulsory, which I understand is largely being done by most parents on a voluntary basis right now, will not have a massive impact on the requirement for school buildings or accommodation for those children within existing schools. However, I am interested to know whether the preprimary year is available at all primary schools, given that it has not been compulsory until this point. Presumably, it would be possible for some schools to not, in fact, offer that year. That takes me to another problem that I have grieved in this place about previously—namely, the idea of having access to the full gamut of years of education. I have a particular problem in the Maddington–Orange Grove area in that, unfortunately, the local intake school, Yule Brook College, goes only to year 10. Those children who would be taken into that high school as part of their normal local intake are forced to change schools at year 11, which has caused a lot of upset among the parents in that area. They feel that their children should be able to access a continuous year 8–12 education or, by 2015, a continuous year 7–12 education. I understand that in the past they have done that by attending Lesmurdie Senior High School, but that is not available to them because the government has decided to enforce its local intake policy in order to accommodate year 7 entry into high schools. I am led to believe that Lesmurdie Senior High School does not necessarily have enough resources to accommodate all the children who want to go to that high school and so there are winners and losers. Those people on the wrong side of the line are told they must attend Yule Brook College, which means they go to year 10 only and then must move to another school. I think that worries a lot of the parents. Recently I was at an event at Yule Brook. It was doing fabulous stuff with the new science block that was opened under the Building the Education Revolution program and a whole bunch of awards were given to its students for their attendance, to encourage them to attend. There were statistics about how many kids were turning up to school. That was a good program and the college was trying to create peer pressure to make sure that the kids turned up to school. However, standing from the outside, a lot of parents were saying they wanted to send their kids to a school that had objectives greater than the number of times the children turn up to school. They want to see other outcomes for their children. I am not for a moment suggesting that is Yule Brook’s only

[ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] 8071 focus; I am suggesting that there is a real sense in the community that there are not enough resources to enable a full year 8–12 education or to develop some of the academic programs that the children of aspirational families would want their children to attend. Likewise, at East Kenwick Primary School I recently dealt with a woman whose child was diagnosed on the autistic scale and was trying to get a teacher’s aide to assist her son. The child was diagnosed relatively early, which I hope we will see a lot more of once this bill is passed. The difficulty was that the son was a borderline autistic person on that scale and therefore did not qualify for the appropriate support that was necessary at the time. Since then he has developed some other issues and there is a need for a reassessment, but because of his earlier assessment he is not eligible to be assessed again until he reaches year 7. The system is suggesting to his parents that he will just have to suck it and see over the next four years, as he works his way through an uncaring educational system, because it cannot provide the resources to properly assess him to give him the support that he needs. It has been my experience that there is a real struggle in the education system to provide the support that the kids need because of a simple lack of resources. I challenge anyone in this place to tell me that we are adequately funding our education system. It is like the health system; it is a monster and will continue to consume more and more. However, unlike the health system, society will benefit greatly the more we pour into the school system. We need to take a long-term view of that and ask ourselves whether there is an advantage in moving some of society’s resources back to the education sector to enable our children to get what they need and to send the message to young children that the state actually cares. [Member’s time extended] Mr A.J. WADDELL: If their first experience is a cut-price black-and-gold service, or a generic brand of education, there is no doubt that they will take away the message that that is what government is about and they will be cynical and contemptuous of everything we do. That contemptuousness of systems and of the state itself is what we see play out in the streets. People talk about out-of-control youths and people who do not have respect for society anymore. A lot of that can be drawn back to the education system. There is no doubt that we often send a message to our kids that there are no consequences for their actions or that the worst consequences they will face is excluding them from school whereby they get a holiday. We are then surprised when adolescents thumb their nose at authority and the rules we pass and behave in the most outrageous of ways. We need to address the discipline and truancy issues. Not a month goes by when I am not told about kids who are wandering the streets. We do not know what school they are supposed to be at because they are not wearing their uniform. I talk to the local schools, which do their best to account for their students but who do not have officers to roam through the shopping centres to determine whether or not it is their wards who are out there. I talk to the local police, and we know how stretched they are. There is a multitude of different government agencies involved, such as the Department for Child Protection, police and whichever other department might be involved, trying to get kids to attend school. There seems to be an ongoing merry-go-round that we cannot do anything about. All the while we ask ourselves, “If these kids are not learning basic literacy to survive, will they be on the welfare state forever and will they fill up our prisons?” If we could provide the appropriate resources to our schools to ensure that the kids were there, and create a framework and put in place a reasonable discipline model within our schools in which there were consequences for children’s actions, we would go a long way towards fixing some of these problems. We will not see the answer to that tomorrow, next month or next year; it is the sort of thing that will play out over the next 20 years. Another thing I would like to finally talk about is gifted and talented testing. GAT is something that I have experienced recently. I have been critical of it because it seems to be an entirely backwards form of assessment. We have long abandoned assessing our university entrants based on a single test. We now look at their entire educational career, and tests are part of it, but the use of GAT in this state identifies our gifted students purely based on their ability to perform one test on one day, and that test is not even open and accountable. We cannot see the results or how a child rates compared with other children. It is run by the private sector and is shrouded in secrecy and has copyright issues. Parents are extremely frustrated by that process. That brings into question our entire GAT program in our high school system. I think that is partly why we are seeing a movement away from the public school system into the private school system. Certainly in the gifted and talented areas that I have been involved in a lot of parents are simply so frustrated with the way the state is dealing with gifted children that they are choosing to vote with their feet and wallets by moving their children to private schools. The consequence is that some of our brightest children end up in the private school system. The private school system continues to dominate the league tables. We are really starting to develop a two-tier system. We are sending a message to the community that if people want their children to have the best education, they should penny up and send them to the private school sector. A lot of that can be brought home to the way we do the gifted and talented education testing. We need to review that quickly. We need to bring that in at an earlier age. We need to think about it at years 2 and 3 so that we can start streaming our children at an appropriate time.

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I am about to conclude my comments, but I am very mindful of the clock. I would not want to create a problem by sitting down right now. The SPEAKER: I am glad the member for Forrestfield is very mindful, because I do bring the house’s attention to the fact that it is two o’clock. Debate adjourned, pursuant to standing orders. QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE JAMES POINT — PROPOSED PORT 670. Mr M. McGOWAN to the Premier: I refer to the James Point port development and the Premier’s comments yesterday. (1) Does the Premier stand by his statement yesterday that Mr Buckeridge intends to construct an island in Cockburn Sound? (2) Has the Premier had any advice on his view that Mr Buckeridge intends to build an island and the impact that this statement, if incorrect, will have on Mr Buckeridge’s claim against the state? (3) If the Premier’s statement was incorrect, why has he not corrected the record? Mr C.J. BARNETT replied: (1)–(3) I find it a perverse outcome that the Labor Party is advocating for Len Buckeridge in Parliament. How ironic is that! The Labor Party has come to Parliament asking questions on behalf of Len Buckeridge, its sole leader! How it has turned. I wonder what the unions will think of this latest strategy by the Leader of the Opposition: “Let us advocate for wealthy Western Australian Liberal supporters and see if we can win some of their votes over”! Mr R.H. Cook: Are you finished? Are you going to answer the question now? Mr C.J. BARNETT: I just find it extraordinary. Mrs M.H. Roberts: You’re the one who makes house calls on him. Mr C.J. BARNETT: When he was very ill, I did. That is why—he was ill. Mr B.S. Wyatt: And do deals. Mr C.J. BARNETT: No, I do not. I admit to an error. The Buckeridge proposal was not an island but it was a major — Mr M. McGowan: Is that part of your objection? Mr C.J. BARNETT: Yes, I accept that. That was the Fremantle port one. That is a big point the Leader of the Opposition has made here! Mr M. McGowan: It actually is a big point. Mr C.J. BARNETT: What the Buckeridge proposal — Mr M. McGowan: When you’re being sued for $1 billion, it is actually a big point! Mr C.J. BARNETT: This is the first win the Leader of the Opposition has had in weeks. This is a big point! Yes, strictly it is not an island but it is a major reclamation project going right out into Cockburn Sound. Same effect—I do not think that is a good idea for Cockburn Sound. Two different projects were put forward by Buckeridge and his partners. The first of those was a bulk products berth, which this government is supportive of. We have offered land at a proper price. We have offered to do road and rail infrastructure improvements and the like, which are needed. That has been made clear to Mr Buckeridge from the beginning of the term of this government. The other project he promotes has a whole lot of other issues to it, not least of which, as I said yesterday, is the reclamation of a very, very large area of Cockburn Sound. I do not want to see Cockburn Sound turned into a parking bay for containers, because that is what it would be. Does the Leader of the Opposition want that? Does the Leader of the Opposition want his constituents from Rockingham looking out over that beautiful ocean to see containers piled up in the middle of Cockburn Sound? I do not think the Western Australian public wants that. I am absolutely amazed that the Labor Party has come into this Parliament advocating the commercial interest of Len Buckeridge. JAMES POINT — PROPOSED PORT 671. Mr M. McGOWAN to the Premier: I have a supplementary question. Why did the Premier, as a minister in 2000, support this project but does not now?

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Mr C.J. BARNETT replied: The year 2000 is a long time ago! We did not see a lot of activity on this proposal by the Buckeridge Group of Companies during the eight years of the Labor government. It did not come up. We are willing to deal with Len Buckeridge and his partners — Mr M. McGowan: You have changed your mind. Mr C.J. BARNETT: No, not at all. Time does move on a little. You can look at things with fresh ideas. Mr M. McGowan: So you changed your mind? Mr C.J. BARNETT: No, I did not change my mind at all. I have to tell the Leader of the Opposition that I have never been an advocate for reclaiming a large area of Cockburn Sound. I never have been and I am not now. However, I think it is in the state’s interests for the Buckeridge Group to build a land-based bulk products berth. The Minister for Transport is working with him to try to do that. I said this to Len himself: “Why don’t you just concentrate on that project? You have government support; get on with it.” Had he taken that advice, that project would have been under construction, if not completed, by now. CANNING BASIN ONSHORE GAS RESOURCE — STATE AGREEMENT 672. Mr I.C. BLAYNEY to the Premier: Today, the Premier; Minister for State Development announced that the state government had signed an agreement with Buru Energy and Mitsubishi Corporation that will help secure Western Australia’s energy supplies for the future. Can the Premier please outline exactly how this agreement will benefit Western Australians? Mr C.J. BARNETT replied: I thank the member for Geraldton for his question, because indeed I think this agreement will have very positive implications for the midwest as well as for the Pilbara. Led by Buru Energy, a Western Australian–based company, exploration has been going on for some time in the Canning Basin. It has always been known that there are gas and some oil reserves within the Canning Basin—the Blina project and so on. What has become evident in recent times is that this is a massive energy resource. The US Energy Information Administration estimates that the onshore reserves of shale gas could be of the order of 229 trillion cubic feet. To put that in context, that is one and a half times the size of the estimated offshore gas reserves in the Canning and Browse Basins. This is a massive natural resource. Today, I was pleased to sign, along with Buru Energy and Mitsubishi Corporation, a state agreement to facilitate the development of that onshore gas resource. Of course being onshore, constitutionally that gas belongs to the people of Western Australia. This is possibly the most significant advance in developing our natural resources since the development of Pilbara iron ore and the original North West Shelf gas. There is a great deal of exploration work to be done that will extend over several years. This agreement extends the life of exploration permits to allow the companies the time to raise the capital—not to raise the capital; I think they have that, but to do the exploration and to prove up that reserve. The agreement does a number of other things. It ensures that the development of that gas will be, in the first instance, for the Western Australian domestic market. It has priority. If the project proves sufficient gas to go into a liquefied natural gas export phase, the 15 per cent domestic gas reservation will apply. It also facilitates the development of a gas pipeline and a domestic gas plant so that gas from the Canning Basin can be brought into the pipeline grid. There is several years of work to be done. This will be another huge milestone in the economic development of Western Australia. I stress that this is shale gas, so yes, its extraction will require fraccing. Shale gas in that region is two to four kilometres below the surface. It is not like the coal seam gas being developed in Queensland, which is near the surface and mixed with the watertable; this is deep-seated, two to four kilometres down. One would expect there would be few environmental issues, certainly not in comparison with those that exist on the east coast. Proper work is being done, it is being properly supervised, and I certainly expect that within five years we will see the proving up of the reserve, the development of a domestic gas plant, and gas from the Canning Basin onshore, coming into our main pipeline system. As I say, if we look at the history of this state—Pilbara iron ore and North West Shelf gas—Buru and Mitsubishi’s onshore Canning Basin may be the big next step in the story of resource development in this state. PEEL HEALTH CAMPUS — HEALTH SOLUTIONS (WA) 673. Mr R.H. COOK to the Premier: I refer to evidence given at last week’s Standing Committee on Estimates and Financial Operations meeting that at the Liberal Party campaign launch of Mr Tony Solin the Premier said the granting of an extension to the Peel Health Campus contract to Liberal Party donors Health Solutions (WA) was, to characterise the Premier, a “no- brainer”.

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(1) Can the Premier confirm he provided this assessment on the Health Solutions proposal? (2) On what advice from the health department did the Premier make that guarantee? (3) Did the Premier inform the Minister for Health that he had made that guarantee? (4) Does the Premier think it is appropriate to make that government commitment at a Liberal Party event? Mr C.J. BARNETT replied: (1)–(4) No commitment was made on behalf of government at the campaign launch for Tony Solin. I think Tony Solin—a former State of Origin football player—would make a great member for Mandurah! He would be an inspiration to Mandurah. Several members interjected. Mr C.J. BARNETT: I do not know why the Labor Party is spending so much time trying to discredit the provision of public health in the Peel area. I would have thought a hospital developed during the Liberal– National government in the 1990s providing public hospital beds and yes, some private beds as well—since that time, as I said the other week, the population of the greater Mandurah area has effectively doubled—that the member for Mandurah would at least support the development and expansion of public hospital beds in Mandurah, and I would have thought that he would also support the development of a stand-alone private hospital. Why is he so against improving public health services for the people of Mandurah? We know why. He is trying to discredit the Liberal Party campaign. Pity he did not do the proper thing and put the public interest of the people of Mandurah first. If he did that he would be like me and the Minister for Health. He would support expanding public health care in Mandurah. He is against it. The member for Mandurah is determined to discredit the Peel Health Campus, and to discredit the opportunity to expand public health in Mandurah and to bring a private hospital into that area. That is what the member for Mandurah is doing. It will not work because the people of Mandurah will recognise him for what he is—someone who will not stand up for public health in Mandurah. I do, the Minister for Health does, and so does this government. We actually want to bring public health to the people of Mandurah, and we want to see an expanded health service and the choice of private health care. To get back to the specifics, did I stand up and announce a commitment to public health at a campaign launch? No, of course I did not, and members on this side attended that launch. Do I think it is a good idea to expand private health? Yes I do. Do I think it is a good idea to facilitate a private hospital in Mandurah? Yes I do. What is the member for Mandurah’s problem with that other than the fact that he barely visits the hospital and has never supported the hospital as a local member, and now he sees Tony Solin standing up for health care in Mandurah. PEEL HEALTH CAMPUS — HEALTH SOLUTIONS (WA) 674. Mr R.H. COOK to the Premier: I have a supplementary question. An opposition member interjected. The SPEAKER: Take a seat member for Kwinana. I think I hear another voice in here. I am still going to give you the call for the supplementary question, member for Kwinana. Mr R.H. COOK: We are not talking about a public announcement specifically. Can the Premier clearly give me a yes or a no? In conversations with representatives from Health Solutions or with Mr Tony Solin, did the Premier describe the redevelopment proposal, as put to him by Health Solutions, as a no-brainer? Mr C.J. BARNETT replied: I said—if the member wants to know—that there is no guarantee. Ms R. Saffioti interjected. Mr C.J. BARNETT: Sorry, I heard a little giggle down the back. There is no guarantee. As if a government of Western Australia would conduct its affairs in that way. I know that is what the Labor Party did. I know that is what it did with its lobbyists, and that is what it did during its last term in government. The Opposition was always doing little grubby deals with lobbyists. All of the opposition members were up to their ears in dodgy little deals with Labor lobbyists. Mr D.A. Templeman: Why don’t you start telling the truth? That’s what you need to start doing. The SPEAKER: Member for Mandurah, I formally call you to order for the first time today. Member for Victoria Park, I formally call you to order for the first time today. Member for Warnbro, I formally call you to order for the first time today. Now sit down and I will seek another call.

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NEW CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL 675. Mr P.T. MILES to the Minister for Health: As a dad of two, a grandad and the member for Wanneroo, I am very proud to be part of the government— Mr P.B. Watson: Preamble. The SPEAKER: Member for Albany, I formally call you to order for the first time today. I do not need to hear from you. Member for Pilbara, I do not need to hear from you either. I formally call you to order for the first time today. To the question, member for Wanneroo. Mr P.T. MILES: Thank you Mr Speaker. Over the past 215 weeks, we have had such a good emphasis on strong public health infrastructure across the metropolitan area. Can the minister please inform the house on what will actually happen at the new children’s public hospital, despite United Voice continuing to peddle its fear campaign? Dr K.D. HAMES replied: It is true: once again United Voice is peddling a story in the community that is an absolute lie. I said this not only in this house, but also out the front of Parliament at its union rally. I said there that someone should get a texta and scribble out that comment on its board because it is an absolute lie. United Voice continues to peddle this story that Princess Margaret Hospital for Children will be privatised by this government. I have said that that is not the case. I have said that outside the house and in front of United Voice and to the community group. However, the problem is that the representatives of United Voice could not lie straight in bed. We have a bit of evidence here that United Voice is still peddling this blatant lie. Members might remember seeing its big trailer, which it has been carting around, out the front of Parliament. It talks about the privatisation of the new children’s hospital, something that I pointed out was a lie. I have photos here where we can see it all over the place; outside the new Fiona Stanley Hospital, in Midland and all over the state. This picture shows that United Voice cannot even get its van off the road; here it is, clearly stuck out on the road and breaking the law. United Voice cannot even get that right. I would like to table these photos that show that United Voice is continuing to — Mr E.S. Ripper: Who took those photos? Dr K.D. HAMES: I do not know but they were very nicely donated to us. They are good quality photos. I would like to table these photos—my favourite one here—for the balance of this day’s sitting. [See paper 5553.] Dr K.D. HAMES: I would also like to table this one with the back of the trailer stuck out over a portion of the road. [See paper 5554.] Several members interjected. The SPEAKER: Member for Jandakot, I do not need to hear from you. I formally call you to order for the first time today. Dr K.D. HAMES: We have talked for some time about the opposition and its shadow Minister for Health, in particular, dancing like puppets to the tune of United Voice. Now we see them dancing in concert, telling lies to the people of Western Australia, and saying things that are blatantly and clearly untrue. Withdrawal of Remark Mr M. McGOWAN: The minister referred to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition dancing in concert with another group and telling lies to the people of Western Australia, which is unparliamentary. I request that he withdraw his comment. Dr K.D. HAMES: On that point of order Mr Speaker, I can advise that I said that the union— Mr P.B. Watson: Arrogance is gratifying. The SPEAKER: I want to hear this in silence member for Albany. I do not need your assistance. I formally call you to order for the second time today. Taking a point of order from the Minister for Health, which follows on from the point of order that the Leader of the Opposition made, I am going to make a decision about this. Dr K.D. HAMES: Just to make it clear, I said that the union and the shadow minister were dancing together telling lies about this event, and I think that— Several members interjected.

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The SPEAKER: I do not need advice from anybody in this place members. I am simply going to instruct you minister to withdraw that word because it is obviously causing some confusion and we do not need any confusion in here. Dr K.D. HAMES: I withdraw. Questions without Notice Resumed Dr K.D. HAMES: Clearly, what is being presented by United Voice is a lie to the people of Western Australia. It is a blatant lie. Having been advised over and over again and having that lie pointed out to it clearly, it is time for it to stop misleading the people of Western Australia. The Leader of the Opposition is so strongly supported by this union, and it does not do him any credit to allow this lie to continue to be perpetuated by a union that supports him. METROPOLITAN HOSPITALS — AMBULANCE RAMPING 676. Mr R.H. COOK to the Minister for Health: I refer to the 142 per cent increase in ambulance ramping at metropolitan hospitals, including a 174 per cent increase in metropolitan general hospitals in the September quarter, representing over 4 500 hours of ambulance ramp time and patients left stranded in the Premier’s struggling hospital system. (1) Is a 142 per cent increase what the Premier meant when he claimed in this place in May that he was fixing the problem? (2) Having said in May that we need a different system in place and that system has clearly now failed, will the Premier now concede that he has lost control of the ambulance ramping issue? Dr K.D. HAMES replied: Mr Speaker — Mr F.M. Logan: Resign! Do the right thing! Dr K.D. HAMES: Okay! What a good idea! Mr F.M. Logan: What a great politician! Mr B.S. Wyatt: United Voice will give you a job! Dr K.D. HAMES: Golf clubs and fishing rod! I can hardly wait! Ambulance ramping is an issue in this state, and I accept that—I accept that that is the case. Mr R.H. Cook: You should not make light of it. Dr K.D. HAMES: I am not making light of it. I said that it is an issue, and I accept it. It has been a significant problem in our hospital system because of the lack of health beds within our system to be able to keep up with the growing demand within our hospitals—an ever-growing demand. We have seen a seven to eight per cent increase in demand—in fact, even 10 per cent across most of our hospitals, and up to 18 per cent at Joondalup hospital—coming through our emergency departments. There are a number of reasons for this. Part of it is lack of access to general practitioners. We all know there are not enough GPs in the system. In fact, Western Australia has one of the lowest GP rates per head of population in this country. So when patients are sick and they have nowhere else to go, they will go to our emergency departments. We have a limited number of beds. The number of beds is growing. The number of beds has been growing since we opened Rockingham hospital. It is set to grow again early next year when we open the new beds at Rockingham hospital. It is set to grow again in 2014 when we open Fiona Stanley Hospital, and in 2015 when we open the new Midland hospital. But, as we know, all of those projects were due to be completed—particularly Joondalup and Fiona Stanley hospitals—at a much earlier date. The clinical services framework, which showed when we would need more beds in this state, showed that we desperately needed Fiona Stanley to be constructed in 2010. That is what the Labor Party committed to. A year later, it was 2011, and a year later it was 2012. Every year we progressed through the Labor years of government, the construction of that hospital was delayed by another year. So at the end of the day, it is four years too late—four years too late—to give us the beds that we need to provide for the patient growth numbers within this state. If members opposite had done their job when they were in government, we would not have this problem in ours. METROPOLITAN HOSPITALS — AMBULANCE RAMPING 677. Mr R.H. COOK to the Minister for Health: I ask a supplementary question. Does the minister think it is acceptable that he has wasted $550 million on a waterfront development when he cannot even get patients into the doors of our hospitals?

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Dr K.D. HAMES replied: The funding that was put up by this government to create those additional beds is an extraordinary amount of money. I went through that yesterday. We are on time with the construction of our hospitals—just ask the member for Albany, just ask the member for Kalgoorlie, and just ask the member for Jandakot about Fiona Stanley Hospital—on time, and on budget, under our government. We have had no delays and we are getting out and constructing those hospitals. Can I say that with regard to ambulance ramping, it has been at a very high level — Mr R.H. Cook: It is the highest in history! Dr K.D. HAMES: But the ambulance response times are at a record low. Why is that? It is because the former minister from the Labor government said he would not give ambulance officers the extra money. We got in, got a review done and significantly increased the funding for St John Ambulance, and now, despite the huge pressure that they are under, their response times are better than they have ever been. ORD–EAST KIMBERLEY EXPANSION PROJECT 678. Mr V.A. CATANIA to the Minister for Regional Development: As the minister knows, construction of the 31-kilometre irrigation channel, plus new sealed public roads in the Ord–East Kimberley expansion project, is nearing completion. Can the minister outline the job and business opportunities that have been created for the Indigenous people of the East Kimberley as a result of this nation- building project led by the Liberal–National government? Mr B.J. GRYLLS replied: I thank the member for North West for the question and for his real interest in providing opportunities for Indigenous people. He had brought a really strong focus to the Liberal–National government on making sure that we do more than just construct things and that we try to tie in Indigenous opportunity. The member for North West’s constituents in the seat of North West, and in the whole of the north west, can be very, very grateful for his involvement in the Liberal–National government to deliver these projects. As the member for North West talked about, there has been a major construction project going on in the East Kimberley, with 31 kilometres of main irrigation face channel, secondary channels, drains and flood protection levees, and more than 40 kilometres of sealed public roads. I think I talked yesterday about how it has been 1 505 days since we came to government. So, in 1 506 days, we are nearly to full completion of this life- changing project for the East Kimberley. The government has also constructed Garrjang Village, which provides accommodation for 252 workers on this project and was a vital resource in the evacuation of the Warmun community when it was devastated by floods in the East Kimberley. The expansion of the irrigation scheme is providing major opportunities for the traditional owners of the East Kimberley. A key component of the investment is to leave a strong legacy of social change for some of the most disadvantaged people in Western Australia and take them forward into real jobs and business partnerships. The traditional owners have taken up their full land entitlement under the Ord Final Agreement, which was signed in 2005, and that will flow into further opportunities for the Miriuwung and Gajerrong people in the future. There are currently, member for North West, 91 Indigenous workers employed on the construction site direct with Leighton Contractors and subcontractors. Many of them are getting a job for the first time. Among the businesses that have been created since the beginning of the construction period there is a great example, a business called WannaWork, which is an Indigenous labour hire business with over 25 employees. The director, Donald Chulung, is an inspirational male leader who last year won Aboriginal Person of the Year at the East Kimberley Aboriginal Achievement Awards. When I attended the onsite joint venture signing between WannaWork and Leighton Contractors in July this year, invited guests were treated to a lunch by the newly formed Indigenous catering company, Marls Catering, and they were bussed to the site by an Indigenous transport company, Gerdan Tours. WannaWork, which now has 25 employees, has also recently acquired a major piece of earthmoving machinery, a grader, which it is using for road and civil construction to further expand its business, and that is a business that will continue long after the construction of the irrigation channel is completed. Zena Contractors, owned by Daniel Chulung, is an Indigenous construction company that has been contracted by Leighton to build concrete and steel structures for the channel and road project. Zena Contractors has approximately six staff. DMW CAMS, which has eight employees, has four trucks operating on the construction site, assisting with dust suppression during the channel and road construction. So, for many people, they are not only getting their first opportunity in the workforce on the Ord–East Kimberley project, but also they are starting up small businesses that will give them and their families a new outlook on life, totally changing the face of the Indigenous community in the East Kimberley. I think that when we look at the way in which the Liberal–National government has run this project in the Ord–East Kimberley, and refer back to what the Premier said on the ABC program Q&A on Monday night when he was talking about

8078 [ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] the development of James Price Point and the very strong focus on Indigenous engagement and opportunity through that project at James Price Point, we can see that rather than just talk about it, in the East Kimberley, the government is doing it, and the traditional owners are getting involved in the project, getting jobs for the first time, starting up small businesses and looking at opportunities post the construction project. The Liberal–National government wants to do exactly the same thing in the West Kimberley, through an even bigger project—a multi-billion dollar project at James Price Point. That is why the Liberal–National government is so determined to drive through the naysayers of this project and deliver that once-in-a-generation opportunity for the West Kimberley. I note that the Leader of the Opposition opposes the Ord project in the East Kimberley. Alannah MacTiernan, a former Labor member, said on Q&A that she opposes James Price Point. So the two projects that can have a — Several members interjected. Mr B.J. GRYLLS: If members opposite were watching the same program that I was, she said that the gas should be piped to the south. So, can the Leader of the Opposition say categorically that he wants to see the gas come onshore at James Price Point? Several members interjected. Mr B.J. GRYLLS: So the Leader of the Opposition wants to see the gas come onshore at James Price Point? Several members interjected. Mr B.J. GRYLLS: So the Leader of the Opposition supports the project? Mr M. McGowan: Absolutely. Mr B.S. Wyatt: How many times do you want to talk about Browse? Move a motion and we will talk about Browse! The SPEAKER: Member for Victoria Park, I do not need to hear you yelling in this place. I formally call you to order for the first time today. Minister for Regional Development, it was a reasonably straightforward question; you have been on your feet for five minutes. I am expecting a conclusion to your answer very shortly. Mr P. Papalia interjected. The SPEAKER: Member for Warnbro, I formally call you to order for the second and third time today. If you want to stay in this place, I ask you to remain silent. Mr B.J. GRYLLS: We just saw it again from the member for Warnbro; fatally opposed to delivering opportunities for Indigenous people in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. They lost the Inpex project, they opposed the Ord project, and we can have no confidence that they would be able to deliver the James Price Point project, and that is why the people of the Kimberley are glad that the Liberal–National government is governing from this side of the Parliament. DEPUTY PREMIER — CONFLICT OF INTEREST 679. Mr B.S. WYATT to the Premier: I refer to Ministerial Code of Conduct point 7, titled “Divestment of Conflicting Positions”. It states — Immediately after appointment, Ministers shall take action to divest themselves of shareholdings in any company and interests in partnerships and trusts, by virtue of which a conflict exists, or could reasonably be expected to exist, with their portfolio responsibilities. (1) Was the Premier aware of the Deputy Premier’s share portfolio of 400 000 shares in Tectonic Resources when he approved his appointment as Acting Premier and Minister for State Development in March 2011 and June 2011? (2) If so, why did he appoint him to the position of Acting Premier and Minister for State Development, given the clear breach of the Ministerial Code of Conduct? (3) What steps will the Premier now take to clear this clear breach of the Ministerial Code of Conduct? Mr C.J. BARNETT replied: (1)–(3) I think in March I was visiting Singapore, establishing a special relationship between Singapore and Western Australia. I think in June I took a week or thereabouts off on leave. It seems to me fairly logical that if the Premier of the state is on leave or outside the country, the Deputy Premier would act in his place. Mr B.S. Wyatt: You’re right; agreed. Mr C.J. BARNETT: I would not have thought that was too hard; follow the bouncing ball. The Premier is on leave or away; who do we get? We look around and think, “Ah! The Deputy Premier should be Acting Premier”. It is a bit tricky to think through, but I would have thought that is where we would go: Deputy Premier.

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Mr B.S. Wyatt: Very good, Premier; I’m glad you’ve got that worked out. Now the next bit. Mr C.J. BARNETT: So the member has grasped that point? Mr B.S. Wyatt: Oh, that’s very easy. Mr C.J. BARNETT: Is there a conflict? No. Are we dealing with those companies? No, we are not. Mr B.S. Wyatt: Well, “reasonably be expected to exist”? Mr C.J. BARNETT: It is not his portfolio. Mr B.S. Wyatt: State Development? No interest in resource companies? Mr C.J. BARNETT: The Deputy Premier was simply acting as Premier for a short time. He was not undertaking roles in the portfolio of State Development; he was not dealing with any company of interest. Mr B.S. Wyatt: How would you know? You were away, remember? Mr C.J. BARNETT: Is this it? Here we are, three months out from an election; this is the Labor Party in full flight, acting for Len Buckeridge, asking repeat questions and now querying why a Premier would make the Deputy Premier Acting Premier in his absence! Mr B.S. Wyatt: That’s not the question. Mr C.J. BARNETT: Does it get better than this? This is like Monty Python! Mr B.S. Wyatt: I actually agree with you! You are a funny little bugger, aren’t you? Mr C.J. BARNETT: Oh, charming! Mr B.S. Wyatt: Len’s right. When I’m over at Peppy Grove next time, talking about you, I’ll say, “You’re right; he is a silly little bugger”. I agree with Len! You should preselect him! We might preselect him! Mr C.J. BARNETT: Of course the Deputy Premier would be Acting Premier in the Premier’s absence. DEPUTY PREMIER — CONFLICT OF INTEREST 680. Mr B.S. WYATT to the Premier: I have a supplementary question. In the interests of accountability, will the Premier outline to the house by close of business this week the exact date or dates on which his Deputy Premier purchased all shares, and the date or dates he disposed of them, as that information is not disclosed in the pecuniary interests register? Mr C.J. BARNETT replied: Financial assets of whatever form are in the parliamentary disclosure. Also, any major transactions are disclosed to the cabinet secretary as part of the ministerial code. Mr B.S. Wyatt: So, no? Mr C.J. BARNETT: All of that has happened. If the member has a specific accusation to make, he should make it. Mr B.S. Wyatt: I just asked you! The SPEAKER: Member for Victoria Park! Mr C.J. BARNETT: What we see here is the worst sort of politics; we see a Labor Party that has no policies and no sensible questions to ask, so all it does is try to slur members opposite. This should remind the people of Western Australia — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER: We have made some progress today. Member for Victoria Park, I do not expect you to keep on interjecting on the answer to your supplementary question. Mr C.J. BARNETT: I conclude with this: all the Labor Party is doing is indulging in personal attacks, slurs and innuendo. All that does is remind the people of Western Australia that the Leader of the Opposition was a member of a government in which five ministers were sacked for their conduct in inquiries before the CCC. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER: Leader of the Opposition, I do not need to hear from you, either. Member for Victoria Park, I was trying to be subtle; perhaps I should be more direct. I formally call you to order for the third time today. Point of Order Mrs M.H. ROBERTS: The Deputy Premier interjected and said that he would provide the dates that were asked for by the member for Victoria Park. Can I clarify whether that is going to occur or not?

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The SPEAKER: I suggest to you, member for Midland, that if you wish to get to your feet and ask a question, that opportunity will be provided to you via me. PUBLIC TRANSPORT — RAIL CAR PURCHASE 681. Mr F.A. ALBAN to the Minister for Transport: I note that the Minister for Transport recently announced that the Liberal–National government had invested $243 million for new train carriages, bringing the total order to 66 rail cars. Ms M.M. Quirk: Not to Ellenbrook! Several members interjected. Mr F.A. ALBAN: Could the minister please advise the house — The SPEAKER: Member for Girrawheen, I formally call you to order for the first time today. Member for Kalgoorlie, I hope your lips are not moving. Member for Bassendean, I formally call you to order for the first time today. Mr F.A. ALBAN: Could the minister please advise the house on the details of this commitment and comment on any recent public transport pledges made by the opposition? Mr T.R. BUSWELL replied: Happy to oblige! The important point to be made up-front is that the rail network in Perth is popular, it is important, and it is used by a lot of people. I think we saw the significance of the rail network when we had that unfortunate disruption on the northern line a little while ago. Over the past three years, patronage growth on our metropolitan rail network has averaged around five per cent. That is well above population growth, and it says that people are, in increasing numbers over and above the rate of population growth, using the train system. The government has a plan to support the ongoing growth of the train network by investing in rail carriages. In the 2011–12 budget, we effectively ordered 45 extra carriages at a cost, if my memory serves me correctly, of $165 million. Earlier this year we announced a new rail station at Aubin Grove and another six carriages at a cost of $22 million. On Sunday we announced an additional $55 million investment to provide a further 15 carriages, which brings the total order—starting to arrive at the end of 2013 through to the end of 2016—up to 66 carriages at a cost of $243 million. That is a great outcome. It means that we will be able to accommodate some of the current pressure on the rail network, accommodate growth and provide benefits to people on what we call the heritage lines—the Armadale line, the Midland line and the Fremantle line. That will mean that five of the current A-series cars will be fed back into those lines, so everyone across the network will benefit. The government has announced a little more than just extra rail carriages; I just happen to have a chart here that provides some clarity to the announcement. The green bits at the top that look like trains are trains, Leader of the Opposition. The bit below the line, in blue, is the plan. The time line is that before 2012 we will investigate, order and then invest in a new generation of railcar for the people of Perth. Clearly, we need to move beyond the current B-series car to a new generation car. We will start to look for that next year. It will take us about 18 months to investigate and then procure that new generation railcar. It will probably take two to two and a half years before they are delivered. We clearly have plenty of capacity until the end of 2016, and the plan is for the new generation railcar post-2017. A new generation of railcar means that we can have longer cars that can travel closer together and we will be able to get people in and out of them a lot more quickly. I thank the member for Swan Hills for touching on recent opposition announcements, and I will quickly touch on a couple of those. Firstly, we had the “fixing train congestion policy”, which was an interesting policy that would provide a sum of capital to buy a number of new rail carriages. Unfortunately, the policy did not provide one cent for electricity, drivers or security and other staff needed to operate those carriages. It was an unfunded commitment—I assume this was an election commitment from the Labor Party. I will remind the house what the member for West Swan has offered the people of Ellenbrook. When the opposition released its transport plan this year, she said that part of its 50-year to 100-year vision included a rail line to Ellenbrook. The member for West Swan is promising the people of Ellenbrook a new railway at some stage in the next 50 to 100 years! That is great news! I imagine that the member for West Swan will rise from the grave to participate in the opening. The Leader of the Opposition showed his commitment to the people of Ellenbrook when he was out there the other week. I will show the strength of his commitment to the Ellenbrook rail line, which has been raised time and again in this house. When the Leader of the Opposition was asked what he would do about the Ellenbrook rail line, the Leader of the Opposition said — Mr M. McGowan: You broke your promise to the people of the north eastern suburbs! Mr T.R. BUSWELL: Hang on! This is what the Leader of the Opposition said: he is going to talk to people about it! The Leader of the Opposition was asked whether he would build a railway line to Ellenbrook. His answer was, “Well, I’m going to talk to people about it.” Then he said, “I’m going to look at the costings.” The

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Leader of the Opposition is going to talk about it and then look at the costings. Is the Leader of the Opposition going to get off the fence and commit to it? Several members interjected. The SPEAKER: I formally call the member for West Swan to order for the first time today. Leader of the Opposition, I formally call you to order for the second time today. Mr T.R. BUSWELL: Here is the challenge for the opposition. We are not going to build the line in our next term in government. Is the opposition going to, or is it just going to talk to people and get the costings? I have decided to help the Leader of the Opposition get off the fence on this issue. Here are the costings! Here is a summary of the costings for the two routes to Ellenbrook, which I will table. I have done that bit of work for the Leader of the Opposition. On the Leader of the Opposition’s next visit to Ellenbrook, he will be able to say that he has the costings and he will have to let them know what his decision is. I know what it will be! I know how much the Leader of the Opposition will contribute. It is zero! The SPEAKER: Minister for Transport, you had a document you wanted to table. Mr T.R. BUSWELL: I am happy to, Mr Speaker. For the record, I confirm that the document shows that the average cost of the eastern route, if you take out the upper and lower figures, is $790 million, and for the other route it is $910 million. [See paper 5555.] NEW PRISON UNITS — OCCUPATION 682. Mr F.M. LOGAN to the Minister for Corrective Services: Minister, my question — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER: Member for West Swan, I formally call you for the second time today. Minister for Transport, I call you to order for the first time today. I do not need other people having conversations across the chamber while a member has been given the call. Mr F.M. LOGAN: I note that out of the nearly $80 million spent on construction of new prison units across the state, only two units are occupied. (1) Given the two new units at Hakea Prison were formally opened in April 2011 and were expected to be occupied from June 2011, when will these units receive prisoners? (2) The two units at Casuarina Prison were completed over 12 months ago, yet are still not open; when will these units receive prisoners? (3) Albany Regional Prison has two units occupied, but two existing units were then closed giving a net gain of six new beds; when will the older units be refurbished and receive prisoners? Mr M.J. COWPER replied: (1)–(3) I will go straight to the point. The Casuarina units are due to open on 23 November. The Hakea units will open on 21 December, and unit 1, Albany, will open on 7 December. I was down in Albany and I looked at the fantastic new unit that is now occupied by prisoners. The units that were vacated are not terribly old, but, as members will appreciate, prisons are used 24 hours a day, seven days a week and therefore require considerable maintenance. The good news is that we are trying to save taxpayers’ money by using prisoners at the Albany prison to refurbish those units. Mr P.B. Watson: Buy local! Mr M.J. COWPER: Indeed, we buy local and we are using the prisoners there to do refurbishments such as painting. They are concerned about concrete cancer, but those units are very sturdy and will be used into the future. We will have a fair amount of capacity at our disposal should it be required. Mr F.M. Logan: When will they be open? Mr M.J. COWPER: If the member for Cockburn is asking about the refurbishment, it will open any time over the next six to 12 months. As the member pointed out, they are not required at the moment. It is the first time that we have had capacity in our system across Western Australia since the Fremantle Prison closed in about 1991, I think it was, from memory. We have been able to get ahead of the game through our systems. The people of Western Australia gave a mandate to this government to get criminals off the street, so we had to build capacity in our prisons. We have an additional 2 600 beds. We have increased the number of prison officers by 673 in the last four years. That is a substantial contrast to what the member’s government did!

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Point of Order Mrs M.H. ROBERTS: The minister quoted some dates off a page that is resting on his file. If that is an official document, I call upon him to table it. The SPEAKER: I will examine that document and if indeed it is an official document, I will require the minister to table it. Member for Cockburn, I ask you to stop interjecting. I will give you an opportunity to ask a supplementary question. Questions without Notice Resumed Mr M.J. COWPER: That is the good news! I very much appreciate the member for Cockburn asking that question. I am happy to provide the details to the member, but I am to referring to my own notes, which I will happily provide to you, Mr Speaker, to make an adjudication on.

NEW PRISON UNITS — OCCUPATION 683. Mr F.M. LOGAN to the Minister for Corrective Services: I have a short supplementary question. The minister has held the corrective services portfolio for a number of months now. What exactly has the minister done to rectify that embarrassing shambles that he proudly calls a major prison expansion? It is 18 months late! It is a joke. Mr M.J. COWPER replied: Mr Speaker, I am not clear what the question is. Mr F.M. Logan: What have you done? Mr M.J. COWPER: I will just go through them for the purposes of the house. Mr F.M. Logan: What have you done specifically as a minister? Nothing! Mr M.J. COWPER: Does the member mean the West Kimberley prison? Several members interjected. The SPEAKER: Member for Cockburn, you have asked a supplementary question. I expect you want an answer, but your continual interjections will not help you get that answer. Mr M.J. COWPER: I am not sure which prison the member is saying is a shambles, but I will go through them all for the benefit of members. I opened the new 150-bed West Kimberley Regional Prison last week. It was fantastic to see the member for Kimberley and other members there. A minimum-security facility for young adults called Wandoo Reintegration Facility, which has 80 beds, has been established at the Rangeview Remand Centre. The eastern goldfields regional prison in the member for Eyre’s electorate will service the area represented by the member for Kalgoorlie as well. Mr F.M. Logan: It hasn’t even started yet! Mr M.J. COWPER: The contract has just gone out for that to be built next to the existing prison, which will eventually be demolished. Mr F.M. Logan: None of this has actually been done. The SPEAKER: Member for Cockburn, if you want an answer to the question, I suggest you remain quiet. I am formally going to call you to order for the first time today. Mr M.J. COWPER: At Acacia, 387 beds will be added to the existing prison, and construction of the new beds is expected to be completed in 2015. There will be 120 beds at Albany Regional Prison in the new units, and of course we have the capacity that we spoke about. There will be 30 beds at the work camp at Roebourne, the refurbishment of prison accommodation at Casuarina and Hakea Prisons and the establishment of work camps at Warburton, Wyndham and Dowerin. Mr Speaker, the news just keeps getting better and better from this side of the house. Unfortunately, as I have mentioned before in this place, the commitment to our correctional services by the previous government in the eight years it was in government is, by comparison, deplorable. The SPEAKER: Members, before I conclude question time, I refer to the question asked by the member for Midland and the documents that the minister had. They are certainly typed notes; they are not an official document of any sort, but I think I did hear the minister indicate that he would provide the information to the member should she so desire. I cannot find anything in them of any official nature. Might I suggest to you, member for Midland, that you speak immediately with the Minister for Corrective Services at the conclusion of question time? And question time has concluded.

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POTATO MARKETING CORPORATION — WARE POTATO SUPPLY CHAIN REPORT Question without Notice 662 — Supplementary Information MR D.T. REDMAN (Blackwood–Stirling — Minister for Agriculture and Food) [2.50 pm]: Pursuant to standing order 82A, I would like to provide some additional information to question without notice 662 from the Leader of the Opposition yesterday in respect of the Potato Marketing Corporation and the corporation’s report that it initiated, called the McKinna report. The question was whether I was happy to table that report, and I said I would seek advice and make a decision on that. I have sought advice from the Potato Marketing Corporation, so I hereby table the report. I also would like to table a letter that the Potato Marketing Corporation sent to me in the report giving its response to the recommendations made in the report. [See papers 5556 and 5557.] ROAD TRAFFIC (MISCELLANEOUS AMENDMENTS) BILL 2012 Third Reading MRS L.M. HARVEY (Scarborough — Minister for Police) [2.51 pm]: I move — That the bill be now read a third time. MR J.R. QUIGLEY (Mindarie) [2.52 pm]: I shall not take long in my speech on the third reading debate on the Road Traffic (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2012, other than to refer to that aspect of the bill that is a complete betrayal of working police officers, and especially pursuit and emergency drivers in Western Australia. The minister confirmed both in this chamber and on radio 6PR this morning that she has in fact thrown upon police officers an onus to prove their defence. In fact on radio this morning she said that I had been disingenuous in my public comments because the bill that was introduced does not require police to prove their innocence beyond a reasonable doubt. I never said that, and a check of Hansard and the people in the press gallery will show that I never said that. What I did say was that for the first time ever in Western Australia a police officer defending himself or herself on a charge of dangerous driving causing death, dangerous driving causing bodily harm, reckless driving or dangerous driving will have the onus of proof put upon them by the words in clause 11 of the bill, which will be new section 61A of the Road Traffic Act. It states — It is a defence to a prosecution for an offence against — It names the sections — if the accused satisfies the court that, at the time of the alleged … offence — It then sets out the three things with which the accused—that is, the officer who in the course of his urgent duty driving had the crash—must satisfy the court. Mr C.C. Porter: How is that any different from the defence of emergency or duress? Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: I am sorry? Mr C.C. Porter: How is that any different from any person, police officer or otherwise, raising a defence such as emergency or duress? Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: The former Attorney General poses the question: how is this any different from what transpired before; that is, urgent duty driving under the code and the Road Traffic Act as it existed before? The prosecution had to negate that element of the offence beyond a reasonable doubt; that is, that it was not safe to proceed through the intersection at the time. Mr C.C. Porter: That wasn’t my question. Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: The former Attorney General can speak at the third reading stage. In this clause of the bill the statute requires the officer to satisfy the court of three particular aspects. It is the officer who must satisfy the court that he was on duty and acting in the course of his duty at the time he was driving. This legislation requires that the officer satisfy the court — Mrs M.H. Roberts: The former Attorney General has left the room. He doesn’t want to hear the answer! Mr M.P. Whitely: He’s done his work! His work here is done! Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: We will see if he will come to support the minister in her assertion that it does not change the onus of proof. I do not know how, if the former Attorney General — Mrs M.H. Roberts: I think what he has done is thrown a little bomb in your direction so that you can explain it all and it can explode in the minister’s face! Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: That is right: blow it up in her face and just bat it back across the net. You are quite right, shadow police minister.

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The police minister put it properly to Paul Murray on the radio this morning; that is, if the police want to use this defence, they have to show on the balance of probabilities these three things. And that is the very objection that the opposition takes to this legislation. We should not be putting an onus upon the police at any level to prove their innocence. We should not be putting that onus upon these drivers. Let us just think what these police drivers now have to prove on the balance of probabilities. Let us think about the first thing they have to prove if they want to defend themselves on the balance of probabilities, as the minister asserted on radio this morning and in the chamber last night. The first thing that a hapless police officer has to prove is that at the time he was driving he was on official duty as a member of the police force. That might not be hard to prove in either of two ways. The first is by cross-examining the prosecution witnesses that the Commissioner of Police calls—the internal investigators—to get him to concede that or by going into the witness box. Secondly, this police driver who finds himself unfortunately as the accused person, has to establish, according to the minister—it is right because it is the plain meaning of the legislation—on the balance of probabilities that he or she was acting — … substantially in accordance with the Commissioner’s policies and guidelines relating to driving, applicable at the time of the driving, and any direction given under such a policy … Think about it. If the officer is being prosecuted, the Commissioner of Police would have already determined that the accused officer had not acted substantially within his guidelines, which is why he would have charged the officer. The commissioner does not have to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt. The officer has to come along to court, and he or she, carrying the burden of proof, has to satisfy the court that the commissioner was wrong and that he or she was driving substantially within the police operating rules. Why should an accused officer have to carry this burden when no other driver has to carry this burden? When a person is prosecuted for dangerous driving causing death, it is up to the prosecution to prove that the driver was driving in a dangerous or reckless manner. The prosecution may refer to the speed or, as the former minister knows, the intoxication of the driver at the time of the fatality. The police commissioner has to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt. Under this silly police minister’s law, when a police officer is charged, if the police officer wants to avail himself of this defence, he or she has to prove the defence. That is what the minister said on radio this morning. If I was the president of the Western Australian Police Union, I would be aghast. Mr M.J. Cowper: If you were the president of the police union, we would all be aghast. Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: What a smart comment. The member for Murray–Wellington is a former police officer. He has interjected, so I will pose a question to him, as he was a sergeant. Does he agree that the words “it is a defence to a prosecution for an offence against this section if the accused satisfies the court” put an onus upon the accused person at the time these three exceptions apply? If not, why not? Despite the quick, smart alec interjection by the member for Murray–Wellington, who was a police officer, by his silence he condemns the Minister for Police because he knows that what the government, by its ineptitude, and this minister, by her total ineptitude and her unsuitability to discharge the high office that she has been appointed to by the Premier, have done is reverse the onus of proof on the police. It will not be long before the police get their advice that of course this is correct. I have been saying this for nearly 24 hours now. I notice that the Attorney General for Western Australia, Hon Michael Mischin, has not come out and said it is a wrong interpretation of this legislation to say that any onus has been put on the police. The honourable Attorney General for the state of Western Australia has not come out and said it is incorrect to say that clause 7 reverses the onus of proof and puts it on the police. How could the Attorney General say that, because that is what the words say? In view of the honourable police minister’s own admission on the Paul Murray program this morning, that is exactly what the legislation did. Mr M.J. Cowper: And you’re supporting it. Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: Let us get this right. I am not supporting it; I am not dissenting from it. Why am I not dissenting from it? It is because the police minister sat down with the police and said, “This is what they want. If we don’t deliver what they want, they will engage in industrial action that will put Western Australian motorists at risk. That industrial action will be—if we don’t pass this law, they won’t take part in pursuits. We are not going to be any part of any scene — Mr F.A. Alban interjected. Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: I am not taking interjections from the peanut gallery this afternoon. This is far too important an issue to hear from the peanut gallery. Mr F.A. Alban: Oh, you hurt me. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Swan Hills! Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: I shall assist you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to keep him quiet. I will direct a question to the member for Swan Hills; it is the same question I directed to the member for Murray–Wellington. Does he say that the words in clause 11—“if the accused satisfies the court”—do not put an onus on the accused person? Mr F.A. Alban: I say, member, that your side has already —

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Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: Does the member say yes or no — Mr F.A. Alban: Every word you say from then on is hypocritical. If you oppose this, you should have stood up and opposed it. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Swan Hills! Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: The member for Swan Hills is just lost for an answer; he cannot answer the question. The member for Murray–Wellington, the former police sergeant, sat mute when the question was asked of him because he knows that what the Barnett government is doing is an act of betrayal on all pursuit drivers in the police force and all emergency vehicle drivers. For the first time in Western Australia, the police are put in this invidious position of having to prove their defence on the balance of probabilities. It is shameful. I turn to the next thing that I asked of the police minister yesterday. When there are these high-speed pursuits, there is invariably a public debate on whether it was in the public interest that this or that particular pursuit occurred. It is the government’s role and the Commissioner of Police’s role, and they do discharge it, and the police minister’s role—the member for Hillarys discharged it; I heard him discharge it in this chamber—to establish and assert that when the police were engaged in these pursuits, they were acting in the public interest. I applaud the former minister for making those cases on the occasions they needed to be made. This silly police minister, this inept police minister, is reversing that and relieving the Commissioner of Police of the responsibility of having to establish that a particular chase was in the public interest and throwing that responsibility onto the individual pursuit driver. When that individual pursuit driver is in the dock as the accused, it is up to him to prove on the balance of probabilities that the pursuit was in the public interest. It is outrageous that a government would seek to throw this heavy burden on an individual police officer. Labor generally supports the propositions that when our police are out on the road exercising their authority and discharging their duty to the community—this is the Barnett government’s and the opposition’s expectation— they will intercept and stop criminals on our road who drive in a criminal fashion and injure people, as occurred with the accident at the airport the other day involving the scientist who was hit 20 minutes after he arrived in Australia. We expect the police, we want the police and we support the police in their endeavours to apprehend those drivers. We never imagined in a million years that there would be any government so stupid as to burden those drivers with the onus of having to establish their own innocence on the balance of probabilities. It is not unexpected that the union has not come out today because it will have been taking advice from its lawyers. This would not have happened if this had not all been done in a rush. The minister on the radio this morning said that the opposition has had this legislation for a week. The government, which has been preparing this legislation for six months, gave it to the opposition on Wednesday evening of the week before last, the day before this Parliament got up and we all went our different ways. A week before that, it was signed off by the police union and the police department. The member for Swan Hills asks why I am not going to vote against it. I have spoken loudly and consistently, and I hope clearly, against the proposition that the Barnett government is embarking upon, of throwing an onus upon the police for the first time in Western Australia of proving their defence on the balance of probabilities. This, in colloquial language, is a stuff-up, and the police should never have been put in the position that the Barnett government is putting them in today—ever! But we will not vote against it because apparently, we are told by the government, this is what the police want. If this is what the police want and the police are insisting on it, far be it for me to dissent. Had I been the legal adviser to the police union, as I was for more than a quarter of a century, I would have said, “Hotfoot it up to Parliament House now and make sure that they change the wording of this so they don’t prejudice police so that there is not a bias in this legislation against police.” As I say, hoons do not have to establish their innocence beyond reasonable doubt, and the criminals who drive on our roads do not have to establish their innocence on the balance of probabilities; it is only the police who are put in this position. It is a tragedy and a catastrophe! Mrs L.M. Harvey: But hoons aren’t being given a defence. Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: Yes, minister, would you like to repeat what you said on Paul Murray this morning? Mrs L.M. Harvey: The hoons aren’t being given a defence; the police officers are being given a defence. Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: We know that; we know that; we know that! I am saying that when the hoons defend themselves on a charge of dangerous driving causing death, the hoons are not given the extra burden of proving their innocence on the balance of probabilities. It is up to the prosecution to prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, whereas in this defence the government is giving to police, it is saying, “We’ll give you this defence, police, but you must prove this defence on the balance of probabilities.” I know that that might be a bit too complex for the minister, but I am sure any magistrate — Mr C.J. Barnett: How patronising! Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: I am sure that any magistrate will put their head around that in the first two or three minutes of legal submissions.

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Mr C.J. Barnett: We’ll report you to Julia Gillard! Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: What is that, Premier? Mr C.J. Barnett: I just said you were patronising. Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: How is it patronising to identify — Several members interjected. Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: How is it incompetent to identify — Several members interjected. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members! Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: I understand the Premier’s proposition to be this: “Yes, you can say that the minister is incompetent but because she is female, you’re a misogynist if you identify her incompetency.” That is hiding behind an apron! That is fatuous thinking. What is the test as to whether the minister is on top of her job? She offers the police a defence, and then says, “It’s up to you police officers to prove your defence on the balance of probabilities.” The police union, once it has woken up to this, should be rightly outraged. If the union is a bit embarrassed because it did not pick that up in its negotiations with the government, the union and the government at least have the obligation to go out there and tell all police officers loudly and clearly, “The Minister for Police has just changed the rules on you, boys and girls. They’ve just moved the goalposts.” The new Minister for Police says, “If you’re going to run a defence, you must prove your innocence and you must prove it on the balance of probabilities.” We say that is a disgraceful and despicable thing to do to police officers. We cannot wait to hear — Mr M.J. Cowper: Ha! Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: The member for Murray–Wellington is now laughing, but I take it, given the fact that he did not rebut what I said before, his laughter was one of agreement. He nods; let Hansard note that he nods as he got up from his chair. Anyone who reads this legislation knows, as the minister already said in the chamber last night, yes, those words require the police to prove those three elements of their defence, but, yes, they only have to prove it on the balance of probabilities. This is throwing, as I said, a burden on the police. Even in the most celebrated murder trial that Perth has ever seen and the acquittal of Mr Rayney last week, there was no obligation on Mr Rayney to establish any element of his innocence—none! He did not even give evidence, because the prosecution had to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and it failed to do so. But in this place, the Minister for Police has introduced a special and new rule against police that, unlike in a murder trial—as I just cited in Mr Rayney’s case, in which he did not have to prove anything; the police had to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and was unable to do so—in this case is biased and prejudiced against the police. The minister has to say in her third reading speech why the government has done this to police. Why has the government made the police a special category? Why has the government put an onus on police, which it has not put on hoons or any other driver, to prove their innocence? This is an act of betrayal of all police, emergency and urgent duty drivers. It is an act of betrayal that was brought about by the utter incompetence and ineptitude of the Minister for Police. MRS M.H. ROBERTS (Midland) [3.15 pm]: I am very pleased that the member for Mindarie—I believe he must leave the chamber as he has some guests waiting—was able to very fully outline his concerns about clause 11 of the Road Traffic (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2012, which inserts new section 61A. This bill has been exceptionally badly handled by the government. This has been an ongoing, festering issue for the best part of the year. A particular crash in Morley occurred earlier in the year, after which the Western Australian Police Union called for some strong action. The government said that it would draft legislation to support police officers in urgent duty driving and, more specifically, pursuit driving to offer police officers greater protections. What then ensued was that the June conference of the police union came around, and police union members wanted to move a motion to call upon the government to bring the legislation in and to ban all urgent duty driving. They then gave the government a deadline of 1 October to get the legislation through. That is how I recall the motion. I think that informally the discussion was around the view that if the union could see the legislation and that the government had made some good progress, there would be no need to proceed with the urgent duty driving ban on 1 October. Sensible heads on the police union board no doubt understand that Parliament goes through a due process and needs time to consider legislation. In the normal course of events, legislation should lie on the table of this house for three weeks. That is in our standing orders, and it is a very good principle because during that three-week period there is the opportunity for not only the opposition spokesperson and key interested people in the opposition to take advice, but also Independent members to take advice. Also, it gives other interested parties and affected parties in the community a chance to communicate any concerns that they may have to the opposition or, indeed, to the government. A

[ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] 8087 sensible government will always take heed of those concerns. If members of the community or people representing various interests present sensible options for amendments, a good minister and government will take those suggestions forward. All along we have offered to have a bipartisan approach with the government. We asked whether we could see the draft legislation, but that was not provided to us. I note, though, that although the minister chose to treat the opposition with contempt and not take a bipartisan approach with us, she did provide the legislation, after it had been to cabinet, to the police union, a week before she brought it into this house. Therefore, the minister did collaborate with the police union and presented it with the draft bill. The minister had an indication from the union that it was supportive of the legislation before she brought this bill into the house; indeed, this was before she showed the bill to the opposition. I would have thought that supporting our police officers is something that every member in this house wants to do, so I do not see what the big secret was. I do not see why the Minister for Police and this government chose to play politics with this issue. If it was not playing politics with it, the government could have shown us a draft, at least at the same time that it was shown to the police union. But this minister has not just shown contempt for this Parliament, she also does not have any understandings of its processes and procedures. We note that all the time in the various utterances that she makes. I understand that only this morning the Minister for Police said that staying here last night to debate this bill and other matters was somehow “a waste of oxygen”. I am sorry that the minister thinks that considering the detail of this bill, which is what we did last night, was a waste of oxygen. I think members made pretty sensible contributions. The only real concern out of last night was this minister’s incapacity to answer the questions put to her on the various clauses. Indeed, on the last couple of clauses we did not bother asking any questions because, frankly, we were sick of having either non-answers or sections of the explanatory memorandum read out to us, or, alternatively, an offer to halt proceedings while the opposition could have a briefing. After today, there are only four more sitting days. This government has left it to the dying days of its term in office to bring this legislation forward. It is rushed legislation. Some in the community will ask the question: why would the opposition support it? I note that the opposition leader made one very clear point today: this legislation will pass this house on the numbers whether or not the opposition supports it. I want to draw the Minister for Police’s attention to proposed section 61A, which is the section that the member for Mindarie and shadow Attorney General drew her attention to. I am guessing that we will not get much of an answer again in the third reading and we will have some assertions. The minister’s response last night was very much to the effect that she actually believes that proposed section 61A will enhance protections for police officers and will provide them with better opportunities to defend themselves. I do not have any quarrel with that. I understand that the minister really believes that this will be to the benefit of police officers. That is why she has put it forward. But it seems to me that her mind is very closed because she can believe something as much as she likes—I made this point last night—but it does not necessarily make it true. Just because she believes that something might help police officers does not mean that it necessarily will help police officers. I look forward to the minister answering the member for Mindarie’s questions. I want to go through proposed section 61A very carefully and put some further aspects to the minister. Proposed section 61A is headed “Reckless or dangerous driving—defence for police officers in certain circumstances”. It states — (1) It is a defence to a prosecution for an offence against section 59(1)(b), 59A(1)(b), 60(1) or 61(1) if the accused — The accused in this circumstance will be a police officer — satisfies the court that, at the time of the alleged commission of the offence — (a) the accused was on official duty as a member of the Police Force — I just note there that I think the two words “the accused” are actually superfluous because “the accused” is in the first paragraph and is not repeated in proposed paragraphs (b) and (c). To have some consistency, we should delete the words “the accused” from there or insert “the accused” under (b) and (c). I just make that as more of a grammatical point than anything else. I repeat — … if the accused satisfies the court that, at the time of the alleged commission of the offence — (a) the accused was on official duty as a member of the Police Force; and — That is clear. I do not think there is any debate about that. There is the conjunctive “and”—not “or”. It continues — (b) the driving was substantially in accordance with the Commissioner’s policies and guidelines relating to driving, applicable at the time of the driving, and any direction given under such a policy or guideline; and

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Again, there is the conjunctive “and”. A police officer has to meet another criterion. It continues — (c) having regard to all of the circumstances of the case, it was reasonable, and in the public interest, for the accused to have driven the motor vehicle in the manner that he or she did. I want to make a number of points about this. Firstly, the Minister for Police failed to give any explanation about what would or would not be in the public interest or how that would be defined or tested. Secondly, the minister has refused to provide the Commissioner of Police’s guidelines relating to urgent duty driving, including pursuit driving. We do not have that information. We do not have any clarity on that in making this judgement. The key point I want to make is that a police officer has to meet all the criteria—not any one of those criteria, but all three. Meeting the first one is easy, but a police officer then has to meet the criteria of “substantially in accordance with the Commissioner’s policies and guidelines relating to driving, applicable at the time of the driving, and any direction given under such a policy” and also “having regard to all of the circumstances of the case, it was reasonable, and in the public interest, for the accused to have driven the motor vehicle in the manner that he or she did”. If an officer did something that met all the conditions in proposed paragraph (c)—“having regard to all of the circumstances of the case, it was reasonable, and in the public interest, for the accused to have driven the motor vehicle in the manner that he or she did”—that is, if the police officer could satisfy the court that it was reasonable and in the public interest to have driven the motor vehicle in the manner that he or she did, that would not be sufficient. Even if the accused can prove it was in the public interest and it was reasonable, that is not enough; that is not a defence. For it just to be “in the public interest” and for it just to be “reasonable” is not a defence under this proposed section. In the public interest and reasonable is not good enough. The police officer also has to meet the criterion of (b) — the driving was substantially in accordance with the Commissioner’s policies and guidelines relating to driving, applicable at the time of the driving, and any direction given under such a policy or guideline … It could be reasonable and it could be in the public interest, but that would be no defence under this law. Of course the reverse applies. Let us say, for the sake of the argument, that the police officer met all the criterion of (b); namely, that the driving was substantially in accordance with the commissioner’s policies and guidelines relating to driving, applicable at the time of the driving, and any direction given under such a policy or guideline. In fact let us go even further than that. Let us assume that the police officer’s driving was not just substantially in accordance with the commissioner’s policies and guidelines; it was 100 per cent in accord with the commissioner’s policies and guidelines. The police officer is 100 per cent in accord with the commissioner’s policies and guidelines and he is 100 per cent in accord with any direction that he is given, at the time of driving. They have met all of the commissioner’s guidelines, they have met all of the Commissioner of Police’s policies and procedures and they have obeyed to the letter of the law, 100 per cent, any directions that they have been given. However, if they cannot demonstrate to the court that their actions were reasonable in the public interest, it seems that they are left out to dry, because they have to meet both criteria. How unfortunate would that be! What an invidious position for a police officer to be in. I am a former English teacher; I am not a lawyer like Mr Quigley, but I have debated a lot of legislation in this house over the past 18 years and I have a pretty good grasp of English. I know that there is a difference between the words “or” and “and”, and where we have the word “and” we have to meet both sets of criteria. The member for Mindarie alluded to this fact briefly in his comments during the second reading debate yesterday, but it is a very, very important point—that a person must meet both sets of criteria. A police officer could do something that is entirely reasonable and 100 per cent in the public interest, but if it is not substantially in accordance with the commissioner’s guidelines and policies or if it is not substantially in accordance with the direction given to him, despite it being in the public interest and being reasonable, that will not be a defence. Conversely, if an officer follows the commissioner’s guidelines and policies and any directions given to him 100 per cent, if the officer cannot satisfy the court—these are the words used in this clause—that what the officer did was reasonable and in the public interest, the officer will be on his own; he or she will not have a defence under this clause. That is how it reads to me. It is not sufficient for the minister to respond at the third reading stage and say simple things like, “You are wrong. That is not the case. I really believe that this is much better and this is what I really believe will better protect police officers, and I really believe that this will provide them with a better defence than what currently exists.” We need a response to the points raised by the member for Mindarie and me on proposed section 61A. The further point has been made that we did not perhaps delete these provisions and that we have not indicated that we will vote against the bill and show our disdain for the whole process. No, we will not, and I will tell members why. Perhaps if we had more time, we would give that consideration, but there are only four sitting days remaining for this house. We will not be accused of obstructing legislation that is designed to support

[ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] 8089 police. We will not be part of some spit-spat in which the minister says “is” and the member for Mindarie says “isn’t”, and in which the minister says that she is right and the member for Mindarie, with 25 years’ experience defending police officers, says he is right. Mr M.J. Cowper interjected. Mrs M.H. ROBERTS: The member for Murray–Wellington can have a little scoff about the member for Mindarie if he likes, but one thing that stands true is that the member for Mindarie had an exceptionally high success rate as a defence lawyer. There is no way that the Western Australian Police Union would have used him for 27 years if he was not successful. If he was not any good, it would have got rid of him after six months, three years, five years, 10 years or 20 years, but it did not because he knew his job and he did it well. He may have done or said things that have upset police officers in recent years, but nothing can take away from his record of successfully defending police officers in court. It would be beyond reason for the police union to continue to engage him each and every year over that period if he was not good at his job. I will not countenance any criticism on that front or any suggestion that the member for Mindarie is not a competent defence lawyer or does not know what he is talking about when it comes to these matters. I will outline what I expect will happen today. The government has chosen not to take a breather and get some alternative advice or wait until the union provides its advice and then bring this bill on tomorrow or next week; the government has called forward the third reading of this bill today. On that basis, we will support it today and we will see this bill progressed to the upper house. This does not mean that consideration of this legislation is over. It will be considered in the other house. Perhaps the minister may decide that some amendments are in order, or perhaps when the Attorney General in the other place has a look at this debate and reads the comments of the member for Mindarie, he might come up with an amendment that might strengthen the bill’s position. Everyone in this house says that police do difficult and dangerous work; they must make split-second decisions and they deserve to be protected when they are engaged in urgent duty driving. To suggest or to have some spit- spat argument about who supports them most—one side does or one side does not—is just juvenile and childish. We started this process by saying, “Let’s have a bipartisan approach. Share your draft legislation with us and let’s get this right on behalf of all police officers.” That approach was knocked back by the government. The government has the numbers in this place. The government has brought this bill before the house on such a narrow timetable; we now have only four days remaining for the Assembly to sit. We will not jeopardise any opportunity for better protection for police officers, and we will support this bill going through at its third reading today. However, I certainly intend to have further discussions with the police union specifically about this clause, and if the member for Mindarie is right, and if the police union believes that the government has let it down in this bill’s drafting and that changes are required, I will certainly support those changes. MRS L.M. HARVEY (Scarborough — Minister for Police) [3.37 pm] — in reply: I rise in the third reading debate of the Road Traffic (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2012 to address a number of comments and also to thank members for their contributions to debate on this very important legislation. I will make some points in response to the member for Mindarie’s comments. The defence that we are providing to police officers in these circumstances—the defence to reckless driving and dangerous driving—is a defence that is new; it is an additional protection that we are affording to our police officers. The defence does not in any way take away from defences already available to police officers. It is an additional defence. It does not prevent police from relying on other forms of defences or putting it to the prosecution to prove in relation to, for example, the presence of an emergency or any other tactical options open to any persons facing charges of any kind. When police engage in emergency driving and an adverse outcome ensues, the police internal investigations affairs unit goes through the elements of the emergency driving collision. There is an assessment at each point along the way to determine whether the officer engaged in the driving was driving in accordance with the commissioner’s policies and guidelines. An assessment is made of whether the steps that the officer took during the course of that pursuit were reasonable, and whether the elements of the commissioner’s policies and guidelines related to emergency driving had been adhered to; that is, that the driving was in the public interest and that the pursuit of the offender was indeed in the public interest. At the end of that internal affairs investigation, if it is deemed that the officer may be subject to reckless driving or dangerous driving charges, those charges are laid against the officer, and the officer then needs to take those charges through to court, and it is up to the prosecution and the state, as they do in all matters that go to a court, to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the officer was indeed guilty of those offences, and a conviction is made as either a guilty verdict or a not guilty verdict. What this defence effectively does is that if the elements of the defence become apparent during the course of the investigation of the pursuit, police internal investigations, in consideration of the specific elements of the defence, will guide the decision about whether there is a prima facie case to bring charges against a police officer under the Road Traffic Act. Mr J.R. Quigley: Total agreement so far.

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Mrs L.M. HARVEY: So effectively what this will do is that if the elements of the defence are available, charges will not be brought against the police officer, and he or she will not then have to go to court to have those charges heard. So in this defence, which is a balance of probabilities test, if the officer was substantially complying and in accordance with the commissioner’s policies and guidelines, and if the other elements of the defence are present, the officer will avoid going to court. The officer will be able to get back on the road and get back to work, and the officer will not have their employment suspended while they go through a court process to have the court determine whether the charges against them should be preferred into a conviction. Mr J.R. Quigley: What if internal affairs says the elements are not there and the officer says yes, they are? Who determines that? Mrs L.M. HARVEY: The member for Mindarie needs to get clear on what he is saying about this, because I wrote down what he said last night. He said that we have now made it so that should someone be charged by the police department or by their superiors in internal affairs with a dangerous driving causing death offence, there will be a burden of proof on them to establish the three elements of the defence beyond a reasonable doubt. Mr J.R. Quigley: I never said beyond a reasonable doubt. I said on the balance of probabilities. Mrs L.M. HARVEY: The member for Mindarie said beyond a reasonable doubt last night. I wrote it down, and that is what he said; and that is why I said he is wrong. Mr J.R. Quigley: I said on the balance of probabilities. Mrs L.M. HARVEY: The member can check Hansard tomorrow. Mr J.R. Quigley: I said on the balance of probabilities. Mrs L.M. HARVEY: The member can check Hansard. That is what he said. Mr J.R. Quigley: I have it here. I will read it back to you. The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr M.W. Sutherland): Member for Mindarie! Move on, minister, please. Mrs L.M. HARVEY: To go back to the elements of the defence, if a matter goes to court and an accused officer wishes to rely on this defence, with reference to the guidelines and policies that exist, the officer will have to raise the defence on the balance of probabilities. The officer will not, as the member claimed at various points last night, have to show that the defence exists beyond a reasonable doubt. This is not at all strange or out of the ordinary. Mr J.R. Quigley: At page 8 of last night’s transcript I said on the balance of probabilities. Mrs L.M. HARVEY: It is the same as most offences in the Road Traffic Act. Mr J.R. Quigley: You are wrong. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Mindarie! Mrs L.M. HARVEY: For example, section 49(2)(b) of the Road Traffic Act makes it a defence to a charge of driving without a licence for any person to prove that they were authorised to drive without a licence. Section 67 of the Road Traffic Act makes it a defence to a charge of refusing a blood test or driving under the influence if a person satisfies a court that there is a good reason why they refused such a test. The reason for that is that police officers are always better placed to know the reasons why they did what they did. So what will happen is that when an accident occurs, police will be required to conduct an internal investigation, as I said previously. One of the things that that internal investigation always covers is whether the relevant guidelines and policies were followed. Unless WA Police form the view that there is absolutely no doubt that there has been a very serious breach of any relevant guidelines and policies, so that they were not substantially complied with, the matter will end there and no charges will be laid, because there will be no reasonable prospect of a conviction. Several members interjected. Mrs L.M. HARVEY: In other words, it is a defence that has been designed to stop matters going to court at all. Mrs M.H. Roberts: What about the public interest test? Mrs L.M. HARVEY: I am clarifying it for members. Members should perhaps listen to what I am saying. If the matter does go to court, the reason this defence provides an additional protection is that it is intentionally more broad than just those situations in which a sudden or extraordinary emergency exists, such as in the existing Criminal Code provisions that the member raised. For example, a vehicle intercept, which is the most common form of police driving, is authorised under the commissioner’s guidelines and policies and includes checking speeds of a vehicle or seeking to stop a vehicle. Priority 2 driving is now also covered by this defence. This involves responses to incidents that are not necessarily life-threatening. Covert driving, which is driving or riding in an unmarked police vehicle where an exemption to the normal statutory traffic requirements is necessary, is also not necessarily in response to a sudden or extraordinary emergency. The defence that we are affording

[ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] 8091 police officers under this legislation covers a much broader range of police emergency driving and is a defence that was not available to them prior to this bill. In all these situations, officers at the moment have no protection if they are facing charges of dangerous driving causing death or bodily harm, or non–speed related reckless driving. If something catastrophic happens when they are carrying out one of those tasks, they have no protection. The government’s bill will for the first time give them that protection. This is the advice that the government has received, and the substance of what I have discussed with the police union so far. If the union has any further concerns, I am happy to discuss this matter with it. What this legislation also does in passing is substantially increase the penalties for those who seek to evade police, those who seek to flee police in any circumstances and those who end up being charged with driving recklessly or dangerously while fleeing police. Point of Order Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: Mr Deputy Speaker, I have been seriously misrepresented. I have checked the Hansard, and time and again I see the words “on the balance of probabilities.” I have been empirically misrepresented by the minister. I said “on the balance of probabilities.” The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sit down, member for Mindarie. That is not a point of order. Carry on, minister. Debate Resumed Mrs L.M. HARVEY: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The other aspect of this legislation—this is one of the reasons that I am very pleased that we have had support for this legislation—is that it substantially increases the penalties for those people who engage in this incredibly dangerous behaviour. I believe that we have got it about right. I think that this legislation provides the right kind of balance. I believe that the defence strikes an appropriate and transparent balance between protecting police officers who are involved in pursuits as part of their duties and also requiring that police officers meet public interest expectations about how they conduct themselves in performing their duties. Indeed, I thank members for their support of this legislation. I think this is an important piece of legislation that we have brought forward today. It will protect police officers. It will provide them with the assurances that they need in order to go about their duties, knowing that they have a state government which supports them and is behind them and which will support them when things do not turn out the way that they had intended. As to Personal Explanation Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: Mr Deputy Speaker, I seek to make a personal explanation. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: No; there is no personal explanation. Mr J.R. QUIGLEY: Mr Deputy Speaker, you have not heard what I have to say! How can you say I do not have a personal explanation? I want to personally explain that I said “on the balance of probabilities” time and again. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sit down, member for Mindarie. Third Reading Resumed Question put and passed. Bill read a third time and transmitted to the Council. LOAN BILL 2012 Second Reading Resumed from 23 October. MR I.M. BRITZA (Morley) [3.49 pm]: I take this opportunity to speak about several community advocates in my electorate who have done a lot of work behind the scenes; they do not get paid, and they do not get the recognition or the accolades that many others in public life get, but it is our responsibility to advocate for them, to present their issues and to acknowledge them in this place. I have several schools in my electorate; there are many, many primary schools, but until the boundary change, I had only one high school, Morley Senior High School. Since the boundary change, I now also have Mirrabooka Senior High School in my electorate. Today I want to speak specifically about Morley Senior High School. The principal, Gay Fortune, and her teaching and administrative staff are an outstanding group of men and women. Although the school has experienced some wonderful successes over the years and has a wonderful heritage, it has been through a rough patch. However, the school and the staff have come together and have put together quite a few things about which they can hold their heads up high. The school has had extraordinary academic success; in fact, many parents have chosen Morley Senior High School for their children after having tried many other schools, public and private, and have had wonderful results. Along with these academic successes, the

8092 [ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] school has had to deal with terrible and appalling tragedy, with loss of life of both students and teachers alike. The school has had to get through those events and come together, and it has done so extremely well and should be commended for that. The school has also had outstanding success in its sport and aviation accomplishments. The students, particularly in the aviation department, have been extraordinary. Students of 15 or 16 years of age have earned their pilot’s licence, which is wonderful. I know that for many years, long before I became a member of Parliament, the school was dealing with an inadequate toilet block. It seems a bit strange to talk about this kind of thing in the house, but for at least 15 years, maybe more, the school had to deal with an unsuitable toilet block and, finally, I am glad to say, this government gave the school an upgrade and the toilets have been fixed—about which everyone is very, very thankful. Mr D.A. Templeman: Very relieved, I would have thought! Mr I.M. BRITZA: Yes, I agree! But now the school is dealing with two issues that are very important and that I want to bring before the house. The science rooms have not been touched for more than 20 years, maybe even longer. They should have been renovated many years ago, and I am advocating for these rooms in particular to be renovated, as many other schools have been renovated. I have been to Hampton Senior High School and I have seen the renovation of the science block there; it is outstanding, and I feel that our school deserves just the same. Like most other schools, Morley Senior High School has sports facilities that genuinely need upgrading. But in spite of these difficulties, the school still experiences excellent enrolments and has a teaching and administration staff that I believe would be the envy of any senior academic educational institution in our state. Along with its outstanding administration, its graduation students have consistently surpassed the highest expectations, and their parents should be justifiably proud of them. I turn now to a group of people of which the general community often does not have a lot of understanding, and in many respects does not really care about. I refer to the Friends of Lightning Swamp. I would not call myself a greenie, but I would call myself an environmentalist, and I think it behoves us to listen to people who actually care about things that we may not have a full understanding of. The Friends of Lightning Swamp, led by John Williams, has fought long and hard to bring about an understanding within the community of the importance of this environmental heritage. John and his team have worked very, very diligently to protect this small reserve by building fences around the property. Unfortunately, their work has fallen prey to antisocial behaviour and the fences have been uprooted and damaged, but they have also established boardwalks so that schools can walk into the area without damaging the ground. Unfortunately, even these have fallen prey to social disorder and many of these wonderful things that the environment group has put together have suffered from extreme vandalism. Now, having finished these with the help of the City of Bayswater, we are planning to build an educational centre in order to instruct and educate the children on the importance of taking care of the environment around them. In this respect, I am very supportive of the group. I have joined John and his team undercover, so to speak, for the last three years to assist them to have their voice heard in the community. I believe that Lightning Swamp simply must not be allowed to degenerate and fall apart, especially because of the poisonous stormwater run-off that eventually runs off and seeps from the Malaga business centre; it appears that no-one seems to care about this, but disgraceful run-off comes from that area, and it is something that I believe we need to get hold of. The Department of Environment and Conservation has taken away a lot of the oversight of the poisons of that area, and it is something that we need to stand up and fight off and reinstitute. I, for one, commend the Friends of Lightning Swamp and trust that they will be able to get their message across to our community. The Morley Noranda Recreation Club lies at the very centre of my electorate and it is a hub of activity amongst seniors, as well as many other people who use its rooms continually. The president, John Payne, is a very colourful man and retired principal who is never afraid to speak his mind. He runs a tight ship and a very successful one—one of the most successful lawn bowls clubs in Western Australia. Although the recreation club is primarily a lawn bowls club, it also has a very strong darts club. There are several rooms that are extensively and constantly used by the public; in fact, there is no more room now for the public to use, and it is rapidly approaching the point where demand outweighs what they have. The club is increasing to such an extent that it needs substantial funding to renovate and extend its rooms in order to keep up with public demand. I advocate for this, because it is something that our community needs. Younger people are coming in, slowly but surely, but it is primarily a place where seniors meet. It is very important to us. Several months ago, the Premier joined me at the Lightning Park Recreation Centre, which is the home of the mighty Noranda Hawks. We met with the president, Mr Shawn Blanch, and also members of the board and parents. There was also a group of five or six kids who had a football and they handballed to the Premier; he took that ball and kicked it back to them like he had never lost his touch from when he played football. It was quite amazing; I was delighted to see his dexterity in that form. We spoke with them for quite a while, and after meeting with them I decided to assist the club in personally providing the finances for a new scoreboard and siren. That may not seem like much, but they had a really—I do not know if this is the right term—piddly little siren that could not be heard when the game was finished. A couple of times the game had finished with only a couple of points the difference, but play continued because nobody could hear the siren, including the umpires.

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Now they have a siren that I reckon can be heard all around the electorate; we paid enough money for it, but I am proud that they have got that and I was delighted to be part of it. However, the rooms in which they hold all their functions cannot cater for all the parents. They have too many members. The junior groups are growing at a phenomenal rate, which is absolutely outstanding, but they too desire funds to increase the size of their clubrooms so that they can keep up with the demands of both the parents and the young boys who are learning to kick a football. The Noranda Hawks club is within the East Perth Football Club area, and it gets great support from the East Perth Football Club, of which I am a member and have been a supporter for many years now. I am delighted about that. Mr Shaun Blanch and his team should be very proud of their club, and we are supporting them strongly to get their clubrooms. My electorate has a vast number of seniors. Until the electorate boundaries changed I did not have a retirement home in my electorate, but with the boundary changes my constituents include the residents of the Rosemount Retirement Village, which I have visited many times. I have been delighted to go to Rosemount and meet its residents. Mr Warren Brady, who runs the Rosemount village in my electorate, needs to be commended, simply because it is often a thankless task doing the things that he does every day, seven days a week. All the staff and the residents are a credit to the electorate and the community as a whole because of the continuing and delightful way they approach the wonderful seniors in their later years, when there are ever-increasing challenges in their lives. It is a place that the community ought to recognise more fully. I am beginning to close, just to give the Deputy Speaker a little hope! Law and order is still the number one issue not only in my electorate but around the state. It does not matter on which side of politics we stand, our seniors are concerned about law and order. They are concerned about being safe in their homes. Unfortunately, the Deputy Speaker and I, along with many other members, have many constituents who have been robbed while they have been in their homes. Some of my constituents have not only been robbed in their homes but assaulted as well. Seniors are frightened, and the issue of protecting them is very important. The police are aware of it. We are aware of it. We hear them. We acknowledge their concerns. I want to declare that not only do I support them in principle, but also it is the top concern I have in my electorate. People need to feel safe to walk down to the shop, walk around the block or walk their dog. I believe that it does not matter who is in government, the people of our state need to be able to live in their homes and know they will be protected by the police force. This is something we cannot emphasise enough. The last area of concern I want to bring to the house relates to constituents who live in a particular area on Noranda Avenue, Noranda. I take this occasion to present a very difficult and complicated matter concerning disruptions to the water supply that happen several times a year in this street, and it has been happening for several years; the pipe breaks in the same place in front of the same house on top of a hill. Their garage fills up with 150 centimetres of water. I can see the frustration of these people. Even though I go there to see them, to hear them and to get an understanding of what they are dealing with, I feel frustrated when the department comes out, digs a hole in their lawn and there is sand everywhere. When I drive down that street, it seems that every 20 metres or so new concrete and bitumen has been laid because this pipe just keeps breaking. I have been told it is a seal problem. I do not care what it is! For the last several years, these people have had their water cut off for a couple of days at a time, and it is just not good enough. I know that we have got to a place at which it is very easy to take for granted our electricity and water supplies. But we do need them, and when we do not have them, especially in our senior years, it is a very difficult thing. I want to bring this issue up on behalf of my constituents, because we need a solution to this issue that they face on a regular basis. I bring that issue to the house on their behalf. In this last couple of minutes I want to acknowledge my staff. We all think we have the best staff in the world. Several members interjected. Mr I.M. BRITZA: I see that there will be a continuous disruption concerning this. It is good that our staff know that we feel we have the best staff. I am very grateful to have three female angels who look after me. When I chose my staff, I made sure that my wife was there as well, which was a good decision. These women protect me in every way possible. I am very grateful to them and for their patience in guiding me in what needs to be done in my electorate. It is an outstanding electorate. The majority of my constituents are seniors, of which I am nearly one. It is a wonderful thing to present their concerns before this Parliament and this government and to get a solution in the areas they need assistance. I appreciate the opportunity to represent them. MR J.C. KOBELKE (Balcatta) [4.05 pm]: I wish to use this opportunity to place before the house something that is causing me very serious concern in the care of aged people, particularly aged people who are no longer competent to look after their own affairs but who have loving family members who are involved with their care. The concern for me is nothing compared with the horror that has beset a number of families that have come to me with these issues. I am very concerned, as it appears that it almost amounts to state-sponsored elder abuse. We are cleaning up the mess that we made by removing Aboriginal children from their families. We have ongoing issues from young unmarried women having their babies removed from them. We have the issue of

8094 [ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] child migrants and how the state handled that poorly. I fear that if I do not speak up and this house and the government do not take action, we will end up in future years hearing the stories of all these people who have had the state intervene in their care and simply left them without adequate care. The state has a role in some instances and public officers have to take control of the lives of people, but they should not be doing it to the exclusion of loving family members. That is the issue that causes me great angst. I believe that our system is out of balance. It is not one part of the system; whether it is the State Administrative Tribunal, the Office of the Public Advocate or aged-care providers, the whole system needs to be reviewed and the balance reset. We know that we have a growing problem in our community with dementia. People are living longer and losing the ability to look after their own affairs, and we need to manage that; we need to assist them. That places a considerable requirement on governments, state and federal, to help these people. However, when people have loving family members committed to their care, I believe the state should not be interfering. This is not a Stalinist state. We should not have state officers appointed to take over the management, the guardianship or the administration of aged people with dementia when there are loving, capable family members who are willing to do that, and have done so for many years. However, by putting in place a guardianship order, these people are locked out. They are pushed away from their loved parent or wife. I fear that sometimes these decisions are being made for the administrative convenience of the aged-care provider, because it is easier to put in a public officer and one-step remove the loving family members who are complaining that the person is lying in their faeces and not being looked after, or the window is not being closed and the person is cold because the wind is blowing on them; or the alarm bell to call a nurse is not within the person’s grasp. When people complain about these and like issues time and again, it seems that it might be an administrative convenience for the aged-care provider to simply appoint the Public Advocate, so that when the loving family member complains, they are told to go and see the Public Advocate as they do not have the legal right to represent their mother or their wife. This is something that I believe is totally inappropriate; it is a matter that causes me great concern. My mother is 92 years old. She is not competent to look after her own affairs. She sometimes does not know my name. She thinks I am a train driver. She keeps saying that she wants to come for a ride on my train. But she knows when I am there. She says, “You’ve made my day. It’s so great to see you.” It is great to see her, to hold her hand and to help her. I therefore understand the real concerns and problems that these families are going through—I will talk about the cases I know about in a minute—when they are shut out from providing that loving care for their mother or wife. Quite often that time spent cannot be provided by a paid public servant. Our aged-care providers are under stress. They cannot have someone stay there for hours holding a person’s hand, comforting them, giving them a glass of water and trying to make them more comfortable. This is not to say that our aged-care providers do not do a fantastic job. But there are economic realities of the number of staff and the time that they can give, so we should be doing everything to encourage those loving family members to give that support to aged persons who are no longer competent to look after themselves. We should not be shutting them out by putting in place public officers to take care of their needs. Often when people get to that age, particularly if they come from a non–English speaking background, the family members have a much better understanding of what they are trying to say. It might be a nod in response to questions asked of them. It might be a particular way in which they talk that the family is aware of and understands the implications of what they are trying to communicate. There are many loving, paid people working in aged care, but they do not all have the ability to understand people from a different language background or the peculiarities of each individual in order to have that level of communication that a close family member has. We should therefore be doing everything to encourage those family members to have that closeness, to have that care and to spend time with them, and not be pushing them away by putting the Public Advocate in their place. These aged people are vulnerable; they often cannot speak up for themselves. A loving family member can do that. If they do it in a way that is inconvenient to the aged-care provider or if they are a bit aggressive in their ways because they feel that their mother or wife is not getting the care they want, then yes, that is a management problem for the aged-care provider and would not always be easy to handle. But I believe it is an extreme resort to push those people away and put in a public officer to represent the interests of that aged person. We do need public guardians and public administration because there are times when family members abuse their aged relative and do not look after their best interests. In those cases we do need people to step in. The issue is then whether we are actually to take this matter seriously and make sure that there is no state-sponsored elder abuse in the way in which our system is currently functioning, because we do have within our public sector many good professional people who do a good job. I now refer to the State Administrative Tribunal and the number of guardians appointed for adult people that I have been given in answers to parliamentary questions. In 2006, there were 204. In 2012, if we take the figure up to the month I was given and spread that out across the year, it is likely to be 650 in the current year—a threefold increase. A small quote from the annual report of the Office of the Public Advocate for 2011–12 states — In 2011/12, over 40 per cent of new matters referred for investigation involved a person with dementia and nearly 40 per cent of the people for whom the Public Advocate was appointed guardian for the first time have dementia.

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The office, according to this annual report, has 42.8 full-time equivalent staff to look after hundreds of cases, to provide reports to the State Administrative Tribunal, to be there to look after the interests of these aged people, to communicate with family and to communicate with the aged-care provider. They simply do not have the resources to be there when the person has a problem, when they are rushed to hospital or when they are not being looked after—yet the loving family members are removed. If when they talk to the aged-care provider and they have a stand-off or a problem, they are told to go and see the Public Advocate. They then find that the person from the Office of the Public Advocate who has been put in charge is on holiday and is unavailable. It is ridiculous to put in a representative of the state between loving family members and an aged person who needs that level of care. The state therefore is unable to provide the resources to put in public servants to take on the role of loving family members. I will refer to the Guardianship and Administration Act 1990. The principles stated in section 4 to be observed by the State Administrative Tribunal go to two main sections that I think are relevant to these cases. Subsection (2) states — The primary concern of the State Administrative Tribunal shall be the best interests of any represented person, or of a person in respect of whom an application is made. Clearly the judgement should be about their interests, not the interests of the aged-care provider, not the interests of the relatives, but the interests of the person who actually may have a guardianship and administration order made for them. Further on, subsection (4) states — A guardianship or administration order shall not be made if the needs of the person in respect of whom an application for such an order is made could, in the opinion of the State Administrative Tribunal, be met by other means less restrictive of the person’s freedom of decision and action. So, again, the order should not be made if a less restrictive means could be used. Clearly, orders may need to be made for these people, but I would think in the spirit of that, it should be a family member. I come now to quickly go through four cases, if I have time, of people who have been caught up in this issue. I would like to talk about Jim and Valerie. Jim has come into my office on many occasions totally distraught about how his wife, Valerie, has been taken away from him after 30 years of marriage. I have ample evidence that they have a very warm, loving relationship. They are pensioners with a comfortable home in my electorate. Jim has been the main carer for Valerie, who is 82 years of age, since her stroke in 2008. Valerie is frail, has dementia and suffers seizures for which she is prescribed Epilim. She cannot verbally communicate but Jim certainly tells me that he sees the affection in her eyes when he is caring for her. On various levels of Epilim, she still has seizures, so it is a matter of balancing the medication because if she takes too much she becomes drowsy, falls asleep and misses a meal. Jim has some medical problems of his own but he is fortunately in good health at the moment. He certainly feels he is most capable of looking after Valerie. He is totally devoted to her care. Up until about a year ago he fed her, used the thickening fluids that are needed for her food, medicated her, bathed her, toileted her and used the hoist that he has in the house. The policy across state and federal governments has been to enable people to stay in their home and to be cared by loved ones. Carer support was provided seven days a week to come in and help Jim look after Valerie, but Jim got ill and Valerie had to go into respite care; and, through a range of times in and out of hospital, the aged-care provider decided that a public guardian needed to be put in and that Jim was no longer capable of looking after his wife, Valerie. Clearly there were concerns at the time about Jim’s health, but I believe that we should have simply upped the support to allow him to do that at home. I think that would certainly have been a very practical solution to the problem. When they get to the State Administrative Tribunal, hearsay evidence is accepted as if it is fact. The fact that Jim has not got on with his stepchildren very well was used to say there is dissension in the family. One stepdaughter supported him and two other kids did not. That was used to say that he could not look after her, even though he has been doing it for several years. The doctor wrote a letter, which was not entered into evidence at the time, saying that he has seen that loving relationship and the good care that Jim has given to Val. The whole thing was twisted to try to make it look like he could not look after her because of some little problems in the family and because he changed the medication slightly when Val was getting too sleepy. He gave an undertaking that he would go through a training program if necessary, but no, Val was put into a nursing home. Jim visits her almost every day and spends several hours there trying to look after her, and it is eating his heart out. He wants Val back in their home where he can look after her. It is destroying him. Yet we put in a public administrator to look after her and lock Jim out of being the primary carer for his wife, Val. The second case involves a woman I will refer to as Mrs T because her daughter is a state government employee, a professional woman, and at this stage does not want her name released. Mrs T is an 80-year-old of Italian background who, in better health, can walk with assistance and communicate with family members in single words or short phrases, and, through that, make known her wishes. Mrs T was transferred from Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital’s delirium unit to the Osborne Park older adult mental health unit in 2009 with a urinary tract infection and serious delirium in the context of existing dementia. She was a problem. She was making a lot of

8096 [ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] noise and disturbing other people in the ward. The family, particularly her daughter, Miss T, agreed with the doctors to try different types of medication. Because she is professional, she knew what were appropriate levels of medication in these cases. When the doctors wanted to go beyond what was recommended as reasonable, the family said no. They were not happy with some of the treatment that was being given to their mother. It was so bad in one case that her daughter took her to Sir Charles Gairdner to try to get a second opinion. She not only had dementia but also suffered from a range of conditions, as the Minister for Health would know, relating to bowel retention, which sends people off if those things are not balanced. Because Miss T took her mother to Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and got a second opinion, the social workers or the psychiatrists went to the State Administrative Tribunal and got a guardianship order against the two daughters and the son who were caring for and seeing their mother almost every day. They had been taking her washing home and bringing her food. They were just locked out. In fact, one of the daughters, not the Ms T whom I mentioned, wrote an email to me outlining how humiliated they felt in front of the State Administrative Tribunal. According to my notes, it states — I suppose until it affects them, or you, the public, you will never know how it feels for some stranger to take over your loved one’s life and decide what, and when she should eat, sleep, be drugged out, used for drug trials, walked, and changed. Our mother has feelings, we the family feels them, see her internal pain and suffering, and share that with her, but we the family remain helpless, because the SYSTEM shuts us out and so we have to sit back and watch her die slowly. Where is the justice in THAT? These families are just being torn apart by being locked out. [Member’s time extended.] Mr J.C. KOBELKE: Mrs T was transferred from Selby Lodge to a southern suburb aged-care facility, so her daughter has a 50­kilometre round trip to visit her mother. She visits her almost every day. Because her mother had a new doctor, the daughter phoned the doctor and asked if she could come and see him. She thought he was a wonderful doctor. She explained her mother’s medical history, her bowel retention problems and about her not getting enough fluid. The Public Advocate said, “You have no right to see that doctor.” A little later she emailed that doctor setting out a whole lot of issues about her mother’s condition. A representative from the Public Advocate wrote her this letter, which I will read in part — Thank you for your fax dated 11 September 2012 regarding you mother … the contents have been noted. I am leaving out certain parts that identify people. It continues — I am also aware that you have copied this fax to your mother’s GP despite being aware that further contact with the doctor would result in the doctor withdrawing his services, as discussed at the meeting on 31 July 2012. … Manager … HDU, called on 13 July 2012 to advise that the doctor has withdrawn his services as of 3pm on 12 September 2012. She further advised that she will attempt to have a locum doctor agree to visit Mrs … in the interim. The Public Advocate is very concerned about this situation and considers that Mrs … health and well being have been compromised as a direct consequence of your actions which is unacceptable. I find that letter abhorrent. Miss T has relayed to me that she had great confidence in the doctor. Obviously the Public Advocate or the aged-care provider has gone to the doctor and, I surmise, pointed out that he could end up in litigation if he communicates with his patient’s daughter, and the doctor has withdrawn. Given all I have been told, why else would he withdraw? We have this interference by public servants between an aged person who needs help and a loving family member. The State Administrative Tribunal has got the balance wrong. People should not be getting between the aged person in care and their loving family members. The third case involves Dorothy, who has lived in an aged-care facility since August 2009. She was a Macedonian speaker but she cannot speak now because of her condition. I am told that she is mentally quite alert but has a communication problem. She has two daughters, a son and a husband. This case was taken to the State Administrative Tribunal without her husband getting a chance to be there and without her son or two daughters being there to represent their mother’s interest, and the Public Advocate was made the guardian for their mother. The hospital makes an accusation that the son who has visited his mother every day has sexually interfered with her. This is totally unbelievable. This woman cannot talk. How did the hospital get an accusation out of her? She would have had to have been led to it. The hospital got a violence restraining order against him to stop him going to the hospital. One was withdrawn and the other one was simply rejected when it went to court as there was no basis to it. The daughter visited her mother on Easter Sunday with her teenage son. The hospital said that her teenage son was not on the list of approved visitors and he had to leave. A teenage son seeing his grandmother on Easter Sunday, a special occasion for the Macedonians, is thrown out of the aged-care home. When the family inquired, they were told that there was no list, but that is what they were originally told because they kept

[ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] 8097 complaining that the aged-care program was not being adhered to for their mother. We are seeing administrative convenience being used as a way to keep people out because the Public Advocate, with respect to Dorothy, has been given the legal power to decide where she is to live, with whom she is to live, any treatment or health care she can have and who can visit her, and has the authority to commence or conduct a range of legal proceedings on her behalf. That is a standard clause in these cases. I do not have time to speak at length about the case involving Ms S. Ms S, in the Supreme Court judgement by Judge Heenan, had her property taken off her and sold. All her belongings were lost and the Supreme Court found that SAT had no legal grounds on which to do it. SAT was told that there was a psychiatrist report and used that assertion as evidence, but the Supreme Court showed that there was never a psychiatrist report. It never existed. But a health worker came up and said, “We have a psychiatry report; we’ll tick the box saying she is not competent and therefore a guardian has to be appointed.” The guardian was appointed, the house was sold, all the property lost and Ms S has no comeback because the State Administrative Tribunal simply took hearsay as evidence. That is common in the three cases I have already mentioned. I will finish now, but this Parliament has to do something about addressing what I believe is a major problem. I am not saying that we do not have good officers trying to do the right thing but, clearly, the whole system is out of balance. We see the role of public servants as being ahead of family and that should not be the case. We should be doing everything to keep families together to help loving family members care for their aged loved one. We should be supporting them, not getting in the way and excluding them because it is administratively convenient to lock them out. In the cases that I have given, that is what has happened. There are difficult cases and I understand that aged-care providers, nurses and social workers will see the real difficulties in handling some of these people, but we should not just go for administrative convenience to lock people out. Debate adjourned, pursuant to standing orders. LOCAL GOVERNMENT AMENDMENT (REGIONAL SUBSIDIARIES) BILL 2010 Business of the House — Standing Orders Suspension — Motion MR J.N. HYDE (Perth) [4.30 pm] — without notice: I move — That so much of standing orders be suspended as is necessary to enable private members’ business order of the day 12, Local Government Amendment (Regional Subsidiaries) Bill 2010, to be considered during time allocated for government business. The Local Government Amendment (Regional Subsidiaries) Bill 2010 has already passed the Legislative Council and is superior to the opportunist move by the minister to ditch four years of work by many of us in local government just to promote his own government’s new but deficient bill. The quickest, best way to achieve a regional subsidiaries act is to support this bill that I introduced. Hon Max Trenorden did some excellent work in ensuring the passage of this bill in 2011 in the Legislative Council. The WA Labor Party supported it strongly in the other place. I was distressed that the Barnett government failed to bring the bill on for debate in the Assembly, so I introduced the bill for debate on 13 June. I wrote to both the Liberal Minister for Local Government and the Leader of the National Party, Mr Grylls, urging them to support this bill. Neither even bothered to reply. I urge the Barnett government to salvage something from its woeful four and a half years of sloth in relation to local government by prioritising the passage of this bill in government time. The government has increased its sitting time for government business. We were all here until after midnight last night and the opposition’s own private members’ time has been cut. In four and a half years, it is not good enough to neglect a bill that has already passed the Legislative Council and underwent some significant work in the Legislative Council with the basic format of amendments that we agreed to. It is much simpler and quicker to progress this bill than to start again. Local government knows that both the Liberal and National Parties have been playing games and do not genuinely want to empower local communities through this bill. I urge both these parties and also the Ministers for Local Government and Regional Development to meet with Hon Max Trenorden and me to work out how we can progress this bill through the Assembly in government time with any amendments needed. Hon Max Trenorden and I have met with the Western Australian Local Government Association, local councils and stakeholders and have agreed with certain amendments. This is a much quicker, more efficient way to realise real legislative change, rather than allowing the minister to get away with tabling his own different deficient legislation and trying to debate it in both houses of this Parliament with barely a couple of days left. I urge the Leader of the House to agree to this request to suspend standing orders to progress this bill through government time. DR K.D. HAMES (Dawesville — Leader of the House) [4.33 pm]: The government does not support the suspension of standing orders. The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr A.P. O’Gorman): As this is a motion to suspend standing orders, we need to have an absolute majority for it to succeed. If I hear a dissentient voice, I will be required to divide the Assembly.

8098 [ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012]

Question put. The ACTING SPEAKER: There being a dissentient voice, a division is called. Division taken with the following result — Ayes (24)

Ms L.L. Baker Mr W.J. Johnston Mr J.R. Quigley Mr C.J. Tallentire Dr A.D. Buti Mr J.C. Kobelke Ms M.M. Quirk Mr P.C. Tinley Ms A.S. Carles Mr F.M. Logan Mr E.S. Ripper Mr A.J. Waddell Mr R.H. Cook Mr M. McGowan Mrs M.H. Roberts Mr P.B. Watson Ms J.M. Freeman Mr A.P. O’Gorman Ms R. Saffioti Mr M.P. Whitely Mr J.N. Hyde Mr P. Papalia Mr T.G. Stephens Mr D.A. Templeman (Teller) Noes (25)

Mr P. Abetz Dr E. Constable Mr R.F. Johnson Mr D.T. Redman Mr F.A. Alban Mr M.J. Cowper Mr A. Krsticevic Mr M.W. Sutherland Mr I.C. Blayney Mr J.M. Francis Mr W.R. Marmion Mr T.K. Waldron Mr I.M. Britza Mr B.J. Grylls Mr J.E. McGrath Mr A.J. Simpson (Teller) Mr T.R. Buswell Dr K.D. Hames Mr P.T. Miles Mr G.M. Castrilli Mrs L.M. Harvey Ms A.R. Mitchell Mr V.A. Catania Dr G.G. Jacobs Mr C.C. Porter

Pairs Mrs C.A. Martin Mr A.P. Jacob Mr M.P. Murray Mr J.H.D. Day Mr B.S. Wyatt Dr M.D. Nahan Question thus negatived. FIRE SEASON — STATE’S PREPAREDNESS Motion MR M. McGOWAN (Rockingham — Leader of the Opposition) [4.39 pm]: I move — That the house calls on the Barnett government to give an assurance that the state is fully prepared to cope with the upcoming fire season. We have taken this action quite deliberately. We are now approaching mid-November and the fire season is rapidly approaching us, and this will be one of the last opportunities for Parliament to get an assurance that Western Australia is properly and fully prepared for what will shortly be upon us. In the last few years we have experienced some dramatic fire events at Toodyay, Kelmscott and Margaret River resulting in a significant loss of property and significant damage to people’s lifestyles and livelihoods over the fire season. Naturally, it will always be an issue in Western Australia. Considering the shutting down of Parliament, I would have to say, relatively early this year and the lack of the return of Parliament early next year, this is an opportunity for the government to provide a full assurance that Western Australia will be totally prepared for what will be upon us in December this year and January and February next year. We are seeking an assurance from the government as to what steps will be in place and whether this state is fully ready for those potential events. One of the reasons we moved this motion today is that some disturbing information has come to light in recent days by various upper house inquiries and through other information provided. I want to take members to some of the information provided earlier this month by Mr Murray Carter from the Department of Environment and Conservation. The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr A.P. O’Gorman): Members, it is very difficult to hear the Leader of the Opposition. Hansard has to record this correctly. There are numerous conversations going on. If members need to have a conversation, go outside. Mr M. McGOWAN: Mr Carter indicated that the department has not met its 200 000 hectare prescribed annual burn program. According to the transcript I have seen, just 7 000 hectares of the 200 000 hectare target has been met this financial year. That is a significant reduction in terms of the prescribed burning target. Over the past few years, only about 70 per cent of the prescribed burn target has been met by the state. That means there are large areas that would ordinarily be prescribe burned that have not been prescribe burned over the past few years. Naturally, as a consequence large areas are now relatively fire prone and are a danger to the livelihood, and indeed lives, of some people throughout the bushfire-prone areas of Western Australia. On top of that, Mr Wayne Gregson appeared before a recent upper house inquiry. He was asked about the impact of budget cuts to the former Fire and Emergency Services Authority, now the Department of Fire and Emergency Services. He was asked whether the budget implications of the government’s activities would impact upon the front-line services of the department itself, or the authority as it was.

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Mr T.R. Buswell: It is not what he was asked at all. Mr M. McGOWAN: I saw him on the television saying it. In any event, he was asked. Mr T.R. Buswell: That was not the question he was asked. Mr M. McGOWAN: I am absolutely confident. I saw him on the television saying this, and I would recognise him anywhere. I am absolutely confident he did. He is quoted as saying — “I don’t think I can give that ironclad … guarantee because it may mean in the fullness of time we’ll have to adjust some priorities,” … “I’m not going to make any rock solid guarantees that we’ll always get on top of major catastrophic events.” The more important comment was the first one in which he could not give any ironclad guarantees that front-line services will not be impacted by the activities of government. I thought that was significant in light of what we now know about the extraordinary underburning of Western Australian bush. Despite the objection of wine growers at times, underburning occurs for various reasons, including the dryness of winters, which impacts on the prescribed burn program. Some planning issues with residents can also make it difficult for prescribed burning to be undertaken. There is probably a plethora of other reasons for the paucity of the prescribed burn program. I thought what Mr Gregson had to say was quite relevant. I saw him on the television talking about the impact of cuts upon his agency. I thought it was very relevant because Western Australia has a drying climate and we have had this underburn; therefore what will that mean for this upcoming Christmas and summer period? They are two significant issues that we have identified. The government has claimed the delivery of various firefighting appliances. Apparently, according to some of the information at hand, that has not happened. Mr T.R. Buswell: It most certainly has happened. Mr M. McGOWAN: It has happened now; it has been delivered. We will be interested to hear whether all the appliances have been delivered. The minister gave assurances which were not delivered in the time frame he indicated they would be. Various people indicated—for instance, the former Minister for Emergency Services, the member for Hillarys— that the upcoming bushfire season could be the worst ever in Western Australia. As a former Minister for Emergency Services, I assume he knows what he is talking about in light of his experience in the portfolio. We have raised this issue so that we can get a full and complete assurance as to what will happen over the coming bushfire season. On top of that, we have had the Keelty inquiry, which made a range of recommendations about various things that should take place, most of which the government indicates have taken place. I am advised that some of the recommendations related to planning issues have not been implemented, such as ensuring that the Western Australian Planning Commission urgently assesses areas that should be declared bushfire prone and giving legislative effect to the “Planning for Bush Fire Protection Guidelines”. Recommendation 38 comprised a comprehensive program to assess fuel loads and bushfire preparedness on private properties. I am advised that some of the other recommendations have not been complied with—for instance, recommendation 53 involving the measuring and mapping of fuel loads and the maintaining of fuel load databases so that there is a full and complete record of where there might be issues going forward. I understand that some of those recommendations in the Keelty report have not been implemented. We have the former Minister for Emergency Services saying the upcoming bushfire season could very well be the worst ever. We have the Department of Environment and Conservation saying there has been a significant underburn in the prescribed burning program—in fact a huge underburn in the prescribed burning program. We have the Keelty report which made a number of recommendations that appear not to have been implemented. I seek the minister’s full assurance as to which recommendations have been implemented. We also have the CEO of the new agency, the Department of Fire and Emergency Services, indicating that front-line services may be impacted by the government’s budget cuts. In the past few seasons, we have had dramatic fire events at Toodyay, Margaret River and Kelmscott. There is the expectation that we will have a very hot, dry summer, by no less advice than the former minister, the member for Hillarys, with his undoubted expertise in that area. All of those things are adding up to what could be a very significant fire season over coming months. The people of Western Australia deserve an assurance that everything that could be done has been done, that Mr Keelty’s recommendations have been complied with and that all of the budget cuts will not have an impact on the state’s firefighting capacity. We also need to know exactly what the staffing position is in the Department of Environment and Conservation. There are stories around that in excess of 20 positions might be unfilled amongst firefighters in that agency. As we know, that department has a significant firefighting section with a large number of staff with good experience and expertise. If a large number of positions are unfilled, we need to know about that now. All those questions

8100 [ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] need to be answered by the government so that Parliament can give the people of Western Australia some comfort in the coming fire season—during December, January and February—that their homes, possessions and lives will be as safe as can be with all the resources of government being directed towards ensuring people’s safety and security, which is paramount. That is what we seek from the government. We are not, if members will excuse the pun, trying to inflame the situation. We want to get to the bottom of this and ensure that all those issues have been properly dealt with. I seek an assurance from the minister that they will be, and that will then stand as a record of what has taken place over the past months and what has been done to ensure that Western Australians are protected in future months. MS M.M. QUIRK (Girrawheen) [4.50 pm]: At the outset, I would like to acknowledge Wendy Bearfoot, the Department of Environment and Conservation firefighter who lost her life earlier this week after fighting the fires at Two Peoples Bay near Albany on 12 October. We certainly extend our sympathy to her family and also her colleagues who I suspect are extremely traumatised by the incident. It is a salutary lesson to remember that all firefighters in Western Australia go out and risk their lives on a daily basis in our community. Over the past few years, a plethora of inquiries have taken place, and it is true to say that some lessons have been learned and acted upon; there are other issues that are persistently recalcitrant, if you like, and the government should not be complacent in relation to those issues. We have learned, for example, from the coronial inquest into the deaths at Boorabbin, from the fires at Toodyay, from the reports by Stuart Ellis and Euan Ferguson respectively, and from both the first and second Keelty reports into the Perth hills fire and the Margaret River fires. The common theme of all those reports is the need to have pre-formed incident management teams, which need to be properly trained, and that training must be updated. A consistent thread throughout these reports is the interoperability of agencies, and measures have certainly been implemented to try to improve that interoperability. However, as members will hear later, I am not sure that it is at the level that it should be. We have had consistent problems identified with communications and concerns about whether contingency plans are in place; for example, where there are black spots, and whether equipment provided is in a form that is readily adaptable and can be used across agencies and various platforms. That continues to be a problem. Issues concerning prescribed burning have been raised consistently in those reports, as has the issue of whether appropriate training has been given. The Community Development and Justice Standing Committee heard last week that no proper training on burn-overs had been delivered for the about 28 000 volunteer fire brigade officers, and that many of the appliances that those firefighters were in did not have the necessary fire blankets and safety equipment for such occurrences. The government must continue to work on those aspects. What was shameful in the case I just mentioned was that money had been allocated to fit-out those trucks with fire blankets over 18 months ago, and it has not yet been done. Many say that the succession of inquiries is pointless if lessons are not learned and acted upon. I certainly agree with that. The first Keelty report is termed “A Shared Responsibility”. We would certainly agree with that view. Bushfire preparedness requires a whole-of-community effort. But shared responsibility means that the government must do its bit as well. It seems to me that for the community to be brought in on this issue to accept the responsibility, it must be properly informed, and that requires leadership—that leadership role is the government’s. Ostrich-like behaviour suggesting that everything is going to be alright is not very helpful. Similarly, pointing the finger at people just before the fire season and telling them to do their best is equally unhelpful. There must be a partnership, which requires leadership. The government needs to be frank with the community. I do not believe that in using the word “responsibility”, frankly, the Barnett government has on occasions acknowledged its level of responsibility. Of course, the Margaret River fires come to mind, as do the Toodyay fires, and it is still to this day very unedifying to see fire victims who have had their lives overturned being forced into litigation, which of course further victimises them. The Barnett government needs to level with the community so that its expectations are not unreasonable. The community needs to know what is possible and to be properly informed. For example, we have seen the very impressive “Marty”—is that the name of the sky crane, minister? Is it “Marty the Sky Crane”? Mr T.R. Buswell: It has a far longer name this year. I think it has been named after some American Civil War general whose name I cannot recall. Ms M.M. QUIRK: Okay, the Erickson sky crane—that is correct, is it not, minister? We have seen that sky crane and it is very impressive. We see it up there usually on a Sunday afternoon—it is a good media spot—and the minister is there and the Department of Fire and Emergency Services personnel are there; it is great vision. However, people need to know that that sky crane has limitations in the sense that on some days it cannot go up at all, that it costs $10 000 per hour to run, that its range is limited, and that where it can access water—because of the up-thrust—is also limited. As I said, we need to be frank with people. People must understand that if there is a major fire, they cannot necessarily expect the sky crane to appear out of the blue. As of today, in terms of communication, the WA emergency radio network is not yet in a position to go digital. As I understand it, the allocation of money to allow that to occur has been deferred. In any event, it is somewhat unworkable and complex. A number of volunteers discussed this with me on the weekend. The system is not

[ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] 8101 robust in the sense that it is very complex. Unless a person is using it all the time—every day, day in, day out—it is very hard to tune it into a channel with all the numbers and buttons and lights. The volunteers said that they found it to be not very user-friendly. The second reality with the current state of affairs relates to prescribed burning. As the Leader of the Opposition said, we are way down on targets for this year. There is a reason for that to a certain extent. Following on from the Margaret River fires, a moratorium was put in place on prescribed burning within five kilometres of a township. In 2006–07, 138 600 hectares were burned; in 2007–08, 143 700 hectares were burned; in 2008–09, 151 818 hectares were burned; in 2009–10, 212 017 hectares were burned; in 2010–11, only 137 000 hectares were burned; and in 2011–12, 103 165 hectares were burned. This year to date—this document was printed in October—6 500 hectares have been burned. There is a considerable diminution in the amount of prescribed burning this year. In relation to the fire at Two Peoples Bay, the observation was made to me that that fire behaviour was very unusual for this time of year, and it was regarded by observers as being more consistent with an autumn burn than a spring burn. People are saying that that sort of evidence is concerning as to the type of season ahead of us. As I think the Leader of the Opposition referred to, we have raised in this Parliament the issue of the government moving resources to fill gaps. We would hope that those appliances would be available where they are needed, not just where there is maybe some central focus. For example, the brigades at Victoria Plains, Manjimup, Preston Beach, Gosnells and Esperance are all promised appliances that have not yet arrived, and they will arrive probably sometime before the end of the 2012–13 financial year. It is pretty unfortunate that those appliances have been shifted somewhere else, and we do question the planning that is involved in that. The Department of Environment and Conservation has been advised for a number of years—this goes back to the Ferguson report, and earlier—that it needs to do proper succession planning. I am told that the recruitment process in DEC is not well advanced and that there have been no marked changes since the report was delivered to the department in September 2011 that described the Department of Environment and Conservation as being at breaking point. It is very important that succession planning is implemented in DEC. But that has not got very far. In the submission that the Australian Workers’ Union gave to the Community Development and Justice Standing Committee —this is a public document—it said — Succession planning was identified by both the Ferguson and Keelty reports as being a crucial issue for DEC. Ferguson recognised the value of DEC staff at every level in delivering fire management and one which must not be underestimated. Keelty also recommended succession planning be a priority for DEC. The submission also stated — Retirements from DEC over the coming 5–10 years represent a further challenge to DEC fire capability with the potential loss of fire fighting experience. I am told that in respect of the Keelty recommendations, there are still problems in terms of traffic management. That relates not only to the roadblock issue, which has been sorted out post Boorabbin, but also to other major traffic management problems that have still to be resolved. I am told from evidence that we received in that committee that there is little hope that this matter will be resolved in the near future. The Leader of the Opposition has talked about the comprehensive fuel load database, which is really not in evidence, and similarly I think the Department of Planning has been recalcitrant in implementing the recommendations relating to that department. It is also clear, I think, from the Margaret River fires that the capacity of the state to respond to more than one fire that occurs simultaneously is limited. The third thing is that it has been cited to me from a number of sources that training is still not sufficient and that more training needs to be rolled out. That brings me to the Noetic report. The Noetic report is a consultants’ report into the management of the Margaret River fires. The Noetic report was commissioned post the second Keelty report, which dealt just with the cause of the Margaret River fires. I have mentioned this before, but I must say again that the government received the Noetic report on 22 June. The government indicated that the report then had to go to the State Emergency Management Committee. The State Emergency Management Committee had meetings on 3 July, 12 July, 7 August and 4 September. However, for some reason, the State Emergency Management Committee did not receive the report until 9 August. Therefore, between 22 June and 9 August, we are not quite sure where that report was. The government gave the State Emergency Management Committee until last week, 31 October, to send that report to government, and it then has to go to cabinet. I am usually a believer in incompetence rather than conspiracy, but in this case I think it is conspiracy, because, coincidentally, that report will get out of cabinet after this Parliament rises and we will have no chance to scrutinise it. That is certainly the inescapable conclusion that I have reached. We will have the first anniversary

8102 [ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] of the Margaret River fires in a fortnight, but the government is treating the residents of Margaret River with contempt by not having tabled this report at an earlier time. However, helpfully, the Department of Environment and Conservation did table before the Community Development and Justice Standing Committee a copy of its response to the Noetic report. It is possible to discern from that response what the recommendations of the Noetic report are. This is also now a public document; it is on the committee’s website. What is disturbing about what appear to be the recommendations out of this report is that the lessons have not been learnt from previous inquiries and previous fires. As I said earlier, these include issues such as the reformed incident management teams and how they work, getting proper and timely information, and adequate communications—all the issues that arose in previous fires. In the covering letter to this response to the State Emergency Management Committee, the Director General of the Department of Environment and Conservation, Keiran McNamara, says — These bushfires occurred at a time when normal state bushfire season readiness was not fully in place. That was late November. He went on to say — Bushfire emergency response agencies were still completing some of the procedural changes required following recommendations from the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission and the Special Inquiry into the Perth Hills fire of February 2011, and neither DEC’s preformed incident management teams roster nor the fixed wing water bombing aircraft contract were operational. These bushfire incidents tested response capability, interagency arrangements and critical issues such as public information, evacuation procedures and recovery processes for all agencies involved. In other words, with regard to the need for a preformed incident team, DEC had not reached that stage because it had not done the rosters so that it could just call on the teams and they would get into immediate action. It is also extraordinary that DEC had not signed the contracts for its fixed-wing aircraft. The letter says also — Notwithstanding the shortcomings in the overall response to these bushfires that were identified in the Noetic PIAs and other inquiries, it is DEC’s view that these events have been the best example to date of interagency collaboration that has occurred in WA in respect to a bushfire emergency. Implementing the lessons from this experience will be critical for future improvements to build on the progress to date. We have to take DEC’s word for this, because Mr Gregson, the commissioner, refused to give a similar response—that was from FESA, as it then was, to the State Emergency Management Committee—to the standing committee. In the time remaining, I will read out a couple of these recommendations so that the people in Margaret River can at least know what some of the recommendations are. Recommendation 1 is as follows — Experienced forecasters and fire behaviour experts should be embedded in DEC at least at a state level to ensure that fire risks are properly understood by decision makers. That was something that came up in the Boorabbin inquiry. Recommendation 2 was as follows — A risk management approach is needed which considers risks both inside the prescribed burn and the risks that will need to be managed if the fire escapes. This risk assessment should be dynamic in line with the four day and seven day weather forecast. This matter also came up in the Keelty report. Recommendation 10 was that there be greater investment in training. Recommendation 12 was as follows — Communications planning for geographic regions with recognised black spots and specific communications challenges should be prepared in advance … Recommendation 14 was as follows — For incidents of this complexity, effective control in the critical phase (first 24–36 hours of the fire) requires an appropriately resourced IMT. Recommendation 15 was as follows — The state should identify the number of fully trained, experienced and accredited Level 3 Incident Controllers required to be available at any time … That was recommendation 54 in the Keelty No 1 report. Recommendation 22 was as follows — Opportunities need to be sought to utilise local government representatives in other areas …

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There is also a recommendation with regard to maps. Apparently there were some difficulties because fire crews did not have the relevant maps they needed, and that hampered their efforts. That is in recommendation 36, which is as follows — Better maps are required for urban/rural interface fires. These are all issues that will come up in the Noetic report, whenever that is produced, and they all echo issues that have been raised in earlier reports and are very familiar—sounds like groundhog day! So we are concerned about whether those matters are being properly addressed. But we will not have the opportunity to question the government about whether they have been addressed before that report comes out. We have a situation in which we are facing a fire season without adequate Department of Environment and Conservation staff and with an unwieldy communications system. We are facing this fire season with risible levels of prescribed burning and with appliances being shifted from one location to another to cover some gaps while leaving others. We are facing this fire season with about 28 000 fire brigade volunteers who have insufficient training in burn-overs and to whom an inadequate number of fire blankets have been provided. I will conclude by quoting from a submission that Roger Underwood, chairman of Bush Fire Front, gave to the standing committee. [Member’s time expired.] MR T.R. BUSWELL (Vasse — Minister for Emergency Services) [5.10 pm]: I assume that I will be closing the debate, in line with a previous conversation I had with the manager of opposition business. There have been some good points made in this debate, and I think none better than that this will be a very difficult fire season; make no mistake. I have not yet been briefed on the nature of the Two Peoples Bay fire, but I think the observations that the member for Girrawheen anecdotally reported to the house are probably right: it is dry. I was in Wooroloo the other week to meet with representatives from each of the 10 volunteer brigades that protect the Shire of Mundaring, and they pointed out to me that it is very, very dry up in the hills, to the point at which they are stopping their controlled burn program early—this is at a local level—simply because it is too dangerous. In areas where, historically, they would run a burn to clear out the fuel load, such burns now very quickly transition into crowning; the fire moves into the treetops and it becomes very dangerous. I suspect that there are a number of reasons why the prescribed burn program this year has not delivered on the same hectares of prescribed burns as in previous years. One reason is, of course, the dry climate. It is not only the Department of Environment and Conservation that does controlled burns; it is also, importantly, local government and private landowners. The Department of Fire and Emergency Services also has a role to play, to a degree, in controlled burns. We also need to understand that when Mr Keelty made his observations about the Margaret River fires, which were, as the member pointed out, approximately a year ago—50 weeks ago—he made a range of observations that were well canvassed in his report, and it is a great report, about the manner in which DEC needs to understand and appreciate the risks associated with controlled burns. A lot of his analysis of DEC revolved around what I would term the institutional failure to implement contemporary risk management practices. I do not think it is necessarily only about appreciating the risk; I think it is about risk management practices, and probably appreciating the risk as well. That, in part, was to do with practices and the longstanding culture within the organisation. That has now changed. We made the decision, as the government, that until that culture was changed to our satisfaction we would impose some constraints on DEC. I think that was a wise thing. One of our overarching objectives was to retain prescribed burning as a mechanism for protecting our communities from the effects of wildfire. Can members imagine the community backlash if we had had another issue in and around controlled burns this spring? I suppose there will always be a percentage of controlled burns that get away; the issue is how we manage the risks associated with them, and we are committed to prescribed burning. We wanted to make sure that the community could have confidence in that process, and I think we have gone a long way towards doing that. We have also introduced the Office of Bushfire Risk Management and the feedback I have is that, under Mr Cronstedt, the Office of Bushfire Risk Management is now up and running and applying another level of scrutiny over the risk analyses associated with prescribed burns. I actually think that is a good thing. We were criticised at the time by some for putting in another layer of bureaucracy, if I can put it that way, around prescribed burns. Our sole objective was to make communities as safe as possible, but that prescribed burning stayed. I acknowledge the statements made that this year’s prescribed burning program has delivered less than previous years, and I think the reasons for that are justified. They are both natural reasons and conscious decisions of government to protect the long-term future of prescribed burning from political pressure. I think we have achieved that, and I am pleased with the way in which we have gone about it. As the member knows, there were calls at the time from some sectors of the community for us to walk away from prescribed burning. That would have been incredibly irresponsible. It is a very powerful tool for us in government.

8104 [ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012]

Of course, I have pages and pages of information I could provide, but I am not going to do that because we have some arrangements around time, but I will make a couple of points. I think the member for Girrawheen is right; there has been, over the years, a series of reports relating to bushfires in particular. When we discount the fact that wildfires by their nature are erratic, difficult to predict and certainly difficult to manage and can be incredibly difficult to put out, some recurrent themes continually emerge. One of my focuses—and the focus of new Commissioner Gregson in our department and DEC—is to try to have a culture that is more open to scrutiny and to accepting that there will always be a need for change. I just do not accept that we never get it 100 per cent right; I reckon that just about every significant fire event will provide learnings for agencies and local communities. We need a culture that almost welcomes that approach. Rather than saying, “We’ll close ranks, pull up the shutters, get behind the barricades and defend”, we need to be saying, “We’ll do the best we can with the training equipment we’ve got, but if there are lessons to be learned, then we’ll accept them, implement them, and get on with it.” I think our response to both of Mr Keelty’s reports indicates that that cultural change is slowly starting to permeate through government and the agencies, and I think that is an important cultural change. I can say that I have seen it within my agency over the last 12 months or so, since I have had responsibility for it. I will pick up on another couple of points that have been raised. Firstly, a comment was made that the Department of Fire and Emergency Services’ capacity to deliver its front-line services has been eroded. That is quite simply not the case. I think there is scope within the agency to deliver efficiencies, and it has a responsibility to deliver those efficiencies. The commissioner also understands he has a responsibility to make sure that we maintain our front-line service delivery capacity. Indeed, in this financial year there has been a significant increase in budget to the Department of Fire and Emergency Services, as there has been to DEC, specifically related to firefighting effort. There has never been as much money flowing into those agencies, for the implementation of the Keelty recommendations and for other firefighting efforts, as we have seen this financial year. The member raised the issue of fire appliances and referred to Victoria Plains, Manjimup, Esperance and Preston Beach. It is the case that Victoria Plains, Manjimup and Esperance have appliances; their appliances are not being taken off them. They are due for replacement now, but that replacement has been deferred until later this financial year. It is important to understand that those communities and the people in those communities who volunteer to fight fires still have vehicles. As I understand it, Preston Beach now has its second vehicle; it has arrived and, importantly, training has been provided. The member also referred to the Noetic Group report. I received that report last week, I believe, from the new Chair of the State Emergency Management Committee, Kerry Sanderson, and the professional public servant who is now heading up that agency, Michelle Reynolds. They have briefed me on that, and that will go through the process as quickly as we can get it through. Ms M.M. Quirk: Can the minister explain what happened between 22 June and 9 August when it got sent to the SEMC? Mr T.R. BUSWELL: I cannot advise the member; however, I know that the State Emergency Management Committee’s overall response is a good document. It is a good document with meaningful things in it. It also shows that we have responded to a number of the Keelty recommendations, and that will be made public in due course. I should also point out that for a long time SEMC was an area of government created by the act that no-one paid any attention to. It would be fair to say that in our first years of government, we did not; and neither did members opposite in their later years in government. It applies to both governments. It is just one of those things in the legislation that was not utilised to its full capacity. Kerry Sanderson and Michelle Reynolds are well- credentialed and experienced people. They will be driving SEMC to deliver some significant reform. I want to touch on a couple of other things about preparedness. I will not go through a big list because the member for Maylands will be on her feet shortly. It is important for members in this place and for the community to understand that we have taken to heart the broad thrust of Mick Keelty’s recommendations, which relate to the fact that we have a shared responsibility, both government and communities, to protect ourselves from fire. I can tell members that within the Department of Fire and Emergency Services we have been investing a lot of time and effort in working with communities at the local government level across the state to help make people’s homes safer. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the name of the lady, but she made a magnificent chocolate cake. She has the last house on the road from Kalamunda out to Mundaring Weir. The work that family has done to make their home defendable and safe for firefighters to access is fantastic. When the opposition says, as it does in this motion, “that the state is fully prepared”, I can say that government agencies are fully prepared. The local governments that I have met are as prepared as they possibly can be, but I cannot give an assurance that every private household in the state is fully prepared, because the reality is that I know that some of them are not. This particular family was prepared; they mosaic burn their property every year—a low-level burn; they widened their driveway; they put in a water tank and appliance so that fire trucks can get in. This family is a really wonderful example of preparedness. I was proud to watch that family present their home

[ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] 8105 and what they had done to protect their home on the TV news that night. That was shown at the start of bushfire awareness week, and was a great message for the people of WA. They understood the risks of their lifestyle choice to live in that beautiful place, and they had done everything they could to protect themselves. The day before, up in Mundaring, the volunteers from Mundaring explained to me that they went to the homes, again, of people who had chosen to make a lifestyle choice, and they suggested to those landowners that perhaps they might want to do some things around their properties to help make them safer. Basically, they got told to forget about it, which is probably a polite way of saying it. That puts those firefighters in a difficult situation. They know there are properties that they cannot access safely. They know there are properties where people are not doing everything they can. As Mr Keelty said, we have a shared responsibility. I cannot give an assurance to the public of Western Australia and to the house that every property in Western Australia is as prepared as it can be, because I know damn well that they are not. That is a delicate issue that we have to work through. We have to respect that people make lifestyle choices to live in more natural environments. I am very respectful of that. But those folk also have to understand this concept of mutual responsibility to help make them and their homes safe, and more broadly the community and the first responders safe. The government will not support this motion, and that is the reason. The government has done an enormous amount to make sure that we are prepared and that our communities are prepared. There has been additional training for level 3 incident controllers, better systems for identifying level 3 incident controllers, much better coordination of aerial firefighting activities and much greater engagement with communities the length and breadth of the state. Importantly, recently, there have been practical regional bush firefighting exercises in which we could test our responses. I know that the member for Girrawheen is a great supporter of our firefighters. I do not say this to be facetious, but I missed the member at the opening of the department’s Cockburn centre, and I hope the member arranges to go down there, if she has not already. Ms M.M. Quirk: I wish I could have gone, but the Premier gave us only two weeks’ notice and I could not go. Mr T.R. BUSWELL: He gave me a week’s notice, so the member was one week ahead of me! The reason the member should go there is that the communications and incident control facilities are really good. I want to close with the Department of Environment and Conservation. DEC has advised me that by 1 December this year, it anticipates it will have 53 dedicated fire management officers and approximately 286 conservation employees. Conservation employees undertake a range of duties, but their primary responsibility is fire management. There is also a large number of DEC personnel—over 800—involved in fire suppression activities. In light of the time constraints on us, I will sit down, but I want to emphasise the point I started with: there is absolutely no doubt that this will be a challenging fire season. I do not want a political debate about where the bar should be set in our capacity to respond. I think we have done an enormous amount to make government agencies, local governments and communities better able to protect themselves. The recent occurrence at Two Peoples Bay really highlighted the challenges and risks taken by our first responders, in particular. I have asked my agency, the Department of Fire and Emergency Services, to work with the Department of Environment and Conservation to better understand what we can do to make our firefighters safer. We can do a lot more than provide fire blankets. Some people do have fire blankets. I was talking recently to a firefighter who told me about an incident. He was in his truck; the back axle looked as though it had dropped into a rabbit warren; his crew were stuck; and the fire was coming down the road. There were three grown men in the front of a single- cab firefighting appliance. It was only a small truck, and they were stuck. They had their fire blankets around them; they were looking at the flames and they got out and ran. These were members of the Vasse volunteer fire brigade; the fire was deliberately lit. These men got out and ran and, luckily, another appliance came up behind them. Their truck was burnt to the ground. We need to do more to make our firefighters safer. For the information of members, we are looking at not only quality fire blankets, but also internal curtains around the windows. We are also looking at a deluge system, which might be water or it could be a fire retardant gel that covers the windows in the cab. The curtains stop the radiant heat, the water or gel stops the windows from blowing in and there are other things that we can do around air supply to people in the cab so that they are not dependent on flowing air. Also, and importantly, we are looking at under-cab shielding to stop some of the fire impact on some of the important componentry that keeps engines turning. We are looking at a range of stuff. The new appliances coming off the line at the moment have these curtains and of course the blankets. We have more to do. If there is one thing we have to do it is to make sure we have the very best equipment so that we give our firefighters the chance not only to do their best fighting fires, but also to protect themselves when they are in a volatile situation. The government will not support this motion, simply because I cannot give an undertaking that across the length and breadth of the state individual home owners are as fully prepared as they should be. I do not think anybody could dispute that. Question put and a division taken with the following result —

8106 [ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012]

Ayes (22)

Ms L.L. Baker Mr J.C. Kobelke Mr E.S. Ripper Mr A.J. Waddell Dr A.D. Buti Mr M. McGowan Mrs M.H. Roberts Mr P.B. Watson Ms A.S. Carles Mr A.P. O’Gorman Ms R. Saffioti Mr M.P. Whitely Mr R.H. Cook Mr P. Papalia Mr T.G. Stephens Mr D.A. Templeman (Teller) Ms J.M. Freeman Mr J.R. Quigley Mr C.J. Tallentire Mr W.J. Johnston Ms M.M. Quirk Mr P.C. Tinley Noes (25)

Mr P. Abetz Dr E. Constable Mr A. Krsticevic Mr D.T. Redman Mr F.A. Alban Mr M.J. Cowper Mr W.R. Marmion Mr M.W. Sutherland Mr I.C. Blayney Mr J.M. Francis Mr J.E. McGrath Mr T.K. Waldron Mr I.M. Britza Mr B.J. Grylls Mr P.T. Miles Mr A.J. Simpson (Teller) Mr T.R. Buswell Dr K.D. Hames Ms A.R. Mitchell Mr G.M. Castrilli Mrs L.M. Harvey Dr M.D. Nahan Mr V.A. Catania Dr G.G. Jacobs Mr C.C. Porter

Pairs Mrs C.A. Martin Mr A.P. Jacob Mr M.P. Murray Mr J.H.D. Day Mr B.S. Wyatt Mr C.J. Barnett Mr J.N. Hyde Mr R.F. Johnson Question thus negatived. PUBLIC TRANSPORT SERVICES Motion MS L.L. BAKER (Maylands) [5.33 pm]: I move — That the house condemns the Barnett government for — (1) failing to order sufficient trains in a timely manner to keep up with passenger growth; (2) halving the number of carriages on a peak-hour train on the Midland line from four to two, which would not have occurred if the government had placed train orders when it was advised by the PTA to do so; and (3) removing key bus services for people in the Maylands area. I will start by talking a bit about the substance of the motion, which is that this government has failed to do enough over four years and has left it too late, given the latest action on the weekend, and only now at the end of its term is the government responding to the continuous and ongoing requests from constituents in my electorate for better train services. Minister, it is too little and too late. Over the last four years, I have released media statements and had many stories published in the local media, in the Eastern Suburbs Reporter — Mr T.R. Buswell: I’ve read them all! Ms L.L. BAKER: — the minister has read about them—and in Community News’s The Perth Voice featuring commuter problems, safety concerns, congestion and lack of parking. I have written to the minister several times calling on the Liberal–National government to order more train cars and to open more parking bays at Maylands train station to address the infrastructure shortfalls on the line and to provide improved bus services. I have twice requested that the minister visit my electorate to see for himself the dreadful state of trains and the lack of car parking at the train station. Mr T.R. Buswell: I have been there plenty of times. Ms L.L. BAKER: I have asked the minister to visit the electorate with me. The minister cannot go wandering around my electorate without me in tow—surely not! Finally, I understand from Hon Helen Morton that the Premier visited Maylands two weeks ago and heard firsthand from my constituents about the appalling traffic congestion along Beaufort Street and Guildford Road; about overcrowded trains with people left standing on platforms because trains are filled to capacity and speed past; about shambolic delays in the opening of new car parking bays; and about the cancellation of vital train carriages and bus services during peak hours. In the media last week, the minister talked about the government catering for the fast growth of WA with the number of trips being taken on the train series increasing by 15 per cent during the last three years. The response to this in my electorate has been to allow the peak-hour train service—that is, the 8.08 am service in the middle of peak hour—to be halved in size. It is a little inexplicable. Let me tell the minister what is happening right now and what has been happening over the four years while I have been bringing these issues to his attention.

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Commuters have reported as recently as two weeks ago that 80 people were left standing on the platform as the 8.08 am train failed to stop at Maylands station. Last week I saw people struggling to squeeze onto peak-hour trains, and I saw a schoolgirl get her bag caught in the train doors as the train was packed and she struggled to get on. Commuters reported to me that they are sick of being late for work because they cannot catch a train, and one woman said she had lost her job after being late three times due to train delays. Another saw a commuter hit another passenger when they were seeking to get onto a train that was already filled to capacity. Why therefore would the minister want to cut services at peak hour? The minister’s failure to deliver on public transport for my constituents has left people questioning whether this government is either too ignorant to act or too arrogant to want to act. It is now more than four years since the government promised extra car parking at three local stations in my electorate. Some are ready to go but are left unopened, and I get calls from commuters every week asking why the bays are not open yet. By the time the government opens the three parking areas that it has put in, it will be four and a half years since this government was elected and will be coincidentally just before the next state election. Does the minister think that might be a bit of manipulation of timing to try to get some votes at the expense of commuters and local residents? My view is that it is shambolic, it is tricky, it is unjustified and it is not good enough for my electorate. Commuters continue to be forced to park on verges along residential streets and even in car parking areas designed for shoppers who visit businesses in Maylands. Many commuters I have spoken to who park at the local train stations say that they drive from suburbs such as Ballajura, Beechboro and Lockridge. Bayswater train station is very popular because it falls within zone 1 where a standard fare is about $1 cheaper than zone 2. The latest train station car park survey revealed that Bayswater’s Lock ‘n’ Ride parking area was full by 7.10 am and free parking areas were full by 7.30 am—that is from the Public Transport Authority’s survey, minister. Maylands free car parking areas were full by 7.30 am and Meltham’s by 8.00 am. Thanks to the minister’s inability or unwillingness to deliver on the promises, there is no capacity on the train line at the moment. This brings me to the most recent issue and one that involves not just me but also my colleague the member for Mount Lawley and also the Labor candidate for the seat of Mount Lawley, Mr Bob Kucera. The number 44 bus service that runs through Bayswater, Inglewood and Mt Lawley will terminate on Sunday, 11 November. The minister would be aware that over the last week, commuters have contacted me, the member for Mount Lawley and the electorate’s candidate for Labor, Mr Bob Kucera. The minister claims that the service is being chopped due to low patronage. Seventy-seven commuters over just five days have signed a petition asking for this bus service to continue. Commuters who have spoken to me and to Mr Kucera all say that over the last two years the service has been let run down with buses often late, which fits the March report that said that one in four buses were late and 26 per cent overall missed the benchmark for punctuality. People have increasingly been losing confidence in the level of service. Patrons from across Inglewood, Maylands, Bayswater and Mt Lawley have vehemently disputed the numbers, particularly during peak hour, which the minister’s department cites as one of the key reasons for cancelling this service. Passenger numbers being cited by Transperth are flawed because they count only passengers boarding up to Carrington Street or those using SmartRider tickets. Other rationale provided by the department acknowledges that passengers may be required to walk slightly further to either Beaufort Street or to Midland train line to catch a different bus service or to catch an already full train. What about the elderly or commuters who have mobility issues and rely on the 44 service? What about people who simply cannot walk to Beaufort Street to catch a bus or, if there is a train available with space on it, a train? For many 44 bus route users, the alternative bus stops and train stations at Maylands, Meltham and Bayswater are much further than the 400-metre average walkable distance target recommended under Public Transport Authority guidelines. Even if they could walk there, I stress that there is no room on the peak-hour trains for them to get anywhere, so it would be a completely futile exercise walking the 400 metres or more to the train station. This bad decision is not the first for this government, which has mismanaged bus services in my electorate. Last year Maylands residents living on the eastern side of Peninsula Road were left without access to the shopping precinct on Guildford Road, thanks to reduced bus services. Many elderly people and people with disabilities were no longer able to do their shopping at their local shops because of the decision to axe all but a few of the 43 bus route services. I am not sure why the state government did not consider installing a new bus stop outside The RISE building on Eighth Avenue, a solution that was suggested by long-time Maylands residents Ray Kerwin and Nancy Kelly. Mr Kerwin and Ms Kelly collected more than 280 signatures for a petition opposing the axing of that bus service. The petition called on the Minister for Transport to either reinstate the 43 bus service or redirect 41 buses travelling to Maylands to turn into Ninth Avenue, where there is a bus stop right outside the IGA. Ray and Nancy know of many frail, elderly or disabled residents who live on the eastern side of Peninsula Road who were no longer able to shop at the Maylands Shopping Centre or Coles. The walk to the bus stop is a steep uphill climb, whether people walk up Falkirk Avenue or Ninth Avenue. One woman, who is 95 and continues to live in her own home, had resorted to catching a bus all the way to Coles in Newcastle Street, Northbridge, to do her shopping. I certainly commend Mr Kerwin and Ms Kelly for taking up

8108 [ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] the fight on behalf of local residents and bringing the issue to the attention of the relevant authorities. I am pleased to say that they have been able, with the support of residents and the City of Bayswater, and with me working alongside them, to convince Transperth to install a new bus stop outside The RISE. That was such a simple solution that I am not sure why it was not evident that a simple solution was available in the first place but, again, it is a classic example of poor planning, poor management and bad decision making. It is ridiculous that the minister is telling residents to walk to the train station when the route 44 bus is cancelled from Sunday, because there is no room on the trains during peak hour. People cannot get anywhere. If the minister wants them to sit on the roof of the trains, I suggest he puts deckchairs up there. All he is doing is adding at least 77 people to the overcrowding problem on the trains or forcing 77 people back into cars to add to already dire traffic congestion. Last year I tabled a petition signed by 700 commuters calling on the government to address the problem of train overcrowding. Train overcrowding has increased and will get worse due to the government’s failure to order extra train carriages until November 2012, so late in the day. What was the government thinking? It knew that that should have been done much earlier in this term, yet it delayed. Local residents want extra train carriages now, not in three years, when they will be delivered, to ease the chronic overcrowding during peak hour; more car parking at train stations; and, very importantly, better feeder bus services connecting with train stations. The issue is one for not only Maylands residents but also Mt Lawley residents. Traffic congestion will become dramatically worse, according to the recently released Veitch Lister Consulting report, which shows that when Riverside Drive is closed, some 43 500 daily east–west and west–east cross-city vehicle movements will be forced north into the tunnel or other alternative routes, showing a major increase of traffic flow up as far as Central Avenue, which is the dividing road between Mt Lawley and the electorate of Maylands. This will effectively mean that roads bringing traffic in from the north will be impacted heavily, especially Alexander Drive, Beaufort Street and Fitzgerald Street and all the alternative streets running parallel, forcing even more cars into side streets and encouraging rat-running. I have heard many members on the government side of the house speak about the rat-runners in their electorates and how damaging they are. It is no wonder that local residents are questioning the government’s plan to increase the capacity of public transport in this region. We need a schedule for when the train carriages that we can expect to be delivered will be delivered to the Midland line — Mr T.R. Buswell: I just showed you at question time. Ms L.L. BAKER: It would be great if I could have a copy of that. I would also like to know how many are coming and over what time frame. Mr T.R. Buswell: It’s quite big. Ms L.L. BAKER: Yes, a big thing with wheels. The minister needs to open the new car parking bays now, not delay them any further. The minister authorised the building of some new car parking bays. I absolutely applaud the minister for doing that. He would remember me saying that he promised 700 bays but he built 120. Mr T.R. Buswell: There are 700 on the heritage lines. Ms L.L. BAKER: I am very happy with what we have—an extra 120 bays—but they are not open. None of the new bays in my electorate are opened. There have been several articles in the papers about this. Commuters are asking what is going on. They ring my office every week, and I am sure they ring my colleague the member for Mount Lawley and ask why the bays are not available. They are all neatly fenced off with a cyclone fence. It is very distressing to people who are fined for parking on council land and in illegal places to see perfectly legitimate bays ready to be used but they are all fenced off or locked away. They are very neat and nice bitumen parking bays not able to be used. We need them open. We do not need any more delays or excuses. Constituents also need to have the route 44 bus back, especially at peak times. The motion condemns the government for failing to order sufficient trains in a timely manner to keep up with passenger growth; importantly, for me, halving the number of carriages on a peak-hour train on the Midland line from four to two; and removing key bus services for people in the Maylands area. MR M.W. SUTHERLAND (Mount Lawley — Deputy Speaker) [5.47 pm]: I want to talk about the route 44 bus, which starts its run in Bayswater, comes down through Inglewood, into Mt Lawley and down Carrington Street. Transperth has undertaken a review of bus routes as part of the Morley area service review. Only four people have contacted me about the route 44 bus service and the planned discontinuance of the service. The buses travel from Bayswater, starting at 7.11 am and 8.20 am. They start from Avenell Road and Raleigh Road in Bayswater and travel to the City Busport. In the afternoons four buses travel back, starting at 3.40 pm, 4.52 pm, 5.27 pm and 6.17 pm. There is no weekend service at all, so there are basically six buses a day. The reason given by Transperth for the removal of the service is low patronage. The average number of passengers on the buses is nine on a bus other than the 7.10 pm service, which averages about 20.

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Ms L.L. Baker: That’s what the department says; it’s not what the commuters say. Mr M.W. SUTHERLAND: It is not for me to say. I am going to say what I am going to say now. I ask the member for Maylands to please listen. One person who is very passionate about keeping the service says that the bus is full in the morning. Other people who live along Carrington Street tell me that the bus is almost empty. I am getting different stories from different people. Transperth believes that the decreased patronage is due to the increased popularity of the Beaufort Street service, as route 22 is one of the main bus routes that runs down Beaufort Street. From Grand Promenade to Beaufort Street on weekdays in the morning peak periods there is a five-minute service from 6.45 am to 7.30 am, a two to three-minute service to 9.00 am, a seven to eight-minute service during the day, a 10­minute service on Saturdays and a 15­minute service on Sundays. The reduced number of route 44 bus trips will be reinvested in additional route 22 buses, which is the most popular service in the area. Ms L.L. Baker: The problem is they have to walk to them. Mr M.W. SUTHERLAND: I am coming to that, member for Maylands, give me a chance. Ms L.L. Baker: Go faster, like the route 44! Mr M.W. SUTHERLAND: Is the member talking about route 44 or route 66? Passengers will therefore have a high frequency of more direct services and it will ease overcrowding on the Beaufort Street services. As far as the people in Mt Lawley are concerned, the buses are full when they come into Mt Lawley and I am sure that they would prefer extra route 22 buses along that route, rather than the at least partly full buses for the route 44. Beaufort Street carries buses 21, 22, 66, 67 and 68. The decision by Transperth was made after counts were taken and two community consultation sessions were held at Morley Galleria. These sessions were held to allow interested parties to put their views. Signs advertising the sessions were put in buses on the affected routes, appeared on the Transperth website and there was other advertising. The consultation period ran from 17 to 24 August and 179 people either attended a session or — Ms L.L. Baker: So, you’re happy with what’s happened. Mr M.W. SUTHERLAND: Can I finish my speech? Ms L.L. Baker: Yes. Mr M.W. SUTHERLAND: Okay. People either attended a session or made a submission by other means. All I can say to the member for Maylands is that I have had four people contact me about this bus service. Ms L.L. Baker: I think you’ll hear from more soon. Mr M.W. SUTHERLAND: Right, I am sure because the Labor Party candidate for Mt Lawley is sending out petitions and I had one response to that. Mr T.G. Stephens: What’s his name? Mr M.W. SUTHERLAND: Okay, I will — Several members interjected. The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr I.M. Britza): Members! Mr M.W. SUTHERLAND: As I said, only four people have contacted me. The first was on 25 August, shortly after the consultation period. Another person was the fellow from Bayswater who is very passionate about retaining the route. He sounds like a very nice man and I hope to meet him in the not-too-distant future, and he has his own views about the 44 bus and says the buses on the route are not as they should be et cetera. I had two people from Mt Lawley who want to maintain the route contact me on 5 November. One woman this morning said that she had received a petition from the Labor Party and as far as she was concerned, she was happy with the change; she was prepared to walk the two blocks to Beaufort Street. She lives off Carrington Street and I know that she has just had two knee replacements, so she must be a very strong lady. The thing is that we have to increase bus transport from Bayswater, Inglewood and Mt Lawley into the city. As the member for Maylands knows, there are designated bus lanes down Beaufort Street from Grand Promenade to Central Avenue. I was informed at a recent briefing by the officials at the City of Stirling that these lanes are to be further extended down Beaufort Street to Bulwer Street. This apparently will start around June next year. The bus lanes will then be further extended once both William and Beaufort Streets are made into two-way streets. The whole idea is to have dedicated bus lanes run the full way into the city. This will, of course, make travel down Beaufort Street a lot quicker. People who live along Clotilde and Carrington Street and who are nearer to the railway line can also access trains at either the Maylands or Mt Lawley stations. One block to the other side of the railway line is Guildford

8110 [ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012]

Road. From the juncture of Peninsula Road and Guildford Road on weekdays in the morning peak period, there are five-minute services from 6.45 am to 7.30 am and then four to five-minute services to 9.00 am. There are 15- minute services during the day on weekdays and Saturdays, and 30-minute services on Sundays. It has been put to us that taking off the bus service will impact on the elderly and the infirm who may be affected by the removal of the 44 bus service. It is interesting to note that the bus service does not really run during the day; it runs only twice during the morning and in the afternoon. Therefore, as I said, I can go on only what people have contacted me about. I am dealing with the part of the route that is in my constituency and I have had four people contact me. The only person I know who has movement problems is a lady who said she was prepared to walk a further two blocks. Ms L.L. Baker: I think older people should be allowed to catch buses. Mr M.W. SUTHERLAND: Sure, but generally speaking they would use the bus service in off-peak times. Furthermore, not all bus services suit older people in the immediate vicinity, whether it is in Mt Lawley, Bayswater or anywhere else. There are arguments wherever we go: somebody wants the bus to run down this street, we move it one street away and the people who are down there are happy with the new bus route because they are right next to the bus route and when we go — Several members interjected. Mr M.W. SUTHERLAND: That is a problem wherever we go; we will have some people who are not going to be happy with the moving of a bus route. Ms L.L. Baker: Are you happy with the cut, member? Mr M.W. SUTHERLAND: I can go on only the statistics and the people who live in my area who have contacted me. Four people have contacted me, one person does not live in my area — Several members interjected. Mr M.W. SUTHERLAND: That is fine, member for Bassendean, it is at the moment; I am living to fight another day, so that is it. Ms L.L. Baker: He’s been round a bit longer than you! Mr M.W. SUTHERLAND: That is also true. Some people want the bus to run up one street and others want it to run down another street. As I said, there will be people who are unhappy with the change of the route, but I do not think that we will be able to satisfy all the people all the time. These extra buses will not simply disappear. If buses are taken off the 44 route, they will be put onto the Beaufort Street route. Of course, they will be able to be full because nobody walks from Beaufort Street to catch the partly empty bus on Carrington Street. Therefore, it seems more sensible to allocate poorly patronised buses to routes where the need is—in this case, Beaufort Street. Ms L.L. Baker: I think you believe the facts you’ve been given about data collection. Mr M.W. SUTHERLAND: Sorry? Ms L.L. Baker: That’s if you believe that the data has been collected in a logical and sound manner. Mr M.W. SUTHERLAND: I have been given data by Transperth and we have data from a gentleman who catches the bus who says that that data is inaccurate. I get reports from people who live along Carrington Street who tell me what they see on those buses. That is how the matter stands at the moment. I will have further discussions with the minister. But on the facts and the stats that have been given by Transperth, it looks as though this bus, at least for the area it goes through in Mt Lawley, is very poorly patronised. MR T.R. BUSWELL (Vasse — Minister for Transport) [5.57 pm]: I will make a few comments, firstly, about this particular local bus route. It would appear from the advice that I have been given that patronage is quite low. One of our main focuses in that corridor has been to work with the City of Vincent and Stirling council to develop some more formalised bus priority lanes down Beaufort Street. I have to say that has not been entirely easy, as the member for Mount Lawley would agree. We have had a number of meetings. We set up a process to deliver a better outcome and those buses are heavily utilised. At the end of the day, even though we are growing the bus fleet quite significantly, we still have to make sure that the vehicles we have on the road are attracting a reasonable level of patronage. In relation to the Midland line, clearly, as additional carriages are delivered onto the Joondalup–Mandurah line, the 66, what we call the B series, the six A series—they are the two-car sets that currently operate on that line— will move across onto what we call the heritage line. The demand pressure does seem to be on the Midland line

[ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] 8111 at the moment. I imagine that they will go to where the demand is greater, which will be the Midland line. The current train mix has been impacted on — Ms L.L. Baker: Why did you cut the length of the peak-hour train, then? Mr T.R. BUSWELL: I was just about to get to that. Historically, the Midland train left Midland and finished in Fremantle and then went back again. I have caught that train through the city to do that. Because of the works and the realignment of the line, the Fremantle line is now running through to Armadale and vice versa. Mrs M.H. Roberts: We were going to have a vote before six o’clock before our time runs out. You asked for 10; you were left with 15. The member for Mount Lawley used the time. Mr T.R. BUSWELL: Anyway, there are a variety of reasons. I was just going to read it. The member asked me a question but I am about to finish my riveting contribution. Question put and a division taken with the following result — Ayes (21)

Ms L.L. Baker Mr A.P. O’Gorman Ms R. Saffioti Mr M.P. Whitely Mr R.H. Cook Mr P. Papalia Mr T.G. Stephens Mr B.S. Wyatt Ms J.M. Freeman Mr J.R. Quigley Mr C.J. Tallentire Mr D.A. Templeman (Teller) Mr W.J. Johnston Ms M.M. Quirk Mr P.C. Tinley Mr J.C. Kobelke Mr E.S. Ripper Mr A.J. Waddell Mr M. McGowan Mrs M.H. Roberts Mr P.B. Watson Noes (24)

Mr F.A. Alban Mr V.A. Catania Mrs L.M. Harvey Ms A.R. Mitchell Mr I.C. Blayney Dr E. Constable Dr G.G. Jacobs Dr M.D. Nahan Mr J.J.M. Bowler Mr M.J. Cowper Mr A. Krsticevic Mr C.C. Porter Mr I.M. Britza Mr J.M. Francis Mr W.R. Marmion Mr M.W. Sutherland Mr T.R. Buswell Mr B.J. Grylls Mr J.E. McGrath Mr T.K. Waldron Mr G.M. Castrilli Dr K.D. Hames Mr P.T. Miles Mr A.J. Simpson (Teller)

Pairs Mrs C.A. Martin Mr A.P. Jacob Mr M.P. Murray Mr J.H.D. Day Mr F.M. Logan Mr C.J. Barnett Mr J.N. Hyde Mr R.F. Johnson Dr A.D. Buti Mr D.T. Redman Question thus negatived.

ROYAL PERTH HOSPITAL PROTECTION BILL 2008 Consideration in Detail Resumed from 6 November. Clause 7: Development of Royal Perth Hospital — Debate was adjourned after the clause had been partly considered. Mr R.H. COOK: It is my custom with this bill to stand when we begin consideration in detail, to find out what clause we are up to. Can I clarify with the minister: are we now considering those items that appeared at the top of page 56 of last night’s notice paper? Dr K.D. Hames: It is at the bottom of page 55 on today’s. The ACTING SPEAKER: We are on clause 7, member. Mr R.H. COOK: So, the next proposed amendment will be moved by Tom Stephens. Dr K.D. Hames: It will, but I saw him walking out the door! Point of Order Mr R.H. COOK: I want to draw the Acting Speaker’s attention to the demeanour of the Leader of the House. On previous occasions, before he got to this lofty position, he was a much nicer person, but I have noticed that he has become a lot more short-tempered! The ACTING SPEAKER (Ms L.L. Baker): Is there a point to the point of order, member? Dr K.D. Hames: The member for Pilbara is now here.

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Debate Resumed Mr T.G. STEPHENS: I move — Page 3, after line 8 — To insert — (2) Development that takes place at Royal Perth Hospital will not negatively impact on the services, resources and scope of services at the Hedland Hospital (Hedland’s Regional Resource Centre), Newman Hospital, Tom Price Hospital, and Paraburdoo Hospital. Some members of the house will be familiar with the intent of this proposed amendment; I am not one of them! The ACTING SPEAKER: Would the member for Pilbara like to reconsider his motion? Mr T.G. STEPHENS: I will read out my proposed amendment. The ACTING SPEAKER: That is a good idea. Mr T.G. STEPHENS: The proposed amendment standing in my name states that the development that takes place at Royal Perth Hospital will not negatively impact on the services, resources and scope of services at Port Hedland Hospital—the Port Hedland regional resource centre—Newman Hospital, Tom Price Hospital and Paraburdoo Hospital. Dr K.D. Hames: It is hard to imagine how it would, would it not? A lot of the patients go from those hospitals to Royal Perth Hospital. Mr T.G. STEPHENS: What is absolutely essential is that the Minister for Health takes the time, during consideration in detail, to apologise to the people of the Pilbara for his failures since he has been in office to protect the interests of those communities whose hospitals no longer meet their needs—hospitals such as Newman, Tom Price and Paraburdoo. Even after the enormous injection of funds into Port Hedland as a result of the wise ways of the previous Labor government, the position at least in that Pilbara community is that it has a significant facility that has met the needs of recent times. The Minister for Health’s government has not as yet ensured the services on offer to the Hedland community match the rapid population pressure that that community is experiencing. I was with the leader of the WA Labor team and our local mayor, Kelly Howlett, the Labor candidate for Pilbara. We were at the hospital on Monday this week and we were being inundated with complaints from local community members about the services needed in that community. Under this government the staff, specialists and support services seem to have been stripped away from that community. When we travel down to places such as Newman, Tom Price and Paraburdoo we cannot help but notice that this government has failed to invest in the upgrades needed in those towns. It is a disgrace the way Newman Hospital, under this government, has been allowed to deteriorate to the point at which it is in desperate need of the injection of the additional funds that have been committed by the WA Labor team. If we as a party are lucky enough to attract the majority support of the Western Australian community at the next state election, we will allocate to that community the funds necessary to deliver a hospital that will meet the needs of that community. The Tom Price and Paraburdoo communities are, quite rightly, pointing out to the government that despite the fuss the current government made when it was in opposition, it has done nothing about those hospital facilities at Tom Price and Paraburdoo. The government has not delivered the upgrades needed to make them appropriate locations for those communities that have dramatic population pressure on them now from not only the heightened resource activity but also the heightened number of visitors who go into places such as Karijini. It is important that any development that takes place at Royal Perth Hospital is not the basis upon which this government strips from a region like the Pilbara the resources necessary to deliver quality health care facilities to that community. I hope the minister will stand now and assure the house that the funds will flow to those healthcare facilities for the services and the resources to be delivered to meet the needs of those hospitals at that regional resource centre so that we are no longer the recipients of the complaints we get from those communities. Dr K.D. HAMES: We have an arrangement with the other side, member for Pilbara, whereby we have agreement for two speakers from his side. I am sure he has another five minutes in him on this interesting subject! Mr T.G. STEPHENS: That is very kind of the minister. Dr K.D. Hames: Now what are you going to say? Mr T.G. STEPHENS: I was looking forward to the minister’s reply and his assurances that he has finally seen the error of his ways and would make sure the resources needed in the Pilbara for disinfectants and beds would come out of his health budget rather than out of the royalties for regions program. Even before he put disinfectants in the hospitals in the Pilbara these days, I have seen him turn to the royalties for regions fund

[ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] 8113 before he does it. I guess it is absolutely critical that the minister should rise and assure the house and, through the house, the people of the regional areas, including the Pilbara, that he is not as callous as — Dr K.D. Hames: We have very good plans for your region in your absence. Mr T.G. STEPHENS: Plans are one thing, but we need to see some runs on the board. In places such as Tom Price and Paraburdoo, those runs are not on the board. The government does not have a record in which it can go into those communities following its four long years — Dr K.D. Hames: Four and a half. Mr T.G. STEPHENS: — four and a half long, tiring, exhausting and futile years in which he has not done in the regional areas of the Pilbara the sorts of upgrades needed in places such as Paraburdoo, Tom Price and Newman. In fact, the only decent thing that has happened in the Pilbara in terms of health facilities is the fact that the government was able to sneak into town and open up a Labor facility as though it were the government’s own. That is the only thing that has happened of significant value. Can I say to the minister as well, one of the great tragedies we see unfolding as government agencies move away from an old facility such as the old Hedland hospital, a valuable resource has been allowed to sit idle and empty. Despite all the years that were put into planning the new hospital facility in the four and a half long years the government has been in office, it did not do any of the prerequisite planning to make sure that the day the operation moved out of that hospital facility, something happened to that site to meet the needs of the community. The government should have shown that it was able to harvest the funds that could have been available to the Department of Health and to the government to deliver good health facilities across the region. Instead of that, the old hospital has been left to sit idle, basically destroyed by cyclone Joan back in 1975. It has limped along in recent times and now has been replaced by the Hedland Health Care Campus in South Hedland. It sits there with a Cyclone fence around it. It is cyclone only by virtue of the brand name on the fence rather than in any way protecting either that site from cyclones or the community from cyclonic damage that will come if any cyclone hits the town in the next cyclone season. That hospital facility has fallen into disrepair on a beautiful site and the government had all the warning in the world that it would open a healthcare facility in South Hedland. Rather than an orderly process whereby, on the day of moving out of the existing facility, it was demolished and the new arrangements put in place to use that site for a tourist development, residential accommodation or additional housing, all the plans that have been considered for that site have not been brought to fruition. Instead, there is yet again another vacant facility, an idle piece, a lazy asset of the Barnett–Grylls government. It is a lazy asset sitting there that could have been harvested so that cash could have been extracted from it. Those assets are all over the state, not only in the Pilbara; Sunset Hospital in Dalkeith is sitting idle, other than serving as the headquarters of Fortescue Metals Group. I think the government has allowed it to become FMG headquarters. It is an odd way of going about business, and it is time the government did better. Mr R.H. Cook: A speech like that deserved a response. Amendment thus negatived. Mr J.C. KOBELKE: I live in hope that the minister will see the value in the amendment I wish to move and agree to it given he was at Osborne Park Hospital for its fortieth birthday and spoke well and fondly of his time there and how important the hospital is. Dr K.D. Hames: And the member who was born there. Mr J.C. KOBELKE: The member for Nollamara’s mother has worked there for many years and I think some of her family were born there. It is a 205-bed capacity community general hospital that provides comprehensive specialty healthcare services for the north metropolitan suburbs. Its list of specialists include obstetrics and gynaecology, anaesthetics, general surgery, orthopaedics, opthalmology, urology, gastroenterology, paediatric surgery, ear, nose and throat surgery, general medicine and rehabilitation of the aged and extended care. It is therefore appropriate that I move — Page 3, after line 8 — To insert — (2) Development that takes place at Royal Perth Hospital will not impact on services, resources and scope of services at the Osborne Park Hospital. This is absolutely needed because that is what is happening. The development of the Royal Perth Hospital is fine and good, but this government is so city-centric that it does good things in the centre of the city to the detriment of the suburbs. Osborne Park Hospital in the area that I represent is having money taken out of it to fund the minister’s objectives and ambitions for Royal Perth Hospital. It is absolutely necessary that in this Royal Perth Hospital Protection Bill we have a clause that provides protection for Osborne Park Hospital. It is a very fine hospital that serves a wide area, not just my electorate, and it is a second-rung hospital. The whole point of the Reid report was to move more of the minor procedures out of the top hospitals, where the costs are higher, and the Osborne Park Hospital was billed to have major renovations and additions to it, which this government has

8114 [ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] simply scrapped. I will read some quotes from the Stirling Times because they have come largely, I think, from the minister’s offices at the time and reflect what has happened to Osborne Park Hospital with this current government’s city-centric view. The first quote is from the Stirling Times of 1 June 2010 and reads — Plans to upgrade Osborne Park Hospital are set to move forward after a $2.8 million State Government budget allocation. Construction work on the $44 million project is set to start soon. The upgrade will include a 50-bed mental health unit, which will replace beds at Graylands Hospital. The government dropped a $79 million proposal for a bigger redevelopment at Osborne Park Hospital a year ago. Proposed stage two plans hoped to make the hospital a major Perth centre for elective surgery, but it was scrapped after allowing for necessary funding to keep Royal Perth Hospital open. A spokeswoman for Health Minister Kim Hames said the Osborne Park Hospital project was a “works to start” entry in the latest budget, and there was no definite completion date yet. From this we see that back in 2010 the government had started to shift resources away from Osborne Park Hospital to Royal Perth Hospital. Come on two years to this year and, again, the headline in the Stirling Times of 1 May 2012 is “Hospital on Hold”. It reads — The first brick of a new mental health unit at Osborne Park Hospital is yet to be laid. Planning was underway for the proposed 50-bed facility, according to the North Metropolitan Area Health Service. Set to replace beds at Graylands Hospital, the new centre is expected to open in 2016. A $22 million expansion of theatre suites was also set to open in 2014. The State Government dropped a $79 million proposal for a bigger redevelopment at Osborne Park Hospital in 2009. These broader plans to make the hospital a major Perth centre for elective surgery were scrapped to allow for necessary funding to keep Royal Perth Hospital open. Again, it is the same story. In the estimates committee of 31 May this year the Minister for Health answered questions from the member for Bassendean regarding Osborne Park Hospital. I will read out two brief quotes. In the first the minister states — … as part of the total issue of balancing the budget, particularly given the huge capital works component in health services and the reduction in GST payments to the state, we were asked to find projects that could be pushed to the out years, and this was one of those. A bit further on, if I can get the opportunity to speak — Mr R.H. COOK: I am very interested to see what other points the member for Balcatta has to make. Mr J.C. KOBELKE: In the estimates committee this year the Minister for Health also said in that same debate with regard to Osborne Park Hospital that — It has been moved for three years. The view at this stage is that it is still required but not in the short term. We see that Osborne Park Hospital is simply being passed by. It is not getting what was planned for it. It is not getting the enhancements. It is simply lingering there with existing facilities because the government has other priorities. I am not saying that the other priorities are not important. The point is that this government has not got a fair and reasonable balance between the huge emphasis on the centre of the city and what it is doing in the suburbs. Even worse than that, in order to cover the holes in its budget, it put this ridiculous parking fee on Osborne Park Hospital; we had a parking fee for the people who work there and for visitors to the hospital being increased every six months to get more money to go into the health budget because of the ambitions of this minister, which are just so city-centric. We found that people started parking in the streets around the hospital, which caused traffic congestion and problems for the people who live nearby. That has been struck down because it was found by the Joint Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation that the minister did not have the legal power to impose a tax. It was a tax because nothing was actually spent on enhancing the parking facilities; they had been like that for years. There is a huge amount of open space there that has not even been prepared with tarmac for parking that could be used onsite. There is no shortage of available space, but because the government was trying to get money out of people at Osborne Park Hospital to meet its health budget, we had this ridiculous parking fee causing all sorts of problems for staff, visitors and people living in the surrounding streets. The government obviously accepted it, although it did not want to admit openly that it did not have the power to do that; therefore, those regulations were withdrawn. The government simply is not looking after the suburbs. Very important hospitals like Osborne Park Hospital are simply sidelined. It can spend nearly $500 million on the Perth waterfront—a nice beautification—but it has all sorts of problems. It will cost a lot more because the government is not fixing the traffic problem. It can spend roughly $750 million on the Northbridge link, a project that the Premier said when he wrote to the Prime Minister would cost only $263 million. The government can pour all that money into those projects but Osborne Park Hospital simply is

[ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] 8115 the poor relative. It is passed over. It has the funds removed from it so that the government can fund other areas. That is why we need an amendment in this bill that will give that protection to Osborne Park Hospital. The last point I wish to make is that I have raised in the debate with the minister a couple of times that although he knows his medicine and is a caring person, he simply does not have a handle on health economics. His view is that because he has been able to increase the budget by roughly 10 per cent every year for five years, it will simply go on. It will not. There has been a 50 per cent increase in the total state recurrent budget in the time he has been in government, but the recurrent revenue has grown by only 32 per cent, so it simply is not sustainable—a 32 per cent increase in recurrent revenue, a 50 per cent increase in current expenditure, and health has gone up by about that same percentage. Plenty of money has been coming in, but the minister has not done the balancing act to ensure that we get real value for money and that the health system is sustainable. Putting money into Osborne Park Hospital is part of a sustainable health system. It will be a much lower cost structure to do a lot of elective surgery and other procedures that have been quite well handled in a hospital such as Osborne Park Hospital. It is centred where people live, they have access to it, it is a hospital that has a good reputation, and many very wonderful and fine people have worked there for many years because of that commitment to the hospital, and they can be proud to be part of such a wonderful hospital. A hospital with that reputation should not have money ripped out of it year in, year out to meet the minister’s other ambitions and other funding problems in the health system. That is why we need this amendment to give that protection to Osborne Park Hospital. The minister, in the bill before the house, seeks to give legislative protection to Royal Perth Hospital. The people of my electorate and beyond want that protection for Osborne Park Hospital. If it is good enough for the central city, which is getting far too much attention from this government, it is good enough for Osborne Park Hospital. The minister should support this amendment and the people using and working at Osborne Park Hospital. Amendment put and negatived. Ms J.M. FREEMAN: I move — Page 3, after line 8 — To insert — (2) Development that takes place at Royal Perth Hospital will not impact on the development of planned or anticipated health services in the Mirrabooka area. The ACTING SPEAKER (Ms L.L. Baker): Excuse me, member for Nollamara, but could you speak up a bit into your microphone, because we are having a bit of trouble hearing your voice, which is unusual. Several members interjected. Ms J.M. FREEMAN: Yes; that would be a first. I have never been considered to be a retiring type! I would like to speak about the Milldale land in Mirrabooka. Before I do that, I would like to congratulate the member for Balcatta on the very good amendment that he moved previously, which unfortunately we lost. I did hear when I was in my office the comments about the good workers at Osborne Park Hospital. I concur with that, clearly. My mother has worked at that hospital for a number of years, as have any aunt and my sister. Mr J.C. Kobelke: Are you declaring an interest? Ms J.M. FREEMAN: I am declaring an interest. Dr K.D. Hames: You were all born there! Ms J.M. FREEMAN: Yes, we were all born there. All of my mother’s children were born there, and all of my mother’s children’s children were born at Osborne Park Hospital. Dr K.D. Hames: You were probably born there when I was delivering babies, which had I known I think I could have — Several members interjected. Ms J.M. FREEMAN: Just for the record, the minister indicated that he could have pushed me back! We should worry about that! Minister, if we are onto funny stories about pushing back, which we clearly are not, but we might as well tell them, when I had my son at Osborne Park Hospital, the doctor who was delivering my child happened to be the person who was running for the Liberals at the time when I was involved in student politics at the University of Western Australia and was supporting the Labor person for guild president, so that made for interesting conversations. In fact, I did not need a doctor; but onwards and upwards, let us talk about Mirrabooka. Although Osborne Park is a great hospital, and many of the people around Mirrabooka and the areas that I represent use Osborne Park Hospital to have their babies, I have become aware that when they need other medical assistance, the increasing trend is to use Joondalup hospital. On a number of occasions I have had conversations with people at Joondalup hospital about some of the patient treatment at that hospital. Many people tend to go to Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital as well. So when we are looking at the demographic need in

8116 [ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] the Mirrabooka area, which will include Balga after March 2013 in terms of my representation, hopefully, one issue that presents itself often—the minister will be aware of this, because I have raised it in this house and have raised it in correspondence—until recently, there was no doctor in the whole suburb of Balga because all the doctor surgeries had closed down. Nevertheless, thankfully, through the good work of Di Newman, who is the pharmacist in Balga, and through the work of the community, we have been able to encourage a doctor to open a practice in Balga. But he is only one doctor, and there is a great need for more doctors in that area. I have raised in this place before the whole concept of a district workplace shortage. But the point is that although there are many medical centres and medical practices in Mirrabooka, they are just doctor services. When we look at the statistics for Balga in terms of medical need, and when we look at the statistics for Mirrabooka, we see that we need more than just general practitioner assistance for the delivery of health and wellbeing services in that area. The Milldale land in Mirrabooka provides a perfect opportunity for the delivery of health services in this area. The Department of Health has 2.5 hectares of land at Milldale out of the overall area of 7.5 hectares. Mr R.H. COOK: I thought I was going to speak on this amendment, but the member for Nollamara is just starting to hit her straps, and I would love to hear a bit more about what she has to say. Ms J.M. FREEMAN: This is an important issue for the people of Mirrabooka. This land has been vacant for a long period, particularly in recent times, because of the dispute between the Department of Housing and the Department of Health. I congratulate the Minister for Housing and the Minister for Health for finally sorting that out. The Minister for Health may now be aware that the preliminary development has started on that land so that it can be subdivided — Dr K.D. Hames: Are you going to make a commitment before the election? Ms J.M. FREEMAN: I want to continue with my discussion, minister, about the importance of that land. We have before us a bill to protect Royal Perth Hospital. I want to ensure that that is not to the detriment of the use of that land in Mirrabooka by the Department of Health. What has effectively happened now, because there has been development, is that that land has gone from being scrubby bushland to ground zero. They have honestly gone through and taken everything out. It is interesting that that means that progressively we have seen more bird life in communities around Mirrabooka and Nollamara because there was quite a bit of bird life in that area that was taken out. Therefore, that land now really is ground zero. That is fantastic if it leads to something that is positive and there is housing and accommodation development on the Department of Housing land. But it will be a detriment to the community if the Department of Health then just sits on its 2.5 hectares, which sits alongside Reid Highway, as I understand it, without doing any development. In this place when I asked in the estimates hearings about the intention for that land, the Minister for Health, through his advisers, said that that was part of long-term planning. That cannot be long-term planning any longer. That land has been sat on for the past 50 years, and the people in the community of Mirrabooka require that land to be developed. There are many options that the minister can consider, and certainly in the lead-up to the election there are many options that the opposition can consider in terms of making announcements. One option is to go into discussions with some of the aged-care providers in the area, because although the census shows that there is a young population in that area, there is still a great need for aged accommodation in that area. That could lead to something that is quite innovative in terms of developing accommodation and providing for the health needs of aged people in that area, and something that the state government, whether it be Labor or Liberal after the March election, could work with. The other issue is that there are many community organisations in the area that deliver health and welfare services. That land could be used to provide a hub for the delivery of mental health, child health and community health services in that area. That sort of secondary health aspect of what goes on already in the community around Mirrabooka provides a great opportunity for developing that land. It would be an absolute travesty if that land was left to just sit for another 20 to 30 years as an asset on the health department’s books. I certainly have a strong commitment to ensuring that, if that is the case, the land is appropriately looked after and planted so that it becomes an asset to the community as well as just being an asset on the health department’s books. Therefore, this amendment is vital. If the government is seeking to protect Royal Perth Hospital through this bill, it should be good enough for the people of Mirrabooka to know that any resources that will go into ensuring the protection of Royal Perth Hospital will not impact on the resources and the planned or anticipated health services in Mirrabooka, because those services are vital. The government already has the land. It has many options to develop that land. An area of 2.5 hectares is a large tract of land. It is an opportunity to deliver vital health services, be they in a hub for secondary services, or be they in aged care to relieve some of the nursing care that is required in that area. So I commend the amendment to the house. Mr R.H. Cook: Hear, hear! Amendment put and negatived. Mr B.S. WYATT: I move —

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Page 3, after line 8 — To insert — (2) Development that takes place at Royal Perth Hospital will not impact on the development of planned or anticipated health services at the Bentley Hospital. I spent some time last night making the point that hospitals in regional Western Australia and other hospitals around metropolitan Perth should have the same protection, priority and importance in the mind of the government that Royal Perth Hospital does. The government has made the decision to introduce this legislation to elevate the importance of Royal Perth Hospital over every other hospital in Western Australia. The government has done this to ensure that in the event that a future government, Liberal or Labor, makes the decision to close Royal Perth Hospital—such a decision will be, to quote the minister’s second reading speech, “at the whim of a bureaucrat”—comprehensive debate in both houses of Parliament takes place before the closure of Royal Perth Hospital could take place. Mr R.H. Cook: The people of the Vic Park deserve better. Mr B.S. WYATT: I have no doubt that the people of Victoria Park, Bentley, Cannington and surrounds have the same view of Bentley Hospital, and I think it should be afforded the respect of this government and it should be ensured that the residents’ local hospital has the same protection that Royal Perth Hospital will receive upon the passage of this legislation. The minister made the point in his second reading speech that another reason this legislation is being introduced to protect and to elevate Royal Perth Hospital above and beyond every other hospital in Western Australia is to ensure that the concentration of expertise and history at Royal Perth Hospital is retained. Bentley Hospital has a long history in my electorate, the electorate of Cannington and the surrounding areas. Many people who live in my local area were born at Bentley Hospital and their children were born at Bentley Hospital. The reason they want Bentley Hospital to continue to offer maternity services is that they feel comfortable with Bentley Hospital. It is a local hospital and, I think, the member for Kwinana has said previously that hospitals such as Bentley are the workhorses of the health system—it is reliable, it is close to the community and it is exactly what the people of Bentley in my electorate want. That is why they want Bentley Hospital to have exactly the same protection that is being afforded Royal Perth Hospital—namely, to ensure that the minister regards Bentley Hospital as having exactly the same importance as every other hospital in Western Australia. Some time ago, I FOI-ed the issues around Bentley Hospital. I have a letter dated 2 February 2010, which was released to me under freedom of information, written to Under Treasurer Tim Marney by the acting Director General of the Department of Health, Kim Snowball. I will quickly read what he said in his letter to the Under Treasurer — Thank you for your letter of 29 December 2009, addressed to Dr Robyn Lawrence regarding the WA Health Clinical Services Framework 2010–2020. You requested an outline of the key differences in the Clinical Services Framework 2010–2020 as compared to the previous framework; the associated financial and efficient implications arising from these shifts and further detailed questions in respect to the retention of Royal Perth Hospital; the suite of demand management strategies around bed-day savings and emergency department occasions of service. There was attached to that letter an annexure as prepared by the Department of Health and the then acting director general. Interestingly, it makes a point concerning the difference between the previous clinical services framework and the one that has been prepared by the minister of the current Barnett government that says, “Relax; rely on my clinical services framework to protect your hospitals. You don’t need the extra legislation that Royal Perth Hospital’s getting. Rely on the clinical services framework for the protection of hospitals.” This is what the attachment to the letter says, member for Kwinana, incredibly — • Bentley — nil surgical or maternity services by 2014. Nil—nil surgical or maternity services by 2014. I know, because I have a petition with a growing number of signatures from people not just in Bentley, but also in the suburbs surrounding Bentley Hospital, that — Mr R.H. COOK: The member for Victoria Park is on a roll. I think it is important we hear him again. Mr B.S. WYATT: I thank the member for Kwinana. The people of Bentley know. I have here a petition with a growing number of signatures of Bentley people who want to ensure that services at their hospital in Bentley are retained. I have the media clippings with me in which the minister came out and said, “Relax; maternity services are here to stay.” But I know, the people of Bentley know and the people in my electorate know that the maternity services are there only until Fiona Stanley Hospital is opened. The minister himself has said that he accepts that Bentley maternity services “need to be tarted up”—to quote the minister. But it is more than that; it is more than a lick of paint. It is a service that has been provided for decades in my electorate; it is a service that I know is valued by my electorate, hence the huge number of signatures I have on this petition.

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Dr K.D. Hames: Can I ask whether you compared that with your own clinical services framework that showed maternity services closing? Mr B.S. WYATT: Funnily enough, I am waving this piece of paper around because this is the letter from Kim Snowball, the then acting Director General of the Department of Health, to Tim Marney, the Under Treasurer, in February 2010, comparing the previous clinical services framework — Dr K.D. Hames interjected. Mr B.S. WYATT: The minister can get his response in a minute. This is a letter from Kim Snowball, the then acting Director General of the Department of Health, to Tim Marney, the Under Treasurer, in February 2010, comparing the previous clinical services framework to the current one in which the minister says, “Relax, people of Bentley—relax; I’m going to protect you”, and in which the government itself says that Bentley will have nil surgical or maternity services by 2014. I know that some local pressure came from the federal member because he faced an election in 2010. He was nervous; he was under the pump. Therefore, the Minister for Health came out and protected him in respect of Bentley Hospital maternity services. He knows. He says, “Regardless of what the clinical services framework says, it’s going to be okay up until 2014 when Fiona Stanley opens—but that’s it.” The people of Bentley know weasel words when they hear them, and they know that maternity services at Bentley Hospital are here very much for the short term, despite the fact that they have been there for decades. I come back to the point I began my short contribution with. I do not think it is fair for the government to elevate the importance of one hospital above every other hospital in Western Australia. Any other hospital, whether it is in Broome, Joondalup or Peel, Armadale or Bentley, can be closed on the whim of a bureaucrat. I know that because that is what the minister said in his second reading speech when he introduced this legislation back in 2008. He is introducing this legislation to ensure that Royal Perth Hospital cannot be closed on the whim of a bureaucrat. As he said, he wants to ensure that if RPH is to be closed by a future government, comprehensive debate in both houses must take place before that occurs. I do not think it is unreasonable for the people of Bentley, the people of the electorate of Victoria Park, the electorate of Cannington and the electorate of Belmont, which I would have thought would also fall into the catchment of Bentley Hospital, to expect a similar protection. I think the people of Bentley would like to know that if a future government intends to close Bentley Hospital, a comprehensive debate in both houses of Parliament will take place. Bentley Hospital has a concentration of expertise and history that is just as valuable as that of Royal Perth Hospital. It is not any less valuable. It is worthy of protection. Why is Royal Perth Hospital any more worthy than any other hospital in Western Australia? That is the ultimate question that the minister has not responded to today. We have already seen our emergency mental health unit taken out of Bentley under the watch of this minister and taken down to Armadale. We are already losing services in respect of Bentley mental health, and we know the plan because the now Director General of Health has said that after 2014 there will be nil surgical or maternity services at Bentley Hospital. The people of Bentley want the same protection afforded Royal Perth. I know this because I have many signatures from people not just from Bentley, but from surrounding suburbs, who value the contribution that Bentley Hospital has made over the years, who value the expertise and history that Bentley Hospital has, and who want to ensure that, as with Royal Perth, they have the dignity and respect of being offered a comprehensive debate in both houses of Parliament before Bentley Hospital is closed. Amendment put and negatived. Mr R.H. COOK: I am trying to remember the date that the Royal Perth Hospital Protection Bill 2008 was introduced. Was it November 2008? Anyway, it was an awfully long time ago, and with the passage of time, I have no idea what was in my mind at the time! Dr K.D. Hames: What’s in your mind now? Mr R.H. COOK: I know exactly what is in my mind, and I am glad the minister asked! What is in my mind is that I am wondering what was going through my mind when I moved the amendment standing in my name, to insert into the bill the lines “Development means improving and advancing the health facilities at Royal Perth Hospital in a manner which ensures its continued operation as a tertiary hospital without undue interruption to service.” This is an important amendment; I remember it being an important amendment because I made it! But why it is an important amendment is perhaps lost to the passage of time. I think perhaps we were concerned that we were relying upon section 4 of the Planning and Development Act 2005 and that perhaps that provided the minister with too much latitude, because we know that what he was trying to achieve through this clause was to stop a minister—maybe himself, or a minister in the future—from closing the hospital down and saying, “Don’t worry, we’re not closing the hospital down; we’re just redeveloping it”. I assume that this provision will allow a minister to redevelop aspects of the hospital which would, indeed, suspend its operations, particularly in relation to specific parts of the hospital: lots 915, 916 and 500. Members will be aware that this bill compels a tertiary

[ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] 8119 hospital to continue to operate on that site. However, one would envisage that in the future at some point, if we were to redevelop any aspects of the hospital, it might involve the suspension of operations or the suspension of business in relation to those particular lots. It is important that we have a provision that allows the minister of the day to essentially suspend the operation of the legislation at that time to allow for such redevelopment. We therefore sought to strengthen the minister’s position in that regard through this amendment by putting a more robust definition around “development”. What we are particularly saying through this amendment is that not only is development given life in terms of the Planning and Development Act, but that development is about the improvement and advancement of health facilities at Royal Perth Hospital. In particular, we are saying that we could amend this clause to allow the minister to more ably go about the redevelopment of the hospital, or sections of it, without necessarily creating undue interruptions to service. I will move the amendment standing in my name, and I commend this amendment to the house. The ACTING SPEAKER (Ms L.L. Baker): Member for Kwinana, that was very illuminating. Did you actually move the amendment? Mr R.H. COOK: I thought I had! The ACTING SPEAKER: Thank you; just checking. Would you just like to do it one more time? Mr R.H. COOK: I move — Page 3, lines 9 to 11 — To delete the lines and substitute — (2) Development means improving and advancing the health facilities at Royal Perth Hospital in a manner which ensures its continued operation as a tertiary hospital without undue interruption to service. Amendment put and negatived. Clause put and passed. Clause 8 put and passed. Clause 9: Regulations — Ms J.M. FREEMAN: I move — Page 3, lines 17 to 20 — To delete all words after “prescribing” and substitute — medical and support services for the purpose of Section 6. I want to put this amendment into the legislation because, as the house will be aware, I have often stood in this place and talked about my concerns with skeletal legislation that allows for our prescribing of things that are not outlined with any certainty or particularity in respect of the legislation that we pass. We are prescribing matters in such a small bill, when it could be clearly said that it is prescribing medical and support services for the purpose of proposed section 6. Proposed section 6 is “Services to be provided”, and it goes through that aspect of it. It seems to me that with such a small bill it would be of concern if we ended up with regulations that are far greater. It is of importance to have something that is much more specific in terms of the regulations for such a specific bill. There has been a lot of debate in this house on the intention of this bill and the intention to maintain and protect Royal Perth Hospital. In that way, it is about the medical and support services in terms of regulations to prescribe for that, because to be able to make regulations beyond that, we then start to go into questions that we have already debated in this house about the operations of the act. When this bill was previously debated in this place, the operation of the legislation was questioned, and the Minister for Health indicated that only section 8 of the Hospitals and Health Services Act 1927—“Closing public hospital, abolishing board, varying trusts”—was the case. Since that time, we have come into this house on two separate occasions; this will be the second time that we have come into this house about the operation of the legislation. The minister was going to go back and check on the operation of the legislation and whether the only effect, despite any provision of the Hospitals and Health Services Act 1927, went to section 8 of that act. It is in terms of making and prescribing regulations that we need to be so particular. We are still not sure because the minister has not come back to the house to clarify whether the only effect of this legislation in terms of operation is to override the operation of section 8 and no other section of the act. I suppose I rise on this amendment to be able to say that this is the way for me to raise that again, because the minister undertook to — Dr K.D. Hames interjected. Ms J.M. FREEMAN: What does the letter say, minister? That would be handy to know. Because we are so uncertain about those operations in terms of determining that, we need to be much more particular and much more concise about the regulations that will come from this and those regulations are clearly from that to be services provided under clause 6. To be able to be prescribing all matters seems to be beyond the scope and the intent of this particular bill. It goes into that whole aspect of questioning how we look at the intent of the bill. The intent of the bill was actually outlined in “Services to be provided” at clause 6, so I think to be able to be so

8120 [ASSEMBLY — Wednesday, 7 November 2012] specific is actually very important in that aspect. I now see that the minister has the letter before him. If I sit down, is the minister going to rise, or would he like to do it by interjection? Dr K.D. Hames: No, but I will do it in the third reading. Ms J.M. FREEMAN: The indication, therefore, of — Dr K.D. Hames: The two sections that the member said were section 8 and section 3. Section 3, “Application of Act”, states — (3) The Minister may by notice published in the Gazette declare that any institution is not a public hospital, or is not a nursing home, as the case may be, for the purposes of this Act. Ms J.M. FREEMAN: That is section 3(3) of Hospitals and Health Services Act 1927. It overrides those two areas. If that is so specific in terms of the operation of the act, why are regulations required that go to all matters and are so broad? Dr K.D. Hames: It is for a description of the services provided, because there is no definition of “tertiary”. Amendment put and negatived. Clause put and passed. Title — Mr R.H. COOK: This is an essential element of the bill. Should any of our amendments in relation to the scope and nature of the services — Dr K.D. Hames: If you could not take five minutes, that would be very nice of you. Mr R.H. COOK: You want me to take five minutes? Dr K.D. Hames: No. Mr R.H. COOK: However, none of our amendments was successful. That is disappointing, and of course we will be letting the public know that the government has rejected all our amendments to protect the hospital services in their particular areas. Of course, that now makes this particular amendment no longer necessary. I am happy to not proceed with this particular amendment. Title put and passed. Reconsideration in Detail — Motion On motion by Dr K.D. Hames (Minister for Health), resolved — That the bill be reconsidered in detail for the further consideration of clause 3. Reconsideration in Detail Clause 3: Term used: Royal Perth Hospital — Dr K.D. HAMES: I move — Page 2 — To delete the substituted words: (a) Lot 915 on Deposited Plan 183229; and (b) Lot 916 on Deposited Plan 183230; being the whole or part of the land the subject of the Certificate of Title Volume 2726 Folio 337; and (c) Lot 500 on Deposited Plan 58617, and being a portion of the land the subject of the Certificate of Title Volume 2726 Folio 339. and substitute: (a) Lot 915 on Deposited Plan 183229, being a portion of the land the subject of Certificate of Title Volume 2726 Folio 337; (b) Lot 916 on Deposited Plan 183230, being a portion of the land the subject of the Certificate of Title Volume 2726 Folio 337; (c) Lot 500 on Deposited Plan 58617, being a portion of the land the subject of the Certificate of Title Volume 2726 Folio 337. The reason for doing that—I apologise to the house—is that I was given a list. We changed it before. The actual description of the land was not correct. As it turned out, I had a version that in itself was not correct and I have been given a subsequent version that I am reassured is correct. This is in fact the land. As members can see, there is not a lot of difference between them. It is just the boundaries of the land and the titles and folios that are contained therein.

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Mr R.H. COOK: What happens when this happens again? If those land titles are altered, what is the mechanism by which we will revisit this? Dr K.D. Hames: It would be on the on the certificate of title at Landgate, and that would be brought up to date via Landgate. Mr R.H. COOK: Would that require further legislative amendment? Dr K.D. Hames: No. Amendment put and passed. Clause, as further amended, put and passed. House adjourned at 7.06 pm ______

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QUESTIONS ON NOTICE

Questions and answers are as supplied to Hansard.

MINISTER FOR TRANSPORT — TRAIN/ BUS TRAVEL TO BURSWOOD 8530. Mr J.N. Hyde to the Minister for Transport As at 1 August 2012, on how many occasions since the election of the Barnett Government has the Minister taken the train or bus to Burswood Casino, golf course, and the peninsula for ministerial events, functions or media activities? Mr T.R. BUSWELL replied: Records concerning the mode of transport are not retained. MINISTER FOR TRANSPORT — TRAIN/ BUS TRAVEL TO SUBIACO 8531. Mr J.N. Hyde to the Minister for Transport As at 1 August 2012, on how many occasions since the election of the Barnett Government has the Minister, in relation to his ministerial responsibilities: (a) taken the train or bus to Subiaco Oval for events; and (b) used a car to arrive at Subiaco Oval? Mr T.R. BUSWELL replied: (a)–(b) Refer to Question on Notice 8530. POLICE — DRAFT RESOURCE AGREEMENT 8685. Mrs M.H. Roberts to the Treasurer (1) Did the Treasurer request in writing that WA Police provide a draft resource agreement this year? (2) If so, on what date was it requested and on what date was the draft received by Treasury and or the Treasurer? (3) Were WA Police at any stage requested to submit a draft resource agreement and if so, on what date or dates? (4) Did the Treasurer at any point refer a draft resource agreement back to WA Police? (5) If so, on what dates and what matters or details did the Treasurer ask WA Police to further consider or revise? (6) Did WA Police and the Treasurer try to reach an agreement on a resource agreement before the start of this financial year? (7) If so, what evidence can the Minister provide of this? Mr T.R. BUSWELL replied: The Department of Treasury advises: (1) No. (2) Not applicable (3) Yes. 30 March 2012. (4) No. (5) Not applicable (6) Yes. (7) The Treasurer is happy to provide a copy of the standard template initially sent to WA Police by the Department of Treasury [See paper 5550.] FREMANTLE HOSPITAL — GENERAL PRACTICE SERVICE 8732. Mr R.H. Cook to the Minister for Health I refer to answers to previous questions without notice where the Minister has indicated that he is committed to ensuring some sort of hospital-based general practice service is retained at Fremantle Hospital, which has existed there for over two decades, and I ask:

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(a) given the current general practice will vacate the hospital on 28 September 2012, what arrangements, if any, will be in place for patients who present to the hospital from this date onwards to see a general practitioner; (b) When will the State Government finalise negotiations with a new service provider to ensure that a general practice service continues to be based at the hospital; (c) considering that the Department took four months with the tender process at Fremantle Hospital earlier this year, only to award no tender, how long does the Department expect the residents of Fremantle to be without a hospital-based general practice service; (d) what steps, if any, has the Department already taken to ensure a new provider is in place as soon as possible, for example has it called for new tenders, has it invited other unsuccessful applicants in the earlier round to re-apply; (e) in relation to the Department’s debt of approximately $220,000 outstanding to the previous Fremantle Hospital General Practice, has that debt been resolved, and if not, when does the Minister anticipate the debt to be paid; (f) was Appendix 4 removed from the latest tender submission that was made by the Fremantle Hospital General Practice in the previous tender submission, which included letters of support from the Mayor of Fremantle, the former Minister for Health, the Dean of the Medical School and the Head of Mental Health at Fremantle Hospital; (g) will the removal of Appendix 4 be investigated further, and if necessary an apology made to both those who submitted letters of support for their submission being omitted, and to the Fremantle Hospital General Practice for the omission of their submission? Dr K.D. HAMES replied: (a)-(d) Patients have been informed of the new location of the previous Hospital General Practice (HGP) and also advised of alternative practices in the Fremantle area. South Metropolitan Health Service (SMHS) is currently reviewing the demand for general practice services at Fremantle Hospital Health Service (FHHS). When the pattern of demand is established, SMHS will work with local providers to establish whatever service is required. The After-Hours GP service continues to operate from the FHHS site. (e) The Department of Health does not have a debt of any size to HGP. HGP is an independent entity and there was no contractual arrangement between the Department of Health and HGP. HGP has made a request for an ex-gratia payment from the Minister to resolve its financial difficulties, which the Minister has refused following recommendations made by the State Solicitor’s Office. (f) Appendix 4 consisted of letters of support for HGP. These documents were not requested in the Expression of Interest (EOI) process. An independent probity adviser was appointed to oversee the EOI process and their advice was requested. They recommended that material not called for in the EOI document could not be considered as part of the evaluation, as all applicants must be evaluated on the same criteria, based on the EOI document. The letters of support were therefore not considered in order to prevent a breach of due process. (g) No further investigation of the removal of these documents is necessary. The independent probity adviser’s report concluded that the EOI process was managed fairly and in accordance with public sector standards. BENTLEY AND KALEEYA HOSPITALS — MATERNITY SERVICES 8735. Mr R.H. Cook to the Minister for Health I refer to the maternity wards at Bentley and Kaleeya Hospitals, and the Minister’s statement that he will close the maternity ward at Kaleeya, and review the future of the maternity ward at Bentley based on the number of deliveries being performed at Bentley once Fiona Stanley Hospital is operational in early 2014, and I ask: (a) over what period of time will Bentley maternity ward be reviewed before making a decision around its retention or cessation; (b) what were the operational costs of the maternity ward at Bentley over the last financial year; (c) has the Department of Health allocated money in the budget forward estimates to cover the estimated operating costs of the Bentley maternity ward for beyond the 2013–2014 financial year and if not, why not; (d) has the Department of Health allocated money in budget forward estimates to cover the estimated operating costs of the Bentley maternity ward for 2014–2015 and 2015–2016, to cover the scenario that demand still warrants Bentley’s retention, and if not, why not; what is the estimated cost of required

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refurbishments to the Bentley maternity ward, which I understand have been placed on hold until a decision will be made around its future; (e) if Bentley closes, will all low-risk births that would previously have fallen under the Bentley maternity ward be referred to Fiona Stanley Hospital, or will they be divided between Royal Perth, Armadale and Fiona Stanley, depending on which would be their closest public hospital with a maternity ward; (f) is the Minister aware that for some women in the Bentley Hospital feeder district, such as those living in Victoria Park, the trip to Fiona Stanley Hospital would take at least 20 minutes (during normal traffic conditions) whereas the trip to Bentley would take on average around only 5 minutes and that the extra commuting time required may provide additional stress to women during labour; (g) given that the Minister has cited that at ‘around 1,000’ births per annum a maternity service remains viable, and Kaleeya Hospital has been averaging around this number of births per annum over the past 5 years, will he reconsider his decision to close the maternity ward at Kaleeya, and if not, why not; and (h) what were the operational costs of the maternity ward at Kaleeya during the last financial year? Dr K.D. HAMES replied: (a) The continuation of obstetric services at Bentley Health Service (BHS) will be reconsidered once Fiona Stanley Hospital opens. The timeframe for this review has not been determined. (b) Total Operational Costs (rounded figure): $5,464,547. (c) The Department of Health’s forward estimates are determined by reference to projected activity levels and the configuration of services in the Clinical Services Framework 2010-2020. Planned obstetric activity levels in 2013–14 and beyond are therefore funded. (d) The Department of Health is funded to deliver agreed levels of public hospital activity in the service configuration set out in the Clinical Services Framework 2010–2020. If activity exceeds budgeted parameters, funding to the DOH is able to be adjusted through the budget process. From 2014–15, under the National Health Reform Agreement, the Commonwealth Government will provide additional funding to the State if aggregate public hospital activity exceeds planned levels. (e) Major Works Total refurbishment to previous Architects (Bateman Grundmann) proposal (12 December 2008) — $4 million. Minor Works Funding for Minor Works refurbishment has been apportioned from 2011–2012 and 2012–2013 Minor Works Budget accordingly: - $40,000 Second Bathroom for labour room. - $165,000 Ward 2 / Maternity minor refurbishment. (f) Royal Perth Hospital does not provide maternity services. Women who previously would have delivered at BHS would be redirected to their closest maternity service. This may be King Edward Memorial Hospital, Armadale or Fiona Stanley dependent on where they live. (g) It is recognised that some women will be required to travel further to deliver babies if BHS Maternity Service closes. (h) The Clinical Services Framework 2005 — 2015 shows Kaleeya Hospital’s Obstetrics Unit will close with demand being picked up by the Fiona Stanley Hospital. This was initiated by the former Labor Government. At this stage there is no reason to deviate from this plan. (i) Total Operational Costs — $12,377,000. FIRE STATIONS — SPOTLESS MAINTENANCE CONTRACT 8744. Ms M.M. Quirk to the Minister representing the Minister for Finance I refer to the government-wide maintenance contract with Spotless, and I ask: (a) what was the total amount of maintenance costs incurred by the Fire and Emergency Services Authority under this contract for each of the financial years 2009–2010, 2010–2011 and 2011–2012; (i) what is the standard charge under the contract for Building Management and Works contractors for the following: call out; changing a washer on a tap; (ii) changing a light globe; installing a lock on a door; and fixing a broken window; (b) can the Minister confirm that under the terms of the existing contract, none of these minor repairs can be undertaken by officers in the station?

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Mr T.R. BUSWELL replied: (a) 2009-10 $4,151,246.45 2010-11 $3,919,789.56 2011-12 $4,168,905.62 (b) The Department of Finance’s contract with Spotless allows the company to access the Department’s trade panel contractors. There is no standard charge because the trade panel price rates are structured on time and materials which are variable depending on: • the individual contractor’s hourly rates; • the type of trade; • type and cost of materials required; • access requirements; • the time of day; and • the level of priority required. (c) Under the terms of the existing contract, officers are not prevented from undertaking minor repairs. However the service arranger provides a comprehensive management service for the delivery of building related maintenance and property services to Fire and Emergency Services Authority buildings. RETIREES WA — REPORT 8749. Ms M.M. Quirk to the Minister representing the Minister for Commerce I refer to a report commissioned by government into certain activities of Retirees WA, and ask: (a) what is the current status of that report; (b) when did the Minister receive it; (c) what action, if any, does the Minister intend to take as a consequence of the findings of the report; and (d) if the Minister does not intend to take any action, why not? Mr T.R. BUSWELL replied: (a)–(d) The Department of Commerce has not commissioned a report into the activities of Retirees WA. HOON OFFENCES — GIRRAWHEEN ELECTORATE 8761. Ms M.M. Quirk to the Minister for Police Can the Minister advise the number of persons charged with so called hoon offences for each financial year from 2008–2009 to 2011–2012 inclusive, for each of the following suburbs: (a) Marangaroo; (b) Warwick; (c) Girrawheen; (d) Darch; (e) Madeley; and (f) Landsdale? Mrs L.M. HARVEY replied: (a)–(f) [See paper 5551.] PEEL HEALTH CAMPUS — HEALTH SOLUTIONS (WA) CONTRACT 8768. Ms M.M. Quirk to the Minister for Health (1) Can the Minister confirm that the Department is currently in negotiations with Health Solutions (WA) Pty Ltd for the renewal of the Peel Health Campus contract? (2) When is it anticipated that negotiations will be finalised? (3) What is the term for renewal under consideration? (4) If more than ten years, is the duration the standard length of term offered for such contracts? (5) If not, why not? Dr K.D. HAMES replied: (1) The Department is not in negotiations with Health Solutions (WA) Pty Ltd for the renewal of the Peel Health Campus contract. By letter dated 18 July 2012 Health Solutions submitted a proposal for a staged expansion of the Peel Health Campus. The proposal is currently under consideration.

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(2) No date has been set for completion of consideration of the proposal. (3) The term of renewal in the proposal is 15 years plus the 5 year option in the current contract. (4) There is no standard length of term. (5) Not applicable. POLICE OFFICERS — PEEL DISTRICT 8832. Mr D.A. Templeman to the Minister for Police I refer to the Police stations in Mandurah, Mundijong, Dwellingup, Pinjarra, Boddington and Rockingham, and I ask: (a) can the Minister outline the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) Police Officers assigned to each station as at 30 June 2008; (b) can the Minister outline the number of FTE Police Officers assigned to each station as at 30 June 2012; (c) can the Minister outline how many officers are designated as WA Police Crime Prevention and Community Diversity Officers and or Crime Prevention Officers at each station? Mrs L.M. HARVEY replied: The Western Australia Police advise due to operational sensitivities, specific information relating to staffing levels of individual police stations is not released. Resources are principally allocated at a District level and District Superintendents deploy these resources within their District to provide the best possible policing service to meet operational requirements and the varying needs of the community. (a)–(b) [See paper 5552.] (c) The Peel District has two FTE Crime Prevention and Community Diversity Officers. 1. As of 1 June 2010 prior to the District changes the numbers were the same. • On 1 July 2009 following a review of district boundaries there was a realignment of Peel District from RWA to South Metropolitan District which also incorporated the sub- districts of Kwinana and Rockingham from South Metropolitan District. 28 full time equivalent (FTE) police officers from a mixture of allocated FTE’s and additional FTE’s created a District Crime Team, Criminal Intelligence Crime Unit, and Family and Domestic Violence Teams to fall in line with the Metropolitan Model. • On 1 July 2010 the Yarloop Police Sub District was moved from Peel District to South West Police District and the Boddington Police Sub District moved from Peel District to Great Southern Police District POLICE AND COMMUNITY YOUTH CENTRES — MIDLAND 8850. Mrs M.H. Roberts to the Minister for Police (1) How many officers, other than youth liaison officers, have spent any of their rostered duty time at police and community youth centres (PCYC) at any time in the last three months? (2) What duties were they engaged in and for what period of time and on what date? (3) Specifically, is the Minister able to provide any evidence of any police officer being involved in any activity at the Midland PCYC on any day in July or August 2012? (4) On what date was the last police officer physically located at Midland PCYC removed in 2012? (5) What specific programs had that officer been involved in? Mrs L.M. HARVEY replied: (1) Ten police officers, six police staff, however other operational police officers may have also spent rostered duty time at the PCYC. (2) Four police officers were engaged in duties as Centre Managers, which involved day to administration of the centres, in addition to supervising of programs where applicable. The other six police officers were employed as Programs Officers, which entailed supervision of programs applicable to juvenile Prolific Priority Offenders and Youth at Risk. These officers worked a 40 hour week. (3) Police were not involved in any activities at the Midland PCYC during July or August 2012 as the Youth Liaison Officer position was vacant following the secondment of the police officer attached to the Midland PCYC.

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(4) On 22 June 2012 the police officer was voluntarily seconded to another position within WA Police. A new Centre Manager was employed by the Federation in May 2012 to manage the PCYC. The Centre Manager position previously held by the police officer was converted to a Youth Liaison Officer position and advertised in August 2012. On 7 June 2012 it was agreed with the Federation the available accommodation at Midland PCYC was not suitable for a Youth Liaison Officer. The successful Youth Liaison Officer applicant transferred from Regional WA and took up the position in mid-September 2012, housed in police premises pending the suitability of the PCYC accommodation at Midland. (5) Programs the police officer attached to Midland PCYC was involved in include: • Northbridge Diversion Program • Bandyup Women’s Prison visits • Leadership Committee • PPO Intensive Management • At Risk Soccer • Outreach Bus .

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