7 Sep 2017 Public Works and Utilities Committee 2807

Mr COSTIGAN: I rise to a point of order. The honourable is talking about this government not selling ports. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms Farmer): Order! Do you have a point of order, member for Whitsunday? Mr COSTIGAN: I think the member is misleading the House. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: If you feel so, you can write to the Speaker. Mr COSTIGAN: I will. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Lockyer, did you have a point of order? Mr RICKUSS: My point of order was that the member is misleading the House. The Labor government sold the Brisbane port. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: If you feel that is the case, you can write to the Speaker. Mr KING: I reiterate that the Palaszczuk government does not sell ports; all the previous government wanted to do was to sell our ports. We are investing in our ports by keeping our government owned corporations in public hands so that they can continue to work for the public. government owned ports provide— Honourable members interjected. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! It would be almost impossible for Hansard to hear the member for Kallangur. Would everyone please allow the member for Kallangur to speak? Mr KING: Thank you for your protection, Madam Deputy Speaker. I appreciate it. owned ports provide a central role in the facilitation of trade, which creates jobs, mostly in our regions, and investment in the Queensland economy. I will not say too much more, except that we are investing. I notice that the member opposite said that some money would be well spent on the port of Mackay. The Bulk Ports Corporation will spend $7 million on wharfs 4 and 5 fender upgrades at the port of Mackay and a further $2.9 million to complete the Port of Abbot Point module offloading facility. We are investing in our ports and we are keeping them in government hands. Question put—That the motion be agreed to. Motion agreed to.

PUBLIC WORKS AND UTILITIES COMMITTEE

Report, Motion to Take Note Mr KING (Kallangur—ALP) (12.14 pm): I move— That the House take note of the Public Works and Utilities Committee report No. 40 titled Auditor-General report to parliament 7: 2016-17 water: 2015-16 results of financial audits, tabled 31 May 2017. On behalf of the committee, I thank the committee secretariat and the Queensland Audit Office for their assistance with our consideration of the report. I also thank the committee members for their work during our examination of the report. The Queensland Audit Office's audit found that all our GOCs are financially sustainable. There is a ripple in , but they do have a planned path to address that financial position in a way that is fair and sustainable. As we know, Seqwater is the owner of the South-East Queensland Water Grid, which has drought proofed South-East Queensland through strategic investments in large-scale water infrastructure during the millennium drought. During a different examination, our committee visited some of those facilities. We saw the investment that has saved us several times. It is because of the Labor government's investment in climate-resilient water sources and the Water Grid that South-East Queensland was better able to respond when poor summer rainfall left some of the region's dams in worse shape than others. When we have disasters in this area, such as ex-tropical , water treatment plants can go down, pounded by high rainfall events. As we saw during our visit, the Gold Coast desalination plant does not have any rust, as those opposite like to say. There is no rust whatsoever and there never was, except during construction. The Gold Coast desalination plant kicked into gear and was running at 100 per cent capacity to ensure that water supply was maintained. By building one of Australia's first water grids, we now have the flexibility to change supply sources when we need to and move drinking water across our region. Those investments ensure the

2808 Public Works and Utilities Committee 7 Sep 2017

south-east always has a reliable high-quality water supply. I note that the member for Southport was a big advocate for the desalination plant when we were down there. He loved it. Seqwater is on a price path, set by the Queensland Competition Authority, to reach a sustainable and fair bulk water price to pay down those investments, which have proven to be highly valuable to our state again and again. I am pleased to report that Seqwater has developed and implemented enhanced financial government practices to address the QAO's other findings. Mr MOLHOEK (Southport—LNP) (12.17 pm): I rise to also speak to report No. 40 from the Public Works and Utilities Committee in reference to the Auditor-General's report to parliament No. 7 for 2016-17 on water in 2015-16 and the results of financial audits. This report highlights the fact that the figures reported by the various water entities were accurate. However, it does not accurately portray what an absolute mess Labor has made of our water assets and our borrowings across the state of Queensland. As the member for Kallangur rightly pointed out, as a councillor with the Gold Coast City Council I was a supporter of the desalination plant at the height of the drought. The first proposal council had was to build a small desalination plant for emergency water backup at a cost of about $300 million. Then suddenly there was a looming election and the state government was in a panic because they had no answers to solve the water problems of South-East Queensland. A letter arrived from Peter Beattie's office, telling the Gold Coast City Council that they will take over the control of the desalination plant and reimburse the Gold Coast council for the money that had been spent on land acquisitions in preparation. It went from a $300 million project to about a $1.6 billion project. 018 What do we have now? We have a desalination plant that is over capacity, has been over speced and has been built at a level that was absolutely unsustainable and unnecessary. That is what Labor does. We heard from the member for Yeerongpilly, Mark Bailey, a little earlier. He accused the LNP of a lack of policy development. The policy that they have developed with regard to energy is building solar panel farms all over Queensland when we are one of the largest miners of coal and one of the cleanest generators of coal-fired power in the southern hemisphere, if not the world. Mr KING: I rise to a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. We are talking about water assets not solar panels. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms Farmer): I did not hear what the member was saying, but I would ask you to remain relevant. Mr MOLHOEK: The accusation was that the LNP has no credibility in terms of policy development. I just wanted to point out that importing more solar panels from China is not necessarily going to create jobs in Queensland. That is classic ‘Labornomics'. One of the questions that the committee asked the Audit Office was whether they could supply a schedule that provided some detail around the extent of borrowings, the amount of money that was being spent on maintenance and what the current policy direction was of the government. Again, as we saw with the energy audit report and the figures provided in an answer to a question on notice then, the figures for maintenance came through reading ‘Not disclosed. Not disclosed. Not disclosed. Not disclosed.' My question to the government is: what are they trying to hide? I know what they are trying to hide. They are trying to hide the fact that they have raided the water entities of money to prop up their budget. What we heard from the Audit Office was that debt amongst the water entities is now at $13.6 billion. The debt has not gone down. We would have thought that it might have gone down, but it has actually gone up again. The Audit Office said that this represents nine per cent of total state debt. They expressed concerns around some of the government policy. They went on to state— ... there was one significant or high-risk matter identified and this related to inadequate control processes at Seqwater relating to asset valuation. ... Our report also highlighted the returns to government from this sector and sustainability challenges faced by the water entity in Queensland. These include profits and retained earnings for 2015-16 supported the dividends and participation returns ... There was $169 million taken out of the water entities. There was another $130 million taken as a special dividend and then another $130 million taken as a share capital return. This is chipping away at the reserves of those water entities at a time when they should have been looking to pay off debt and at a time when they should have been looking to service the debt rather than pulling more money into the state coffers to prop up their appalling budget. There is so much more I could say on this issue.

7 Sep 2017 Public Works and Utilities Committee 2809

Ms PEASE (Lytton—ALP) (12.23 pm): I rise to speak to the Public Works and Utilities Committee's report on its inquiry into Auditor-General report to parliament No. 7 of 2016-17, titled Water: 2015-16 results of financial audits. On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank the committee secretariat and the Queensland Audit Office for their assistance in our consideration of the Auditor-General's report. I also acknowledge the chair of the committee, the member for Kallangur, and my colleagues on the committee. The committee made one recommendation which was for the Legislative Assembly to note the contents of the report. Our government owned water entities operate across the state to deliver essential services to Queensland households, businesses and irrigators. The Palaszczuk government's commitment not to sell our assets, unlike those on the opposite side, means that public ownership of our water providers means that we can deploy them for the benefit of the people of Queensland. Just this year, under our Powering North Queensland Plan, we committed a $100 million equity injection into SunWater and a reinjection of dividends to fund works to ensure that not only does Burdekin Falls Dam continue to meet design standards, but that it is also able to support the installation of a 50 megawatt hydro power plant—which will involve another $100 million investment—to provide the Queensland electricity grid with a new source of dispatchable power generation. Further, SunWater owns many of the dams and bulk water assets our agriculture sector relies on. The SEQ water grid comprises 600 kilometres of pipelines which connect the region's major water treatment plants and water supply dams. This grid ensures that South-East Queensland has one of Australia’s most secure drinking water supplies because it allows us to move water across the region from where it is plentiful to where it is scarce. Seqwater uses the grid daily to move drinking water across South-East Queensland to maximise the efficiency and effectiveness of the region's water supply and has undertaken steps to improve its processes in line with the Queensland Audit Office's report. Further, the Queensland Audit Office found that all water entities are financially sustainable. Mr COSTIGAN (Whitsunday—LNP) (12.25 pm): I rise to make a brief contribution in the debate on the committee’s report on the Auditor-General’s report to parliament No. 7 of 2016-17, titled Water: 2015-16 results of financial audits. I want to go back to something that my colleague the member for Southport, our committee deputy chair, touched on. That is the nondisclosure of maintenance costs. I want to draw the House's attention to the water entities, and particularly SunWater. There are a lot of irrigators that I represent in the electorate of Whitsunday who cannot afford water. It is interesting that we cannot seem to find out what the maintenance costs were for SunWater going back quite a number of years. SunWater owns and operates a number of water infrastructure assets in North Queensland, not just , which was opened in the early 1990s. It is a tremendous community asset for industry as well. There are close to half a million megalitres at Peter Faust Dam or Lake Proserpine. There are other dams in , North Queensland and under the control of SunWater that come to mind. I speak of dams like in the Pioneer Valley, in the Upper Pioneer Valley and on top of the range at Broken River. That reminds me of my passion—and I know it is shared by a number of people in this House— to see the vision of the great Sir Peter Delamothe, the longest serving attorney-general and minister for justice in this place, to build Urannah Dam become a reality. We need to be building dams. Going back to the report it says in terms of maintenance costs, ‘Not disclosed. Not disclosed. Not disclosed.' I am sure a lot of irrigators in my electorate would love to know what the maintenance costs were for our dams—dams such as the Burdekin Falls Dam. I want to build Urannah to be a sister dam to Burdekin Falls Dam. That was always the plan. If people come up to the electorate of Burdekin—and I am sure the member for Burdekin has taken people there many times—it has a diagram of where the Burdekin Falls Dam is and points to where Urannah Dam should be. Sadly, it never happened. I am sure that people like Mark Stoneman, the former member for Burdekin, and others who were in this House many moons ago would lament the lack of dam construction, particularly in North Queensland. It is something that I am very passionate about. Whether it is Nullinga Dam on the Walsh River or others, there are a number of great projects of merit. Needless to say, I concur with what the member for Southport said in his contribution that all we see is the government owned water corporations basically propping up the Palaszczuk Labor government's budget. That is what is happening here. I am sure that if I were talking to a lot of cockies in my part of the world and said to them, ‘We could not actually find out what the maintenance costs were for each of those financial years in black and white'—

2810 Mines Legislation (Resources Safety) Amendment Bill 7 Sep 2017

Mr Rickuss: Shame. Mr COSTIGAN: It is a shame. I take the interjection from the member for Lockyer. I am sure there are farmers in Kelsey Creek, Silver Creek, Crystal Brook, Gunyarra, Lethebrook—all over the place in my electorate in the Whitsundays—who have plenty of issues to deal with as we speak and as we tick up towards six months since Cyclone Debbie. They would say, ‘Costo, how come we do not know how much they are spending on maintenance?' 019 I know that the mayor has shown some great leadership in terms of the economic plan for the Whitsundays in growing Lake Proserpine and Peter Faust Dam as a tourist attraction. I think it is an underutilised resource. That is a sentiment shared by Karen Vloedmans from the local chamber of commerce who is also a board member of Tourism Whitsundays, whose CEO, Craig Turner, was here on the precinct yesterday looking to get something more out of the Palaszczuk Labor government to drive tourism in the Whitsunday. Peter Faust Dam is a SunWater asset. Remarkably, the maintenance costs for these dams that are controlled, owned and operated by SunWater, as this report shows, are 'not disclosed', 'not disclosed', 'not disclosed'. It is amazing to see that in print. I look forward to talking to the barflies, the local cockies, about this at the Metropole Hotel, the Grand Central Hotel, the Prince of Wales Hotel— An honourable member: The Reef Gardens? Mr COSTIGAN: I will go to the Reef Gateway Hotel at Cannonvale as well. We will chew the fat and say, 'I wonder why we could not find out what the maintenance costs are for these dams that are controlled, owned and operated by SunWater.' Debate, on motion of Mr Costigan, adjourned. Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER (Ms Farmer): I would like to acknowledge another group from Durack State School in the electorate of Inala who are just leaving the gallery now.

MINES LEGISLATION (RESOURCES SAFETY) AMENDMENT BILL

Introduction Hon. AJ LYNHAM (Stafford—ALP) (Minister for State Development and Minister for Natural Resources and Mines) (12.30 pm): I present a bill for an act to amend the Coal Mining Safety and Health Act 1999, the Coal Mining Safety and Health Regulation 2017, the Mining and Quarrying Safety and Health Act 1999 and the Mining and Quarrying Safety and Health Regulation 2017 for particular purposes. I table the bill and the explanatory notes. I nominate the Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources Committee to consider the bill. Tabled paper: Mines Legislation (Resources Safety) Amendment Bill 2017. Tabled paper: Mines Legislation (Resources Safety) Amendment Bill 2017, explanatory notes. Queensland's mining safety legislation is considered some of the best in the world, but to uphold our track record we need to ensure it remains current. There have been no substantial amendments to the legislation since 2010. Every worker has the right to go to work expecting to go home safely to their family at the end of the day, and this must hold true for workers in Queensland mines. The Palaszczuk government holds true to our commitment in protecting all workers with the introduction of these amendments to safeguard our miners. The reidentification of coal workers' pneumoconiosis is a timely reminder that there is no place for complacency in worker safety and health. As I have said previously in statements to this House, any failure by any company to meet their safety and health obligation is not acceptable. No worker in any industry should ever have to feel dread that the workplace they enter each day holds risks that may make them ill or, ultimately, kill them. That is why I am here to do this today, to amend legislation to protect workers in one of the most undoubtedly risky workplaces. While Queensland's Mines Inspectorate has a range of enforcement actions that they can take to punish wrongdoing, the government is today bringing to the House a bill that strengthens and gives rigour to the enforcement powers available to the regulator. To add to the current powers to audit or prosecute an operator or shut down a mine, the chief executive of the Mines Inspectorate will have new powers to suspend or cancel statutory certificates and other competencies held by individuals if they fail to meet their obligations, and to impose civil penalties on companies to provide for swift action to be taken to address noncompliance. This is particularly important where a breach has the potential to directly and immediately impact the safety and health of persons at the mine.